If A.I. Is a Weapon, Who Should Control It?

Suppose that you had to die in a terrible artificial-intelligence-related cataclysm. Would you feel worse knowing that the path to destruction was smoothed by the hubris of Silicon Valley tech lords pursuing dreams of utopia and immortality — or by the folly of Pentagon officials who give the A.I. a fateful dose of autonomy and power in the hopes of outcompeting the Russians or Chinese?

We spent the Cold War worrying mostly about military folly, and A.I. entered into our anxieties even then: the Soviet Doomsday Machine in “Dr. Strangelove,” the game-playing computer in “WarGames” and of course the fateful “Terminator” decision to make........

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