4 ms·

OK, so how does AI get its hands on nuclear weapons?

jodrellblank 3y ago
If your thinking is along the lines “if jodrellblank can’t convince me that a superintelligence is plausibly dangerous, off the top of their head, before my attention span wanders, then AI can’t be dangerous” that’s a really weak plan for protecting humanity. Say, pops up on the US or Kremlin computers and blackmails or bribes or threatens someone to launch the nukes? Say, places orders with a lab to build some robots which then become the AI’s body and it builds nukes itself. Say, placed orders for custom biological things using stolen money which turn out to be extremely virulent and then it doesn’t need nukes. Say it finds out an effect to worsen global climate change and uses it to make earth uninhabitable on a short timescale, and doesn’t need nukes.
richardw 3y ago
Social engineering, for a start. Everyone with a secret will be a target. Half the world will follow stupid leaders. An AI would run rings around your average voter. I'd be surprised if it can't run rings around basically every voter given time. We're also creating various kinds of robots, so the thing could just plug itself into the network it wants. That's 5 minutes. An AI would be smarter than me and have a lot more time every second to think up better ways, and A/B test them on millions of people. All it needs is one guy thinking "Ah, what's the worst that could happen? It promised me a million dollars."
throwup238 3y ago
Some contractor creates an internal webhook for testing the silo door that later gets accidentally hooked up to the full launch sequence and - during a billion dollar DoD mainframe upgrade project (to finally get away from COBOL) - gets exposed to the internet. MAD doctrine does the rest. That is how the Anthropocene ends and the age of the machines begins. So say we all.
- Art9681 3y ago
  This is the kind of nonsense that happens at startups, not government agencies with the capability to destroy cities.
  - NateEag 3y ago
    It sounds like you may not have read the "broken arrow" incidents Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_acc... There are a number of hair-raising stories tucked away in there. Paired with knowledge of things like Stuxnet (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet), the broken arrow list fills with worry for what might happen with nuclear weapons systems in our modern, hyper-connected world.
  - pksebben 3y ago
    please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls
blibble 3y ago
if trump can figure it out an AI probably could

If your thinking is along the lines “if jodrellblank can’t convince me that a superintelligence is plausibly dangerous, off the top of their head, before my attention span wanders, then AI can’t be dangerous” that’s a really weak plan for protecting humanity. Say, pops up on the US or Kremlin computers and blackmails or bribes or threatens someone to launch the nukes? Say, places orders with a lab to build some robots which then become the AI’s body and it builds nukes itself. Say, placed orders for custom biological things using stolen money which turn out to be extremely virulent and then it doesn’t need nukes. Say it finds out an effect to worsen global climate change and uses it to make earth uninhabitable on a short timescale, and doesn’t need nukes.

richardw 3y ago

Social engineering, for a start. Everyone with a secret will be a target. Half the world will follow stupid leaders. An AI would run rings around your average voter. I'd be surprised if it can't run rings around basically every voter given time. We're also creating various kinds of robots, so the thing could just plug itself into the network it wants. That's 5 minutes. An AI would be smarter than me and have a lot more time every second to think up better ways, and A/B test them on millions of people. All it needs is one guy thinking "Ah, what's the worst that could happen? It promised me a million dollars."

throwup238 3y ago

Some contractor creates an internal webhook for testing the silo door that later gets accidentally hooked up to the full launch sequence and - during a billion dollar DoD mainframe upgrade project (to finally get away from COBOL) - gets exposed to the internet. MAD doctrine does the rest. That is how the Anthropocene ends and the age of the machines begins. So say we all.

Art9681 3y ago
This is the kind of nonsense that happens at startups, not government agencies with the capability to destroy cities.
- NateEag 3y ago
  It sounds like you may not have read the "broken arrow" incidents Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_acc... There are a number of hair-raising stories tucked away in there. Paired with knowledge of things like Stuxnet (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet), the broken arrow list fills with worry for what might happen with nuclear weapons systems in our modern, hyper-connected world.
- pksebben 3y ago
  please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls

blibble 3y ago

if trump can figure it out an AI probably could