Wait, what? Are you saying that if a scientist refuses to contribute to AI development that will be used to kill human beings then he plays into the hands of nation's adversaries ?
Unless you manage to stop the advanced weaponry from being developed at all, which is admirable, but incredibly difficult, and with huge consequences for being wrong.
Even if you take WW2 and WW1 into account, the biggest winner of those conflicts (the US) spent the least on armaments prior, and had probably the least aggressive foreign policy of any major power.
Perhaps, because the US is an exception.
https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/chinas-defense-s...
No, for me it's counterintuitive. Personally I'd never contribute to any military technology.
These weapons and technologies are developed by nation-states only, and a collaboration, however unlikely might seem to you, is the only way to stop us from pointing guns at each others heads with AI controlling the trigger.
The technologies will be developed, and have to be developed for the sake of balancing powers, but they need to be put in a drawer and locked there after being designed, not widely deployed and flaunted at each other.
How do you convince North Korea to eliminate theirs? If you eliminate your nuclear weapons, you now open yourself to being threatened with nuclear destruction by North Korea with no mutual assured destructive response to deter them.
The genie is out of the bottle and you cannot stop it. But you can deter its use against you.
For one, NK hardly has the capacity to "destroy" the US - they barely have working ICBMs.
Secondly, whatever the amount of nuclear warheads necessary to deter this is, it's surely less than 3,750[0].
We cannot know whether it is impossible to stop the "genie," as no serious attempt has been made. The U.S. and Russia together hold 90% of the world's nuclear weapons. The Cold War being over, are you seriously proposing they need this entire arsenal in order to defend themselves against the very serious and dangerous threats of checks notes Pakistan and North Korea?
If so, then how come the US still reserves the right to a pre-emptive nuclear strike? How come it has not adopted a "no first use" policy like China and India?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_...
>The Cold War being over, are you seriously proposing they need this entire arsenal in order to defend themselves against the very serious and dangerous threats of checks notes Pakistan and North Korea?
Why did you choose to ignore the Chinese who are currently rapidly expanding their nuclear arsenal. The world is on the precipice of a new cold war between Beijing and Washington.
>If so, then how come the US still reserves the right to a pre-emptive nuclear strike? How come it has not adopted a "no first use" policy like China and India?
A "no first use" policy is worth less than the paper it would be printed on. No one serious actually believes in them.
If North Korea is a bad example for a thought experiment, then you should pick a better example.
As for China - surely the U.S. and China could come to a mutual agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals?
It might be worth noting here that China's "rapidly expanding" arsenal clocks in at 350 warheads, while the U.S. has only a meagre 6,185 (barely 17x the size). If America is concerned about large nuclear arsenals, surely they could take the first step or three?
> A "no first use" policy is worth less than the paper it would be printed on.
In that case, its decision seems even stranger.