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AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations

newscientist.com

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Re: AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

,,AI has limited real world experience or grasp of the consequences.'' People in the world have limited experience about war. We're living in a world where doing terrible things with 1000 people with photo/video documentation can get more attention then a million people dying, and the response is still not do whatever it takes so that people don't die. And now we are at a situation where nuclear escalation has alread…

> People in the world have limited experience about war. Right, but realistically, how many people today would carelessly chose "Nuke em" today? I know history knowledge isn't at its all time high directly, and most of the population is, well, not great at reasoning, but I still think most people would try to do their best to avoid firing nukes.

> but I still think most people would try to do their best to avoid firing nukes.

"most people" are not in the positions that matter. A significant portion of the people who are in a position to advocate for such a decision believe that:

- killing people sends em to heaven/hell where they were going anyway; and that this is also true for any of your own citizens that get killed by a counterstrike.

- the end of the world will be the best day ever

Re: AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

,,AI has limited real world experience or grasp of the consequences.'' People in the world have limited experience about war. We're living in a world where doing terrible things with 1000 people with photo/video documentation can get more attention then a million people dying, and the response is still not do whatever it takes so that people don't die. And now we are at a situation where nuclear escalation has alread…

> People in the world have limited experience about war. Right, but realistically, how many people today would carelessly chose "Nuke em" today? I know history knowledge isn't at its all time high directly, and most of the population is, well, not great at reasoning, but I still think most people would try to do their best to avoid firing nukes.

I think it's a higher number than you would expect. Which, in the context of nukes, is too high a number as long as it's greater than 1.

Re: AIs can't stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations

#37

daily reminder that john von neumann, smarter than me, you or anyone else here, recommended a first strike on the soviet union as the obvious strategy maybe intelligence isn't the only thing

He was not alone in that. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preventive_war#Case_for_preven....

One crucial difference is that they recommended that as the lesser of two evils, arguing it would be better to make the first strike before the USSR had a huge arsenal to strike back than to wait for an inevitable more devastating war.

So far, it seems they were wrong in thinking a nuclear war with the USSR was inevitable.

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