Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt compared AI to nuclear weapons and called for a deterrence regime similar to the mutually-assured destruction that keeps the world’s most powerful countries from destroying each other.

Schmidt talked about the dangers of AI at the Aspen Security Forum at a panel on national security and artificial intelligence on July 22. While fielding a question about the value of morality in tech, Schmidt explained that he, himself, had been naive about the power of information in the early days of Google. He then called for tech to be better in line with the ethics and morals of the people it serves and made a bizarre comparison between AI and nuclear weapons.

Schmidt imagined a near future where China and the U.S. needed to cement a treaty around AI.  “In the 50s and 60s, we eventually worked out a world where there was a ‘no surprise’ rule about nuclear tests and eventually they were banned,” Schmidt said. “It’s an example of a balance of trust, or lack of trust, it’s a ‘no surprises’ rule. I’m very concerned that the U.S. view of China as corrupt or Communist or whatever, and the Chinese view of America as failing… will allow people to say ‘Oh my god, they’re up to something,’ and then begin some kind of conundrum. Begin some kind of thing where, because you’re arming or getting ready, you then trigger the other side. We don’t have anyone working on that, and yet AI is that powerful.”

AI and machine learning is an impressive and frequently misunderstood technology. It is, largely, not as smart as people think it is. It can churn out masterpiece-level artwork, beat humans at Starcraft II, and make rudimentary phone calls for users. Attempts to get it to do more complicated tasks, however, like drive a car through a major city, haven’t been going so well.

Schmidt imagined a near future where both China and the U.S. would have security concerns that force a kind of deterrence treaty between them around AI. He speaks of the 1950s and ’60s when diplomacy crafted a series of controls around the most deadly weapons on the planet. But for the world to get to a place where it instituted the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, SALT II, and other landmark pieces of legislation, it took decades of nuclear explosions and, critically, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The two Japanese cities America destroyed at the end of World War II killed tens of thousands of people and proved to the world the everlasting horror of nuclear weapons. The governments of Russia and China then rushed to acquire the weapons. The way we live with the possibility these weapons will be used is through something called mutual assured destruction (MAD), a theory of deterrence that ensures if one country launches a nuke, it’s possible that every other country will too. We don’t use the most destructive weapon on the planet because of the possibility that doing so will destroy, at the very least, civilization around the globe.

Despite Schmidt’s colorful comments, we don’t want or need MAD for AI. For one, AI hasn’t proved itself anywhere near as destructive as nuclear weapons. But people in positions of power fear this new technology and, typically, for all the wrong reasons. People have even suggested giving control of nuclear weapons over to AI, theorizing they’d be better arbiters of their use than humans.

The problem with AI is not that it has the potentially world-destroying force of a nuclear weapon; it’s that AI is only as good as the people who designed it and that they reflect the values of their creators. AI suffers from the classic “garbage in, garbage out” problem: Racist algorithms make racist robots, all AI carries the biases of its creators, and a chatbot trained on 4chan becomes vile.

This is something Demis Hassabis—the CEO of DeepMind, which trained the AI that’s beating Starcraft II players—seems to understand better than Schmidt. In a July interview on the Lex Fridman podcast, Fridman asked Hassabis how a technology as powerful as AI could be controlled and how Hassabis himself might avoid being corrupted by the power.

Hassabis' answer is about himself. “AI is too big an idea,” he said. “It matters who builds [AI], which cultures they come from, and what values they have, the builders of AI systems. The AI systems will learn for themselves… but there’ll be a residue in the system of the culture and values of the creators of that system.”

AI is a reflection of its creator. It can’t level a city in a 1.2-megaton blast. Not unless a human teaches it to do so. 

A deepfake of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried circulated on Twitter on Friday, where the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange appeared to claim he could make users whole again by doubling their cryptocurrency in a typical giveaway scam. Making matters worse, the account was verified and mimicked SBF’s real account.

“Hello everyone. As you know our FTX exchange is going bankrupt,” the deepfake of Bankman-Fried said in the video. “But I hasten to inform all users that you should not panic. As compensation for the loss we have prepared a giveaway for you in which you can double your cryptocurrency. To do this, just go to the site ftxcompensation.com”

Bankman-Fried is the self-styled altruistic genius in charge of the imploded cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The company is bankrupt, owes $3 billion to creditors, and has balance sheets so unreliable that experts have called the scandal worse than Enron. While FTX burns, its stakeholders are looking for some kind of compensation and that has opened the door for scammers.

On Friday, in a tweet viewed by Motherboard before the account was suspended by Twitter, user “s4ge_ETH” tweeted out a video that seemed to show Bankman-Fried offering to help people who’d been screwed by FTX. The account has a blue verified checkmark, Bankman-Fried’s Twitter handle “SBF” and his Twitter avatar. The scam appeared to take advantage of the fact that Twitter CEO Elon Musk is selling blue checks for $8, leading to a flood of parodies and scams backed by purchased credibility on the site.

The deepfake video directed people to a website where people could enter a giveaway to win crypto. Crypto giveaways are a common scam, often using fake celebrity accounts, where the victim sends tokens to the scammer but receives nothing in return. The site prominently features Bankman-Fried’s face and FTX’s logo and is registered to an individual in Nevis, an island near Puerto Rico. 

