Is Congress Really More Concerned About AI Launching a Nuclear Attack than an 80-Year-Old Demented President?
A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators have introduced the "Block Nuclear Launch by Autonomous AI Act," which would “prohibit the use of Federal funds to launch a nuclear weapon using an autonomous weapons system that is not subject to meaningful human control.” This is so absurd, that I don't know if members of Congress are actually this stupid, or if this is a psyop to instill fear into the public over AI, similar to how fear was used to convince most of the public that there was a deadly coronavirus that threatened humanity back in 2020. Let's start with the fact that there is no such thing as "autonomous AI." It is fake, it does not exist. Some believe it could happen in the future, but even that is based on either ignorance or intentional fear mongering to get people to fear AI. But no matter what your beliefs are about AI's capability in the future, nobody in the Tech industry today working with AI would say that AI is now "fully autonomous." We haven't even been able to develop a "fully autonomous" car yet after almost 20 years, let alone something that could launch a nuclear attack. So this is a meaningless bill. It would be the same thing as filing a bill to "Block Autonomous Handguns from Killing People." But guns are not autonomous. They need people to wield them, and the same is true of AI or any computer code for that matter. The real threat today to launch a nuclear attack, lies with the President of the United States, who "has the unilateral authority to choose to use nuclear weapons." However, there are ways that "Congress can limit when and how the president uses nuclear weapons." Wouldn't that be a better use of Congress right now, given the ongoing real threats in Ukraine and Taiwan that could escalate into nuclear confrontations, and the fact that the U.S. has an 80-year-old president who continually shows signs of deteriorating mental capabilities?