AI and the Bomb: Nuclear Command & Control in the Age of the Algorithm

In 2016, DeepMind’s AI-powered AlphaGo system defeated professional Go grandmaster Lee Sedol. In one game, the AI player reportedly surprised Sedol by making a strategic move that “no human ever would.” Three years later, DeepMind’s AlphaStar system defeated one of the world’s leading e-sports gamers at StarCraft II—a complex multiplayer game that takes place in real time and in a vast action space with multiple interacting entities—devising and executing complex strategies in ways that, similarly, a human player would unlikely do. These successes raise important questions: How and why might militaries use AI not just to optimize individual and seemingly mundane tasks, but to enhance strategic decision making—especially in the context of nuclear command and control? And would these enhancements potentially be destabilizing for the nuclear enterprise?..