“Biggest giveaway crypto of $100,000,000,” the site says. “Send the desired number of coins to the special address below. Once we receive your transaction, we will immediately send the requested amount back to you. You can only take part in our giveaway once. Hurry up!” 

The site shows a rolling list of fake transactions to entice victims to send crypto. The linked Bitcoin address has received no tokens, while the Ethereum address currently holds just over $1,000 in ETH. 

Needless to say, getting scammed on Twitter by a deepfake after already losing all your crypto on a collapsed exchange adds insult to injury.

America now has a drone that can drop nukes. 

The Pentagon showed off its first new stealth bomber in decades on December 2. For weeks, the U.S. military and manufacturer Northrop Grumman had been building up the reveal by posting pictures of the cloth-draped aircraft and promising a “new technology” ready to fight “future threats.” In an hour-long presentation, the Air Force finally unveiled the B-21 Raider, a bomber that can deliver a nuke and is capable of both manned and unmanned operations.

The Air Force wheeled out the B-21 Raider as part of a long video presentation overseen by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. His speech repeatedly mentioned that America needed the bomber to deter other nations. 

“Strengthening and sustaining U.S. deterrence is at the heart of our national defense strategy. And so is our uniquely American spirit of innovation and invention,” Austin said. “And if you wanna see that strategy in action, if you wanna see America’s enduring advantages in action, if you wanna see integrated deterrence in action, well just look at this aircraft. Y’know, the B-21 looks imposing, but what’s under the frame and the space age coatings is more impressive.”

The B-21 is the successor to the B-2, a similar-looking stealth bomber that was unveiled with similar fanfare in 1988. The lead-up and reveal of the B-21 was surreal in its jingoism. Northrop Grumman first teased the aircraft in a Superbowl ad in 2015, as if it were the latest Marvel movie. On the day of the reveal, Northrop Grumman employee Johan Riley opened the presentation by singing the National Anthem as a procession of older bombers, including the B-52 and the B-2, flew overhead.

After he finished, Northrop CEO Kathy Warden took the stage. “What a wonderful way to begin an incredible and historic evening: our national anthem with the percussion of true air power overhead,” she said. “I want to thank Global Strike Command for that amazing flyover.”

When Warden left the stage, orchestral music played and the camera focused on the plain front of an aircraft storage hanger. The doors slid back. Backlit by blue lights, the bomber was revealed draped in a white cloth. The blue lights flashed in intensity to the beat of the music. As the music swelled, the white cloth was pulled back and the B-21 stood before the audience in all its glory. They clapped as the blue lights flash and the deliverer of nuclear fire wheeled forward to meet its audience.

“Ladies and gentleman,” a voice said. “Our nation’s B-21 Raider.” The audience cheered.

Stealth bombers are an important part of the American nuclear triad. The U.S. is capable of launching a nuclear weapon from missile silos, submarines patrolling the globe, and from bombers. The idea is that should an enemy ever destroy one leg of the triad, the other two could survive to carry out a retaliatory strike. This, we’re told, keeps anyone from nuking the U.S.  “America’s defense will always be rooted in deterring conflict. So we are again making it plain to any potential foe: the risk and the cost of aggression far outweigh any conceivable gains,” Austin said while showing off the B-21.

The Air Force decided to replace the B-2 in 2011. It awarded Northrop Grumman the contract for that replacement in 2015. Among it’s requirements were a demand that the new bomber be able to drop a nuke and that it could fly unmanned. The option for the Raider to go drone mode is highlighted on the official fact sheet for it on the Air Force's website and in the same sentence as its nuclear capability. “It will be nuclear capable and designed to accommodate manned or unmanned operations,” the fact sheet said.

The first flights of the B-21 won’t happen until 2023 and it’s unclear if it will ever fly unmanned with a nuclear payload. But both requirements have been on the Pentagon’s mind since at least 2015. An Inspector General report from the time, obtained by The Warzonevia a Freedom of Information Act Request, showed that the Air Force wanted a new bomber that could deliver a nuke and fly while without a pilot.

“I direct the Air Force to develop an acquisition program that delivers a survivable long range penetrating bomber capable of manned and unmanned operations where range, payload, and survivability are balanced with production cost,” said a letter from the Secretary of Defense quoted in the report. 

It’s impossible to know if the B-21 will ever fly without a human pilot while armed with nukes. But it’s an attractive option for the Pentagon for several reasons. Drones can stay up in the air much longer than human pilots and they tend to make fewer mistakes in the air. Before the age of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear capable submarines, nuclear bombers criss-crossed the globe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many of the pilots took speed to keep up with the brutal hours. There were crashes, accidents, and nuclear disasters. The bombers lost more than a few nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon is promoting the B-21 as more than just a nuclear drone though. According to the Air Force, the bomber is an “open platform” capable of multiple upgrades. It will apparently be able to stay in the field for long hours, act as a battlefield coordinator for other aircraft, and gather intelligence. Austin also said it’s future-proof.  “So as the United States continues to innovate, this bomber will be able to continue to defend our country with new weapons that haven’t even been invented yet,” he said.