Technological developments that could increase risks from nuclear weapons: A shallow review

Abstract

This is a blog post, not a research report, meaning it was produced relatively quickly and is not to Rethink Priorities’ typical standards of substantiveness and careful checking for accuracy. This post is a shallow exploration of some technological developments that might occur and might increase risks from nuclear weapons - especially existential risk or other risks to the long-term future. This is one of many questions relevant to how much to prioritize nuclear risk relative to other issues, what risks and interventions to prioritize within the nuclear risk area, and how that should change in future. But note that, due to time constraints, this post isn’t comprehensive and was less thoroughly researched and reviewed than we’d like. For each potential development, we provide some very quick, rough guesses about how much and in what ways the development would affect the odds and consequences of nuclear conflict (“Importance”), the likelihood of the development in the coming decade or decades (“Likelihood/Closeness”), and how much and in what ways thoughtful altruistic actors could influence whether and how the technology is developed and used (“Steerability”).