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In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

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Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#21

Post by JoeAltmaier »

douche wrote: post #20
TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this will ever change now. As technology goes forward, we're creating a world in which an individual can gain more and more destructive power, and in which when something goes terribly wrong, it can wider and wider consequences. We're at global level now, and fast approaching extinction-level. Two areas to highlight the point: - High-energy anything. There's a saying that any propulsion system that could…

If we ever achieve some form of reasonable, in-system spaceflight, then we are really going to have to start worrying about every crazy person with a spaceship bumping a smallish space rock into an impact orbit with earth. Or even just unfortunate accidents. But it wouldn't take much of an asteroid to burn down through the atmosphere and create a Tunguska-level impact. The most recent Expanse novel is an interesting…

It would take incredible energy over a long burn time to accomplish that.

Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#22

Post by chunky1994 »

icebraining wrote: post #18
pdkl95 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do we need a person to transcribe a machine message Because it prevented World War III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar... > he's going to send them anyway The good judgment of Stanislav Petrov shows that this isn't guaranteed. Automation that can harm people always requires a human fail-safe. Leaving judgment to a mechanism only implies either hubris that assumes all possible situa…

Sounds like confirmation bias. If an algorithm had made the right call against human judgment, would you be arguing for the opposite position?

It's more that we don't have strong enough decision making computers/algorithms to rival a human's capabilities in cases where the action (in this case not having lots of weapons but apparently only one being launched) isn't exactly a binary decision. A computer could theoretically have advocated that this wasn't an actual nuclear launch, but the only way that would happen is if a programmer had been clever enough to have written an algorithm to account for the situation when writing the transcription machine.

A human can currently do a much better job when the outcome is that millions of people die , especially if its a sensor error. That's not to say that humans are infallible, just that we do not currently have the level of AI required to replace one.

Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#23

Post by glorp »

icebraining wrote: post #18
pdkl95 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do we need a person to transcribe a machine message Because it prevented World War III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar... > he's going to send them anyway The good judgment of Stanislav Petrov shows that this isn't guaranteed. Automation that can harm people always requires a human fail-safe. Leaving judgment to a mechanism only implies either hubris that assumes all possible situa…

Sounds like confirmation bias. If an algorithm had made the right call against human judgment, would you be arguing for the opposite position?

In Dr. Strangelove, the absurd behavior of buffoonish humans contributes to the doomsday scenario. Idiots blindly following the orders of a madman on one side, and psychos constructing a completely automated self-destruct mechanism attached to a retaliatory weapon on the other side.

Both are bad, but people playing the game at all, were the real problem.

Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#24

Post by kalleboo »

tajen wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering what PR is behind articles of journalists visiting nuclear silos. This one looks like a first-person account, so was a military allowed to write about his job? How comes he writes so well? He could have been a journalist... Also, was the piece read, checked and corrected by a commandant before being published? If so, which parts were left out? Why did they leave the part where he admits not dress…

It sounds like someone wants funding to replace a bunch of "outdated, prone-to-error" tech with something new and expensive.

Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#26

Post by mcguire »

tajen wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering what PR is behind articles of journalists visiting nuclear silos. This one looks like a first-person account, so was a military allowed to write about his job? How comes he writes so well? He could have been a journalist... Also, was the piece read, checked and corrected by a commandant before being published? If so, which parts were left out? Why did they leave the part where he admits not dress…

From the bottom of the article:

"John Noonan is a policy advisor and defense writer. He served as a Captain in the United States Air Force, assigned to the 321st Missile Squadron in Cheyenne, Wyoming."

Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#27

Post by pythia__ »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8
Synaesthesia wrote: post #5

Crazy that the spectre of instant destruction still haunts us today.

I wonder if this will ever change now. As technology goes forward, we're creating a world in which an individual can gain more and more destructive power, and in which when something goes terribly wrong, it can wider and wider consequences. We're at global level now, and fast approaching extinction-level. Two areas to highlight the point: - High-energy anything. There's a saying that any propulsion system that could…

On the other hand, if a lot of countries had apocalyptic weapons (a phase that naturally precedes such weapons becoming available to individuals), it could all but eliminate war. Countries behave surprisingly like rational agents in international relations. This period would be the window of opportunity for one lucky winner to bootstrap an AGI.

Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#28

Post by madengr »

tajen wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering what PR is behind articles of journalists visiting nuclear silos. This one looks like a first-person account, so was a military allowed to write about his job? How comes he writes so well? He could have been a journalist... Also, was the piece read, checked and corrected by a commandant before being published? If so, which parts were left out? Why did they leave the part where he admits not dress…

"he's going to send them anyway"

Maybe not, which is why they have the daily intelligence briefs.

Re: In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie (2011)

#30

Post by avs733 »

madengr wrote: post #29

Why does the author state MAD is obselete?

there is an argument by some that the rise of suicide bombing as a weapon of war meaningfully changed the parameters of mutually assured destruction, because there are people entirely comfortable/supportive of their own destruction for a cause.
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