[goatlover]

I'd prefer companies not help the military develop the most powerful weapons possible given we're in the age of WMDs, have already had two devastating world wars and a nuclear arms race that puts humanity under permanent risk.

[lambdaphagy]

There is an extremely straightforward argument that WMDs are precisely what prevented the outbreak of direct warfare between major powers in the latter 20th. (Note that WWI by itself wasn’t sufficient to prevent WWII!)

You can take issue with that argument if you want but it’s unconvincing not to address it.

[horacemorace]

There’s also an extremely straightforward argument that if the current crop of authoritarian dictatorial players in power now had been then that the outcome of the latter 20th would have been much different.

[idiotsecant]

That's a little bit like saying the bullet in the gun prevented someone getting shot while playing Russian Roulette. We pulled back that hammer several times, and it's purely happenstance that it didn't go off. MAD has that acronym for a reason.

[estearum]

Great, now go ahead and prove that AI also reaches strategic equilibrium. This was pretty much self-evident with nuclear weapons so should probably be self-evident for AI too, if it were true.

[michelsedgh]

So would you have preferred the Nazis to develop the most powerful weapons and they win the world war? (which they were trying to do?)

[anonym29]

If Anthropic does give the DoD what they want, does that magically stop China, Iran, Russia, etc from advancing in AI arms development?

If Anthropic doesn't give the DoD what they want, does that mean that China, Iran, Russia, etc magically leapfrog not only Anthropic, but the entire US defense industry, and take over the planet?

[ImPostingOnHN]

No, that's precisely why I'm opposed to it happening here, and why I prefer the idea of Anthropic limiting their contribution to creating such a scenario.

[estearum]

With the benefit of hindsight we know the Nazis in fact were not racing to develop The Bomb. Reasonable assumption to have oriented around at the time though.

[mothballed]

Did WMDs have a meaningful effect on stopping the Nazis? I thought the bomb wasn't dropped until after they surrendered.