RAND report floated detonating 150 nukes to stop a rogue AI, then ruled it out
J_MaestreVidal · x · 2026-09-04
Among the options RAND Corporation examined for mitigating AI risk was detonating 150 nuclear weapons in the atmosphere to stop a rogue AI. The analysis explains why it fails: it would cripple your own power grid and communications needed to fight the AI, and other nuclear powers might interpret it as an attack and retaliate. RAND's conclusion: no reliable technical solutions exist for stopping a rogue AI, so maybe don't build one.
More from AGI Musings
- "You can't pause an arms race": a one-liner on why AI development won't slow down — generativist · 2026-09-04
- DeepMind researcher: CoT interpretability is too fragile to anchor long-term AI safety — cephaloform · 2026-09-04
- Researcher disputes OpenAI's claim Astra is its most aligned model: metrics may just hide reward hacking — connoraxiotes · 2026-09-04
- Researcher's decade-long lesson: external feedback derailed my research bets — rajammanabrolu · 2026-09-04
- RL-driven progress may hit a wall on out-of-distribution generalization, researcher argues — chris_j_paxton · 2026-09-04
- White House weighs FDA-style pre-approval for AI models; scholars argue delay-style regulation would cost lives — neil_chilson · 2026-09-04