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by nhod
1218 days ago
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I haven’t read the book in like 30 years, but I recall it being about both nuclear warfare AND nuclear power, inextricably linked. Which means you are right — it resulted in nuclear non-proliferation. It also resulted in an absurd, perhaps even Luddite-esque fear of nuclear power, which has set us back in countless ways. Again, the difference here is that the cat is already out of the bag and AI technology is widely distributed and integrated into everything, including the iPhone I am writing this on. Non-proliferation has already failed. |
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If you read the book's chapter headings under the "HOW TO AVERT AN AI APOCALYPSE" section, it seems to me that the author is cognizant of your iPhone.
I think the title is meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek btw.
It seems to me that the anti-nuclear movement had an overall positive impact, because lack of nuclear power, while undesirable, is a far more desirable outcome than nuclear holocaust.
And we had enough nuclear close calls (see e.g. Arkhipov or Petrov) that I'm not comfortable with the conclusion that anti-nuclear activism was unnecessary.
If humanity had been more fatalistic about nuclear proliferation, and there was never any anti-nuclear activism, nuclear weapons probably would've proliferated a lot more, there would've been more close calls, and some of them would've been catastrophes.
Of course, it would be ideal if we had both nuclear power and lack of nuclear weapons -- I'm just pushing back against "anti-nuclear = bad" oversimplifications.