Artificial intelligence exists to replace nuclear treaties. Scared yet?

For half a In the twentieth century, the world’s nuclear powers relied on a complex and complex series of treaties that slowly and steadily reduced the number of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons On this planet. Those treaties are now over, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be coming back anytime soon. As an interim measure, researchers and scientists are proposing a bold and bizarre path forward: using a satellite-satellite system artificial intelligence To monitor nuclear weapons in the world.

“To be clear, this is Plan B,” Matt Korda, associate director of the Federation of American Scientists, tells WIRED. Korda wrote a report at FAS outlining the possible future of arms control in a world where all the old treaties are dead. in Inspection without inspectorsKorda and co-author Igor Morić describe a new method for monitoring the world’s nuclear weapons that they call “cooperative technical means.” In short, satellites and other remote sensing technologies will do the work that scientists and inspectors once did on Earth.

Artificial intelligence can help in this process, Korda says. “The thing that AI is good at is recognizing patterns,” he says. “If you have a large enough, well-organized data set, you can, in theory, train a model that is able to identify subtle changes in specific locations but also potentially identify individual weapon systems.”

New START, an Obama-era treaty that limited the amount of nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Russia, expired last week on February 5. It is said Both countries still plan to maintain the status quo for now.) Both countries are spending billions to build new and different types of nuclear weapons. China is building new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles. like America withdraws from the world arenaIts nuclear pledges are less important, and countries such as South Korea aspire to manufacture a nuclear bomb. Trust between countries is at an all-time low.

In this environment, Korda and Muric are using existing infrastructure to negotiate and enforce new treaties. Korda says that no country wants “inspectors to tour the site on its territory.” Therefore, if the world’s nuclear powers are unable to achieve this goal, they will be able to use satellites and remote sensors to monitor the world’s nuclear weapons remotely. Then, AI and machine learning systems take that data, sort it, and deliver it for human review.

It’s an imperfect suggestion, but it’s better than literal nothing The world has it now.

For decades, the United States and Russia have worked to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons in the world. In 1985 there were more than 60,000 nuclear weapons. That number has fallen to just over 12,000. Eliminating nearly 50,000 nuclear weapons has taken decades of dedicated work by politicians, diplomats and scientists. The death of New START represents a refutation of those decades of work. These field inspections strengthened trust between Russia and the United States and laid the foundation for lowering tensions during the Cold War. This era is now over, replaced by an era of intensity and a renewed nuclear arms race.

“The idea we put forward in this paper was: What if there is some kind of middle ground between no gun control and just spying, and gun control through intrusive field inspections that may no longer be politically viable?” Korda says. “What can we do remotely if countries cooperate with each other to facilitate a remote verification system?”

Korda and Murić’s proposal is to use the existing network of satellites to monitor intercontinental ballistic missile silos, mobile missile launchers, and plutonium production sites. One major hurdle is that good implementation of a remotely imposed treaty regime will require a certain level of cooperation. Nuclear powers will still need to agree to participate.