Manhattan_Project.exe: A Nuclear Option for the Digital Age

This article explores the possible implications and consequences arising from the use of an artificial intelligence construct as a weapon of mass destruction. The digital age has ushered in many technological advances, as well as certain dangers. Chief among these pitfalls is the lack of reliable security found in critical information technology systems. These security gaps can give cybercriminals unauthorized access to highly sensitive computer networks that control the very infrastructure of the United States. Cyberattacks are rising in both frequency and severity and the response by the U.S. has been ineffective. A cyber-weapon of mass destruction (CWMD) implementing an artificial intelligence construct would operate on different fundamental principles than a kinetic WMD, but it would be no less effective in eliminating threats to the security of domestic information networks. This article will first examine the current state of artificial intelligence as it exists in both the private sector and in military and intelligence applications. Second, this article will discuss the distinctions between kinetic war and cyberwar and the deployment of WMDs; the capabilities and applications of a possible CWMD will be discussed at this point as well. Third, issues concerning international law will be addressed as applicable to artificial intelligence, automated warfare, and WMDs generally. Finally, this article will examine some dangers associated with the use of an artificial intelligence construct capable of learning as well as the necessity of such a program

Manhattan_Project.exe: A Nuclear Option for the Digital Age

This article explores the possible implications and consequences arising from the use of an artificial intelligence construct as a weapon of mass destruction. The digital age has ushered in many technological advances, as well as certain dangers. Chief among these pitfalls is the lack of reliable security found in critical information technology systems. These security gaps can give cybercriminals unauthorized access to highly sensitive computer networks that control the very infrastructure of the United States. Cyberattacks are rising in both frequency and severity and the response by the U.S. has been ineffective. A cyber-weapon of mass destruction (CWMD) implementing an artificial intelligence construct would operate on different fundamental principles than a kinetic WMD, but it would be no less effective in eliminating threats to the security of domestic information networks. This article will first examine the current state of artificial intelligence as it exists in both the private sector and in military and intelligence applications. Second, this article will discuss the distinctions between kinetic war and cyberwar and the deployment of WMDs; the capabilities and applications of a possible CWMD will be discussed at this point as well. Third, issues concerning international law will be addressed as applicable to artificial intelligence, automated warfare, and WMDs generally. Finally, this article will examine some dangers associated with the use of an artificial intelligence construct capable of learning as well as the necessity of such a program

Radioactive masculinity: How the anxious postcolonial learnt to love and live in fear of the nuclear bomb

Radioactive Masculinity explores how the Cold War legacy, of nuclear weapons finding resonance in images of white maleness and masculinity, results in anxious hypermasculine performances. These discursive and physical masculine acts contingent on the symbolic and material power of nuclear weapons, I argue, represent radioactive masculinity, a form of hegemonic militarized masculinity, which is intrinsically linked to the concept of nationhood and sovereignty. This idealized masculinity is fluid and cannot be tangibly or materially realized, much like the constantly decaying radioactive bomb on which it is modeled. Through analyzing a wide range of artifacts from America and India, I show that the anxieties of radioactive masculinity produce belligerent masculine performances, which are always volatile and unsuccessful. While existent scholarship has examined the gendered nature of nuclear technology, the cultural effect of unexploded nuclear weapons has been seldom researched. My project remedies this gap by locating physical and cultural sites in America and India, where the materiality of the bomb is made visible through its associations with male corporeality. This relationship, I argue, is indispensable toward understanding both the continued legacy of the Cold War within the Indian subcontinent, as well as its effects on postcolonial subjectivities.;The dissertation begins with an introductory chapter that chronicles the rise of radioactive masculinity within the American military-industrial complex. Here, I analyze official US government documents and related materials, which perform the equation of the bomb to the hardened white male body. I show that while nuclear technology is not inherently gendered, both the bomb and its production spaces were pre-discursively masculinized in order to counter dual insecurities: of post-Depression era American emasculation and a hypermasculine Nazi Germany. Next, I bring in a comparison to Indian governmental documents to further describe how the transference of American radioactive masculinity into postcolonial spaces creates postcolonial nuclear borderlands, which are co-extensive with all nuclear postcolonial spaces everywhere. Chapter 2 examines the formation of a (pseudo) nuclear public sphere in America---resulting from the crisis in official publicity about the bomb---in the period following the cessation of above ground testing. By juxtaposing canonical Anglo-American nuclear disaster fiction with postcolonial speculative fiction, Chapters 3 and 4 emphasize that the structures of radioactive masculinity are fluid and not bound to specific spatio-temporal contexts. In Chapter 5, a comparative analysis of Leslie Silko\u27s Ceremony with postcolonial Indian texts from the eco-conservationist Bishnoi community demonstrate how tactical storytelling challenges the strategic structures of radioactive colonization. My dissertation concludes with an examination of minority anti-nuclear cultural productions, which by challenging the ideology of nuclear nationalism implicit in radioactive masculinity, deconstructs dominant Anglo-American nuclear historiography. By challenging the symbiotic relationship between radioactive masculinity and nuclear nationalism these texts initiate Nucliteracy---a dynamic multimodal form of literacy---that interrogates dominant and official publicity/secrecy about the bomb

