I weakly agree with the claim that the offense/defense balance is not a useful way to project the implications of AI. However, I disagree strongly with how the post got there. Considering only cyber-security and per-capita death rate is not a sufficient basis for the claim that there is “little historical evidence for large changes in the O/D balance, even in response to technological revolutions.”
There are good examples where technology greatly shifts the nature of war: castles favouring defense, before becoming negated by cannons. The machine gun and barbed wire are typically held as technologies that gave a significant defensive advantage in WWI, and were crucial in the development of trench warfare. Tanks similarly for offense. And so on. One would need to consider and reject these examples (which is certainly plausible, but needs to be actually engaged with).
I don’t think the per capita mortality from war is a very useful measure of the O/D balance—it will be driven by many other confounding factors, and as you point out technologies alter the decision calculus of both sides of a conflict. Part of the problem with the O/D theory is a lack of well-defined measures (e.g.). From my impression of the literature, it also appears to fail in empirical predictions (e.g.). Cyber-security is a good example of an arena where O/D theory applies poorly (e.g.). I think this section does well to support the claim that “shifting O/D balance doesn’t dominantly affect the frequency and intensity of war”, but it doesn’t show that “technologies don’t shift the O/D balance”.
So I disagree with the post by thinking that technologies can systematically favour aggressive vs. defensive actions and actors, but agree that this pattern doesn’t necessarily result in strong implications about the rate or intensity of large-scale conflict. However, I think there can still be implications for non-state violence, especially when the technology enables an ‘asymmetric weapon’ - a cheap way to inflict very costly damages or demand costly defence. The prototypical example here being terrorist use of improvised explosives. This is an important channel for worries about future bioweapons.
Thank you so much for articulating a bunch of the points I was going to make!
I would probably just further drive home the last paragraph: it’s really obvious that the “number of people a lone maniac can kill in given time” (in America) has skyrocketed with the development of high fire-rate weapons (let alone knowledge of explosives). It could be true that the O/D balance for states doesn’t change (I disagree) while the O/D balance for individuals skyrockets.
I weakly agree with the claim that the offense/defense balance is not a useful way to project the implications of AI. However, I disagree strongly with how the post got there. Considering only cyber-security and per-capita death rate is not a sufficient basis for the claim that there is “little historical evidence for large changes in the O/D balance, even in response to technological revolutions.”
There are good examples where technology greatly shifts the nature of war: castles favouring defense, before becoming negated by cannons. The machine gun and barbed wire are typically held as technologies that gave a significant defensive advantage in WWI, and were crucial in the development of trench warfare. Tanks similarly for offense. And so on. One would need to consider and reject these examples (which is certainly plausible, but needs to be actually engaged with).
I don’t think the per capita mortality from war is a very useful measure of the O/D balance—it will be driven by many other confounding factors, and as you point out technologies alter the decision calculus of both sides of a conflict. Part of the problem with the O/D theory is a lack of well-defined measures (e.g.). From my impression of the literature, it also appears to fail in empirical predictions (e.g.). Cyber-security is a good example of an arena where O/D theory applies poorly (e.g.). I think this section does well to support the claim that “shifting O/D balance doesn’t dominantly affect the frequency and intensity of war”, but it doesn’t show that “technologies don’t shift the O/D balance”.
So I disagree with the post by thinking that technologies can systematically favour aggressive vs. defensive actions and actors, but agree that this pattern doesn’t necessarily result in strong implications about the rate or intensity of large-scale conflict. However, I think there can still be implications for non-state violence, especially when the technology enables an ‘asymmetric weapon’ - a cheap way to inflict very costly damages or demand costly defence. The prototypical example here being terrorist use of improvised explosives. This is an important channel for worries about future bioweapons.
Thank you so much for articulating a bunch of the points I was going to make!
I would probably just further drive home the last paragraph: it’s really obvious that the “number of people a lone maniac can kill in given time” (in America) has skyrocketed with the development of high fire-rate weapons (let alone knowledge of explosives). It could be true that the O/D balance for states doesn’t change (I disagree) while the O/D balance for individuals skyrockets.