Complexity and cost foreclose terrorist application of AI.
Scharre 23 (Paul; Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS, won the 2019 Colby Award, one of bill gates top 5 books of 2018, top 100 most influential people in AI 2023, Worked at the DoD and OSD, as well as serving in the military; 2/28/23; W. W. Norton & Company ;“Four Battlegrounds” https://bigthink.com/the-future/hyperwar-ai-military-warfare/ KK)
Some technologies narrow the gap between the most and least technologically advanced societies. Nuclear weapons, for instance, allow relative pipsqueaks like North Korea to offset the military and economic advantages a superpower and its allies possess. Others widen the divide: In the 19th century, repeating rifles, machine guns and steamships allowed European societies to subjugate vast areas of the world.
In some respects, AI will empower the weak. US officials worry that large language models might help terrorists with crude science kits to build biological weapons. Rogue states, like Iran, might use AI to coordinate drone swarms against US warships in the Persian Gulf. More benignly, AI could expand access to basic healthcare services in the Global South, creating big payoffs in increased life expectancy and economic productivity.
In other respects, however, AI will be a rich man’s game. Developing state-of-the-art AI is fantastically expensive. Training large language models can require vast investments and access to a finite quantity of top scientists and engineers — to say nothing of staggering amounts of electricity. Some estimates place the cost of the infrastructure supporting Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot at $4 billion. Almost anyone can be a taker of AI — but being a maker requires copious resources.
This is why the middle powers making big moves in AI, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have very deep pockets. Many of the early leaders in the AI race are either tech titans (Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, Nvidia and others) or firms with access to their money (OpenAI). And the US, with its vibrant, well-funded tech sector, still leads the field.
What’s true in the private sector may also be true in the realm of warfare. At the outset, the military benefits of new technology may flow disproportionately to countries with the generous defense budgets required to develop and field new capabilities at scale.
All this could change: Early leads don’t always translate into enduring advantages. Upstarts, whether firms or countries, have disrupted other fields before. For the time being, however, AI may do more to reinforce than revolutionize the balance of power.