Superintelligence Strategy: Expert Version

TL;DR

The paper presents Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM) as a deterrence framework to manage the strategic risks of superintelligent AI, drawing an analogy to MAD in the nuclear era. It argues that AI’s dual-use nature creates converging threats from rival states, rogue actors, and potential loss of human control, necessitating a multipronged approach built on deterrence (MAIM), nonproliferation (restricting inputs and weights), and competitiveness (domestic chip manufacturing and governance). The authors detail a three-part policy apparatus—deterrence through sabotage and escalation ladders, nonproliferation via compute and information security, and competitiveness through military integration, economic resilience, and legal-structuring of AI agents. They emphasize that a carefully managed, evolving governance framework can stabilize progress, unlock AI’s benefits, and reduce the probability of catastrophic outcomes, while acknowledging the uncertainties and political dynamics of rapid technological change.

Abstract

Rapid advances in AI are beginning to reshape national security. Destabilizing AI developments could rupture the balance of power and raise the odds of great-power conflict, while widespread proliferation of capable AI hackers and virologists would lower barriers for rogue actors to cause catastrophe. Superintelligence -- AI vastly better than humans at nearly all cognitive tasks -- is now anticipated by AI researchers. Just as nations once developed nuclear strategies to secure their survival, we now need a coherent superintelligence strategy to navigate a new period of transformative change. We introduce the concept of Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM): a deterrence regime resembling nuclear mutual assured destruction (MAD) where any state's aggressive bid for unilateral AI dominance is met with preventive sabotage by rivals. Given the relative ease of sabotaging a destabilizing AI project -- through interventions ranging from covert cyberattacks to potential kinetic strikes on datacenters -- MAIM already describes the strategic picture AI superpowers find themselves in. Alongside this, states can increase their competitiveness by bolstering their economies and militaries through AI, and they can engage in nonproliferation to rogue actors to keep weaponizable AI capabilities out of their hands. Taken together, the three-part framework of deterrence, nonproliferation, and competitiveness outlines a robust strategy to superintelligence in the years ahead.

Figures (17)

• Figure 1: Effective strategies for managing advanced AI can draw from national security precedents in handling previous potentially catastrophic dual-use technology.
• Figure 2: The amount of compute used to create AI models has been increasing exponentially for decades epoch2023aitrends.
• Figure 3: AI risk management contains multiple wicked problems and is not primarily a technical challenge. Tame technical problems have well-defined boundaries and criteria for success, lending themselves to systematic experimentation. By contrast, wicked problemsRittel1973 are open-ended, carry ambiguous requirements, and often produce unintended consequences. They demand ongoing adaptation rather than purely technical fixes, since each attempt at a solution can give rise to new difficulties.
• Figure 4: States, terrorists, and AIs are threats to national security.
• Figure 5: Defense-dominant dual-use technology should be widely proliferated, while catastrophic offense-dominant dual-use technology should not.