This spring, the Future of Life Institute called for an indefinite moratorium on future development of artificial intelligence because it is evolving too quickly for human beings to understand or control.

As our nuclear weapons systems become more and more computer- and AI-dependent, the risk of accidental nuclear war will increase. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists has documented several cases going back to the 1960s, when computer errors nearly set off full-scale nuclear war.

Since 2001, matters have grown worse. Along with our having scrapped every arms control treaty except for what little is left of START, and a nuclear weapons modernization program extending into the 2040s, plans are afoot for nuclear weapons usable into the 2090s. Thom Shanker, director of George Washington University’s Project for Media and National Security, has observed that continued development of hypersonic missiles, which move too quickly for human reflexes to respond, increases the danger.

Every nuclear weapons state is complicit, as commentators Benjamin Schwartz and Christopher Layne have pointed out in the June issue of Harper’s magazine. So much for our disarmament obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the supreme law of the land clause of the U.S. Constitution.

John Raby
Scarborough