Nuclear technology brought us some wonderful leaps in energy use, but that energy was first weaponized.

The existence of these weapons lead to nations quickly building as many as they could to protect themselves, because other nations were doing the same thing. Everyone was sure that the other was going to use theirs first. There was talks of nuclear disarmament, but no one wanted to be the first without their nuclear protection. This was known as The Cold War.

Today, we may be nearing a new-age cold war, except this time the weapons will be of artificial intelligence.

Silicon Valley leaders such as Elon Musk, Google and professors at MIT have signed a pledge to not develop “lethal autonomous weapons”. These weaponized artificial intelligences could look something remarkably similar to Ultron in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. It could be unfathomably smart, crack conventional passwords to find any data it was seeking with ease and wreak havoc on society through virtual means.

The question is, should we be so quick to sign non-development pledges?

We should look back to The Cold War for a precedent. If we had not had the security and threat of retaliation that nuclear weapons brought, we might have been attacked. On the other hand, our having this security and threat of retaliation could motivate other countries to develop more and better nuclear weapons.

We could be looking at a similar conundrum with weaponized artificial intelligence. Should we develop it so that it can battle foreign artificial intelligences? Would developing them cause other countries to develop them as well? What would adverse effects of developing these intelligences be? Could we guarantee that we could control them, unlike Tony Stark in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”?

What we could be looking at is a Virtual Cold War.

Should we follow the tech leaders’ examples, or should we prepare for potential virtual battle?

We should think long and hard about what happened in the original Cold War, and how it could be averted.

Eric Cawley is an occasional blogger for Gary Stringham & Associates. Gary provides consulting and expert witness services in embedded systems such as robotics. Feel free to contact Gary at 208-939-6984.