For starters it could be used as a diplomatic tool with tremendous bargin power as well as a deterrent to anyone that wanted to challenge US post war dominance in all fields.
Now imagine what a machine that is better in solving any problem in all of science than all the smartest people and scientists in world. Would not this machine give the owners EXTREME advantages in all things related to government/military/intelligence?!
The USA was the dominant industrial power in the post-war world, was this obvious and massive advantage ‘extremely’ enhanced by its’ possession of nuclear weapons? As a reminder, these weapons were not decisive (or even useful) in any of the wars the USA actually fought, the USA has been repeatedly and continuously challenged by non-nuclear regional powers.
Sure, AI might provide an extreme advantage, but I’m not clear on why nuclear weapons do.
No one ever seriously considered invading the US, since 1945. The Viet Cong merely succeeded in making the Americans leave, once the cost for them of continuing the war exceeded the loss of face from losing it. Likewise for the Afghans defeating the Russians.
However, I agree, nuclear weapons are in some sense a defensive technology, not an offensive one: the consequences (geopolitical and environmental) of using one are so bad that no one since WW2 has been willing to use one as part of a war of conquest, even when nuclear powers were fighting non-nuclear powers.
One strongly suspects that the same will not be true of ASI, and that it will unlock many technologies, offensive, defensive, and perhaps also persuasive, probably including some much more subtle than nuclear weapons (which are monumentally unsubtle).
For starters it could be used as a diplomatic tool with tremendous bargin power as well as a deterrent to anyone that wanted to challenge US post war dominance in all fields.
Now imagine what a machine that is better in solving any problem in all of science than all the smartest people and scientists in world. Would not this machine give the owners EXTREME advantages in all things related to government/military/intelligence?!
States that have nuclear weapons are generally less able to successfully make compellent threats than states that do not. Citation: https://uva.theopenscholar.com/todd-sechser/publications/militarized-compellent-threats-1918%E2%80%932001
The USA was the dominant industrial power in the post-war world, was this obvious and massive advantage ‘extremely’ enhanced by its’ possession of nuclear weapons? As a reminder, these weapons were not decisive (or even useful) in any of the wars the USA actually fought, the USA has been repeatedly and continuously challenged by non-nuclear regional powers.
Sure, AI might provide an extreme advantage, but I’m not clear on why nuclear weapons do.
No one ever seriously considered invading the US, since 1945. The Viet Cong merely succeeded in making the Americans leave, once the cost for them of continuing the war exceeded the loss of face from losing it. Likewise for the Afghans defeating the Russians.
However, I agree, nuclear weapons are in some sense a defensive technology, not an offensive one: the consequences (geopolitical and environmental) of using one are so bad that no one since WW2 has been willing to use one as part of a war of conquest, even when nuclear powers were fighting non-nuclear powers.
One strongly suspects that the same will not be true of ASI, and that it will unlock many technologies, offensive, defensive, and perhaps also persuasive, probably including some much more subtle than nuclear weapons (which are monumentally unsubtle).