Making nervous jokes about who is holding the “nuclear football” is an American pastime. The term refers to a highly sensitive briefcase containing the instructions for launching nuclear warheads, and it’s restricted to the President of the United States to use when away from a fixed command center.
If you hate Donald Trump, you’re worried about him carrying the football. If you think Joe Biden is senile, you don’t want it in his hands.
But would you let Mr. Roboto hold it? Or, more accurately, would you want to have nuclear launch decisions made by an AI-enabled computer? To most this is the stuff of nightmares and dystopian sci-fi stories. According to Air Force General Anthony Cotton, you can rest easy, because it’s going to stay that way. But not necessarily for America’s enemies.
On August 13, Tuesday said the U.S. bars any kind of artificial intelligence system from being used to make potentially civilization-ending decisions to launch nukes. But our adversaries Russia and China may not hold themselves to the same rules, he warned. And because of their hostility, Cotton thinks America should consider ramping up its own nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against them.
Speaking to reporters, Cotton said there may indeed be a place for AI, but it won’t be in a decision-making capacity. Instead, the rapidly growing technology may be able to help human decision-makers pore over and analyze huge amounts of spy and other data before making a fateful choice.
Referencing the famous 1983 thriller War Games, Cotton said the U.S. has not designs on implementing a real version of the disturbing automatic nuke-launcher featured in the movie. But AI’s ability to sort through volumes of data well beyond what humans could do would be a valuable addition to the U.S. military’s arsenal. But it would remain the purview of civilian and military leaders to make the final choice.
What he worries about is where China and Russia are on the question. “I would hope that they understand that as well,” Cotton said, referring to adversarial nations.”
NATO policy observers are taking the question seriously, asking whether AI should be outlawed in nuclear weapons systems.
