In addition to being an existential risk in their own right, the continued existence of large numbers of launch-ready nuclear weapons also bears on risks from transformative AI. Existing launch-ready nuclear weapon systems could be manipulated or leveraged by a powerful AI to further its goals if it decided to behave adversarially towards humans. We think understanding the dynamics of and policy responses to this topic are under-researched and would benefit from further investigation.
Strongly agree with this. There are only a handful of weapons that threaten catastrophe to Earth’s population of 8 billion. When we think about how AI could cause an existential catastrophe, our first impulse shouldn’t be to think of “new weapons we can’t even imagine yet”. We should secure ourselves against the known credible existential threats first.
Nuclear arms reduction to lower AI risk
Artificial Intelligence and Great Power Relations
In addition to being an existential risk in their own right, the continued existence of large numbers of launch-ready nuclear weapons also bears on risks from transformative AI. Existing launch-ready nuclear weapon systems could be manipulated or leveraged by a powerful AI to further its goals if it decided to behave adversarially towards humans. We think understanding the dynamics of and policy responses to this topic are under-researched and would benefit from further investigation.
Strongly agree with this. There are only a handful of weapons that threaten catastrophe to Earth’s population of 8 billion. When we think about how AI could cause an existential catastrophe, our first impulse shouldn’t be to think of “new weapons we can’t even imagine yet”. We should secure ourselves against the known credible existential threats first.
Wrote up some thoughts about doing this as a career path here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7ZZpWPq5iqkLMmt25/aidan-o-gara-s-shortform?commentId=rnM3FAHtBpymBsdT7
On the flip side, you could make part of your ‘pivotal act’ be the neutralisation of all nuclear weapons.