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A practitioner's perspective on how artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies could change the role of nuclear weapons in international relations. Geist argues that artificial intelligence could make a huge impact on deterrence and strategic stability even if it does not render retaliatory forces vulnerable.
List of contents
- Introduction: Artificial Intelligence and the Nuclear Dilemma
- The Emerging Strategic Environment
- From Celluloid Nightmares to Silicon Realities
- No Place to Hide?
- Recipe for a WOPR
- Fog-of-War Machines
- Strategic Stability in a Deception-Dominant World
- Conclusion: A Case for (Tempered) Optimism
- Appendix A: The Mathematics of Tracking
- Appendix B: A Bayesian Perspective on Camouflage, Concealment, and Deception
- Appendix C: A Rudimentary Model of Ontological Confrontation
- Index
About the author
Edward Geist is a Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation, where his research interests include Russia (primarily defense policy), civil defense, artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and particularly the potential impact of emerging technologies on nuclear strategy. He is the author of Armageddon Insurance (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
Summary
For decades, films such as WarGames and The Terminator have warned that the combination of artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons might be a recipe for an apocalypse. Might these prophecies of doom become reality in coming decades?
Using insights from computer science, Deterrence under Uncertainty: Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Warfare evaluates how AI could make nuclear war winnable, and whether that possibility is likely. Detailed chapters explain how the landscape of nuclear deterrence is changing and debunks the myths of machine intelligence and nuclear weapons. This book gives a practitioner's perspective on how artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies could change the role of nuclear weapons in international relations.
Additional text
Geist, steeped in the history and craft of deception as a specialist in defence policy and security, thinks even the smartest agent can be made self destructively stupid by subterfuge. Fakery is so cheap and effective that Geist envisions a future where AI-driven "fog-of-war machines" create a world that favours neither side, but backs "those who seek to confound".
