nuclear-news

NUCLEAR BRINKMANSHIP IN AI-ENABLED WARFARE: A DANGEROUS ALGORITHMIC GAME OF CHICKEN

War on the rocks, JAMES JOHNSON, SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

Russian nuclear saber-rattling and coercion have loomed large throughout the Russo-Ukrainian War. This dangerous rhetoric has been amplified and radicalized by AI-powered technology — “false-flag” cyber operations, fake news, and deepfakes. Throughout the war, both sides have invoked the specter of nuclear catastrophe, including false Russian claims that Ukraine was building a “dirty bomb” and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s allegation that Russia had planted explosives to cause a nuclear disaster at a Ukrainian power plant. The world is once again forced to grapple with the psychological effects of the most destructive weapons the world has ever known in a new era of nuclear brinkmanship. 

Rapid AI technological maturity raises the issue of delegating the launch authority of nuclear weapons to AI (or non–human-in-the-loop nuclear command and control systems), viewed simultaneously as dangerous and potentially stabilizing. This potential delegation is dangerous because weapons could be launched accidentally.

It is potentially stabilizing because of the lower likelihood that a nuclear strike would be contemplated if retaliation was known to benefit from autonomy, machine speed, and precision. For now, at least, there is a consensus amongst nuclear-armed powers that the devastating outcome of an accidental nuclear exchange obviates any potential benefits of automating the retaliatory launch of nuclear weapons.

Regardless, it is important to grapple with a question: How might AI-enabled warfare affect human psychology during nuclear crises?………………………………………………………………………….

In the digital age, the confluence of increased speed, truncated decision-making, dual-use technology, reduced levels of human agency, critical network vulnerabilities, and dis/misinformation injects more randomness, uncertainty, and chance into crises. This creates new pathways for unintentional (accidental, inadvertent, and catalytic) escalation to a nuclear level of conflict. New vulnerabilities and threats (perceived or otherwise) to states’ nuclear deterrence architecture in the digital era will become novel generators of accidental risk — mechanical failure, human error, false alarms, and unauthorized launches. 

These vulnerabilities will make current and future crises (Russia-Ukraine, India-Pakistan, the Taiwan Straits, the Korean Peninsula, the South China Seas, etc.) resemble a multiplayer game of chicken,…………………………………………..

Doomsday Machine: Schelling’s “Little Black Box”

How might different nuclear command, control, and communication structures affect the tradeoff between chance and control? Research suggests that chance is affected by the failure of both the positive control (features and procedures that enable nuclear forces to be released when the proper authority commands it) and negative control (features that inhibit their use otherwise) of nuclear weapons…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 from a psychological perspective, by removing human agency entirely (i.e., once the device is activated there is nothing a person can do to stop it), the choice to escalate (or deescalate) a crisis falls to machines’ preprogrammed and unalterable goals. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/nuclear-brinkmanship-in-ai-enabled-warfare-a-dangerous-algorithmic-game-of-chicken/

October 3, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war