AI and US National Security

In the book: Annihilation from Within, Fred Charles Iklé discusses one threat, among many, which is the clandestine international competition in artificial intelligence. If U.S. intelligence found that a scientifically advanced nation had achieved a breakthrough bridging computer-based artificial intelligence with brain science, US would face a superhuman intellect that “would revolutionize all prior considerations about national security.”

Iklé envisions the construction and use of an integrated brain-computer system. Iklé notes that “such an intelligence system would integrate human minds with the enormous memories and calculating and organizing capacities of advanced computers . . . lead[ing] to a truly revolutionary upheaval for the human race.”

In such a race, Iklé believes America would enter with moral constraints not hampering its adversary. In Iklé’s view, it is unlikely to thwart such an adversary with the kind of “legally binding” treaties that have failed in the past.