Will AI-augmented technology increase the risk of military escalation between great military rivals? This chapter argues that diverging Sino-American views on the escalation risks of co-mingling nuclear and non-nuclear military technologies – long-range precision strike missiles, missile defenses, cyber offense, hypersonic weapons, autonomous weapon systems, and nuclear command, control, and communications – will exacerbate the destabilizing effects caused by the fusion of these capabilities with AI applications.

How might AI-infused cyber capabilities be used do subvert, or otherwise compromise, the reliability, control, and use of states’ nuclear forces? This chapter argues that AI-enhanced cyber capabilities could increase the risk of inadvertent escalation caused by the co-mingling of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and the speed of warfare. It examines the potential implications of cyber (offensive and defensive) capabilities augmented with AI applications for nuclear security. The chapter finds that future iterations of AI-enhanced cyber counterforce capabilities will complicate the cyber-defense challenge, thereby increasing the escalatory effects of offensive cyber capabilities.

How can we best conceptualize AI and military technological change in the context of nuclear weapons? The concept of ‘strategic stability’ emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century, and despite being theoretically and politically contested to this day, it has proven a useful intellectual tool for analyzing the potential of new, powerful, and technically advanced weapons undermine stability. The concept entered into the nuclear lexicon during the early 1950s and is inextricably connected to the strategic thinking and debates that surrounded the ‘nuclear revolution,’ including: how a nuclear war might be fought, the requirements and veracity of credible deterrence, the potential risks posed by pre-emptive and accidental strikes, and how to ensure the survivability of retaliatory forces. In short, strategic stability provides an over-arching theoretical framework for understanding the nature of security in the nuclear age.

Why does the US view China’s progress in dual-use AI as a threat to its first-mover advantage? How might the US respond to this perceived threat? This chapter considers the intensity of US–China strategic competition playing out within a broad range of AI and AI-enabling technologies (e.g. machine-learning, 5G networks, autonomy and robotics, quantum computing, and big-data analytics). It describes how great power competition is mounting within several dual-use high-tech fields, why these innovations are considered by Washington to be strategically vital, and how (and to what end) the US responds to the perceived challenge posed by China to its technological hegemony. The chapter uses the International Relations concept of 'polarity' (the nature and distribution of power within the international system) as a lens to view the shifting great power dynamics in AI-related strategic technology.

The hype surrounding AI had made it easy to overstate the opportunities and challenges posed by its development and deployment in the military sphere. Many of the risks posed by AI in the nuclear domain today are not necessarily new. That is, recent advances in AI (especially machine-learning techniques) exacerbate existing risks to escalation and stability rather than generating entirely new ones. While AI could enable significant improvements in many military domains (including nuclear weapons), future developments in military AI will likely be far more prosaic than implied in popular culture. The book’s core thesis is deciphering, within a broad range of technologies, proven capabilities and applications, from mere speculation. After an initial surge in the literature related to AI and national security, broadly defined, more specificity in the debate is now required.

What is AI, and how does it differ from other technologies? What are the possible development paths and linkages between these technologies and specific capabilities, both existing and under development? This chapter defines and categorizes the current state of AI and AI-enabling technologies. It describes several possible implications of specific AI systems and applications in the military arena, in particular those that might impinge on the nuclear domain. The chapter highlights the centrality of machine-learning, and autonomous systems (or ‘machine autonomy’), to understanding AI in the military sphere and the potential uses of these nuanced approaches in conjunction with AI at both an operational and strategic level of warfare.

How might AI-augmented intelligence gathering and analysis systems impact the survivability and credibility of states’ nuclear-deterrent forces? Technologies such as AI, machine learning, and big-data analytics associated with the ‘computer revolution’ have the potential to significantly improve the ability of militaries to locate, track, target, and destroy a rival's nuclear-deterrent forces without the need to deploy nuclear weapons. Thus, AI applications that make survivable strategic forces such as submarines and mobile missiles more vulnerable (or perceived as such), could have destabilizing escalatory effects, even if the state in possession of these counterforce capabilities did not intend to use them. This chapter argues that AI will likely soon overcome some of the remaining technical barriers to reliably and accurately locate and track submarines. Thereby, eroding the deterrence utility of stealthy Ballistic Missile Submarines and making use-them-or-lose-them situations more likely to occur.

Will the use of AI in strategic decision-making be stabilizing or destabilizing? How might synthesizing AI with nuclear command, control, and communications early warning systems impact the nuclear enterprise? The compression of detection and decision-making timeframes associated with the computer revolution is not an entirely new phenomenon. During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union both automated their nuclear command-and-control, targeting, and early warning detection systems to strengthen their respective retaliatory capabilities against a first strike. Technologies developed during the 1950s paved the way for modern undersea sensors, space-based communication, and over-the-horizon radars. Moreover, many of the systems and concepts introduced in the 1960s are still in use today.

This chapter narrates the lives and deaths of Hannah’s heirs in the years between her death and her burial, revealing that by the time her body was interred, little remained of her carefully crafted legacies. It also narrates some of the changes that happened to Manchester between 1758 and 1868, including the development of political, social and cultural institutions. The chapter offers observations of this time period, including the fact that while Hannah was born into a country that didn’t even have a prime minister, by the time she was buried a woman had voted in a general election. The chapter argues that Hannah lived on the precipice of the medieval and the modern worlds, with her will revealing the juxtaposition of feudal land tenure and modern public health institutions, and that many of the ‘modern’ institutions of Manchester in 1868 had their roots in the world in which Hannah lived. Finally, the chapter asserts that the story of Hannah Beswick isn’t really the story of a museum exhibit, but rather a curious example of an ordinary woman making an extraordinary decision about her own body.