Note that Bertrand’s advocacy was because at that moment in time the USA had a monopoly on fission weapons and theoretically could have built enough of them to destroy the USSRs capacity to build their own.
This is one way AGI races end—one side gets one, mass produces anti ballistic missiles and various forms of air defense weapon and bunkers (to prepare to survive the inevitable nuclear war) then bombs to rubble every chip fab on earth but their own.
Had the USA decided in 1943 that nukes were too destructive to bring into the world, they would not have enjoyed this luxury of power. Instead presumably the USSR would have used their stolen information and eventually built their own fission devices, and now the USA would be the one with a gun pointed at Washington DC.
Note that Bertrand’s advocacy was because at that moment in time the USA had a monopoly on fission weapons and theoretically could have built enough of them to destroy the USSRs capacity to build their own.
This is one way AGI races end—one side gets one, mass produces anti ballistic missiles and various forms of air defense weapon and bunkers (to prepare to survive the inevitable nuclear war) then bombs to rubble every chip fab on earth but their own.
Had the USA decided in 1943 that nukes were too destructive to bring into the world, they would not have enjoyed this luxury of power. Instead presumably the USSR would have used their stolen information and eventually built their own fission devices, and now the USA would be the one with a gun pointed at Washington DC.