Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by odyssey7 1035 days ago
There was a (rumored) integer overflow bug in the game Civilization which would cause an AI that was configured for pacifism to start launching nukes.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nuclear-gandhi

1 comments

Gandhi. He was set for maximum pacifism. But the range was 0-255, and rolled around.
This is not a true story. There was always a bit of a meme about Gandhi because "haha Gandhi and nukes" but he was no more likely to use them than any other AI. The "integer overflow bug" story was invented by apparently a random person decades later who stuck it in a wiki, and then via citogenesis it spread everywhere.
As the link odyssey7 cited (and which you obviously didn't read) states, there is no proof that any such bug ever existed, with Sid Meier himself denying it. odyssey7 was correct to described it as "rumored".