| ▲ | jerf 4 hours ago |
| Some of the most reassuring and scariest things you can read are about the incidents that have already occurred where computers said "launch all the nukes" and the humans refused. On the one hand, good news! We have prior art that says humans don't just launch all the nukes just because the computers or procedures say to. Bad news, it's been skin-of-our-teeth multiple times already. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/cold-war/refused-to-launch-... - This isn't even the incident I was searching for to reference! This one was news to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov#Incident - This is the one I was looking for. |
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| ▲ | blibble 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > We have prior art that says humans don't just launch all the nukes just because the computers or procedures say to. previously no-one had spent trillions of dollars trying to convince the world that those computers were "Artificial Intelligence" |
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| ▲ | nine_k 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They had to do with "state-of-the-art radars", "military-grade communication systems", etc. | |
| ▲ | escapecharacter 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Or "alignment" which means "let's ensure the AIs recommend launching nukes only when it makes sense to, based on our [assumed objective] values" | |
| ▲ | Barrin92 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | of course they did. That's the literal topic of War Games (1983). You should actually be somewhat reassured that we aren't living during the era of Dr. Strangelove where you had characters in the military industrial complex who were significantly more insane when it came to the beliefs of what computer systems and nukes can do. There was a time when people wanted to dig tunnels with nukes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare | | |
| ▲ | roenxi 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > There was a time when people wanted to dig tunnels with nukes The article seems to be about mining rather than tunnelling. And the issue with the idea being? We also dig using explosives, there isn't an in-principle problem. Reading the wiki article it looks like the yields were excessive, but at the end of the day mining involves the use of things that go boom. It is easy to imagine small nukes having a place in the industry. | |
| ▲ | idiotsecant 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Digging tunnels with nukes sounds better to me than shooting them at each other! |
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| ▲ | paxys 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > We have prior art that says humans don't just launch all the nukes just because the computers or procedures say to. This relies on processes being in place to ensure that a human will always make the final decision. What about when that gets taken away? |
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| ▲ | trehalose 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I find it hard to imagine that the people in a position to kill those processes could ever be that zealously in love with AI, but recent events have given me a tiny bit of doubt. |
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| ▲ | ge96 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I briefly got into a "rabbithole" of watching videos about trying to intercept BMs and glide hypersonic weapons, pretty interesting, decoys deployed in space... the outcome seemed to be not good, can't guarantee 100% interception |
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| ▲ | compass_copium 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | A missile will always be cheaper than a missile interceptor, and the interceptor will never be a 1:1 kill. Building a missile interceptor system ia a good way to get your strategic opponent to build a bigger stockpile. | | |
| ▲ | LorenPechtel an hour ago | parent [-] | | Disagree on always being cheaper. Military planners are obsessed with the best weapons, such interceptors are pricey. But look at Israel: Iron Dome. ~$50k/shot. They deliberately built a dumb SAM because it was designed to go against dumb opponents--objects falling freely on a ballistic trajectory. While they are usually facing light stuff that isn't even worth that they have successfully engaged longer range stuff that costs many times what the interceptor costs. Overall, though, the offense always wins this one because interceptors can only protect a limited area whereas missiles can go anywhere. | | |
| ▲ | compass_copium an hour ago | parent [-] | | Iron Dome is a great example of my point. It is a $50k interceptor designed to take out a propane tank with a rocket strapped to it, not a real ballistic missile like a Scud. Patriot missiles ($7MM) take out Scuds ($3MM). |
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| ▲ | badRNG 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| We shouldn't be the least bit surprised no human has complied so far. If they had, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. For all we know, there may be a vast multiverse of universes some with humans and we would only find ourselves having this conversation in one of the universes where no human pressed the button. |
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| ▲ | thfuran 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | By that logic, it may actually be pretty common for rabbits to swallow the sun. We just haven't seen it happen because we're in the wrong universe and would've died it it happened in ours. | |
| ▲ | sir0010010 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Anthropic Principle |
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| ▲ | flr03 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I hope humans in charge are as wise now as they were then. |
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