AI willing to ‘go nuclear’ in wargames, study finds – amid ‘stand-off’

As the deadline looms for a leading AI lab to hand over its tech to the US military, a study has appeared suggesting AI models are more than willing to go nuclear in wargames.

Only a couple of years ago, the phrase on everyone’s lips was “AI safety”.

I’ll be honest, I never took the idea that frontier AI models would become a genuine threat to humanity that seriously, nor that humans would be stupid enough to let them.

Now, I’m not so sure.

First, consider what’s going on in the US.

The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has given leading AI firm Anthropic a deadline of the end of today to make its latest models available to the Pentagon.

Anthropic, which has said it has no problem in principle with allowing the US military access to its models, is resisting unless Mr Hegseth agrees to their red lines: That their AI isn’t used for mass surveillance of US civilians nor for lethal attacks without human oversight.

Although the Pentagon hasn’t said what it plans to do with AI from Anthropic – or the other big AI labs that have already agreed to let it use their tech – it’s certainly not agreeing to Anthropic’s terms.

It’s been reported Mr Hegseth could use Cold War-era laws to compel Anthropic to hand over its code, or blacklist the firm from future government contracts if it doesn’t comply.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement on Thursday that “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request”.

He said it was the company’s “strong preference… to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters – with our two requested safeguards in place”.

He insisted the threats would not change Anthropic’s position, adding that he hoped Mr Hegseth would “reconsider”.