Health Risks of Ionizing Radiation: An Overview of Epidemiological Studies

A Report by the Community-Based Hazard Management Program, George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University. The health risks of exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation are disputed within the scientific community. Risks associated with exposure to high levels of radiation are widely accepted and well documented based primarily on the studies of the atomic bomb survivors in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Some feel that the best way to estimate risk for low- level exposures is to extrapolate from higher doses, although there is some clear evidence of low-dose risk. In this overview we have attempted to give an unbiased summary of the available research with an emphasis on the lower doses. The strengths and weaknesses of the studies are explained in order to help assess the variety of sometimes conflicting evidence. This research was completed money allocated during Round 6 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at [email protected]://commons.clarku.edu/clark_mtafund/1004/thumbnail.jp

Visualizing the irradiated body and radioactive landscape in American art, 1945-1976

Looking beyond mushroom-cloud imagery, this dissertation investigates the greater effect that radiation science had on intellectually and imaginatively stimulating the visual artists László Moholy-Nagy, Ralston Crawford, Ben Shahn, and Bruce Conner, who sought knowledge of the long-range consequences of nuclear testing. Primarily concerned with the specter of the tests' aftermath rather than the spectacle of the explosions themselves, these artists explored the toxicity of radiation and ultimately discovered, I argue, that they lived in perpetual and uneasy co-existence with their subject. This study chronologically follows the course of scientific inquiry into radiological effects, from the Second World War to the height of the Cold War, beginning in the first chapter with a discussion of the role of nuclear medicine in the work of Moholy-Nagy. In postwar Chicago, he developed his earlier engagement with x-ray photographs into a deeper knowledge of atomic processes, which culminated in two paintings that suggest the healing and hazardous effects of nuclear energy. The second chapter considers Crawford's commission by Fortune magazine in 1946 to illustrate an atom-bomb test in the Pacific, for which he made several renderings based on post-blast meteorological and radiological data. The critical response to these works exposed not only the public's lack of understanding about the invisible phenomena of the bomb, but also Crawford's own loose grasp of the pertinent science. Continuing the focus on newsworthy nuclear events, the third chapter examines Shahn's portraits of J. Robert Oppenheimer, following the latter's official censure by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1954, and Shahn's paintings and drawings about a contemporaneous fallout disaster leading to the death of a Japanese fisherman. Both series link the heedless actions of scientists and their government employers to the rise of universal radiation sickness, precipitated by what Shahn perceived as mass dehumanization. The fourth and final chapter addresses Conner's long-held view that San Francisco, the city in which he lived, was radioactively contaminated and a potential target of nuclear attack. Through the representation of self-destruction in his assemblages and films, Conner mimed a cultural malaise that struck him as particularly rampant in the local environment of nuclear experimentation

Pathways to the Present: U.S. Development and Its Consequences in the Pacific

Ranging from the Hawaiian Archipelago to the Aleutian Islands, from Silicon Valley to Guam, Pathways to the Present is a thoroughly researched and concisely argued account of economic and environmental change in the postwar "American" Pacific. Following a brief survey of the history of the Pacific, the author takes the Hawaiian Islands as the center of American activities in the region and looks at interactions among native Hawaiian, developmental, military, and environmental issues in the archipelago after World War II. He then turns to land- and water-use problems that have intersected with more nebulous quality-of-life concerns to generate policy controversies in the Seattle region and the San Francisco Bay area, especially Silicon Valley. Economic expansion and environmentalism in Alaska are examined through the lens of changes occurring along the Aleutians. From there the study considers Hiroshima after its destruction by the atomic bomb in 1945, looking at residents’ desire to combine urban-planning concepts. The author investigates the effort to remake Hiroshima as a high-tech city in the 1990s, an attempt inspired by the perceived success of Silicon Valley, and postwar planning on Okinawa, where American influences were particularly strong. The final chapter takes into account issues raised on Guam regarding the growth of tourism and the use of the island for military purposes and links these to developments in the Philippines to the west and American Sâmoa to the south. An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched, a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. The open-access version of this book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that the work may be freely downloaded and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require permission from the publisher.Knowledge Unlatche

Global Catastrophic Nuclear Risk: A Guide for Philanthropists

Nuclear weapons are a global catastrophic risk; a nuclear war could kill untold millions, inflict horrific suffering on survivors, and derail human civilization as we know it. This report forms a guide for philanthropists who seek to mitigate this risk and maximize the counterfactual impact of their charitable donations. Specifically, the report seeks to guide funders entering this field in the wake of several challenges: the apparent collapse of post-Cold War arms control, the second year of the Russo-Ukrainian War, rising U.S.-China tensions, and a large funding shortfall for nuclear security. It mirrors many of the themes of Founders Pledge's Guide to the Changing Landscape of High-Impact Climate Philanthropy, and is indebted to the insights in that document. The report's analysis has four steps:Understanding key features of the landscape of nuclear philanthropy, with special attention to recent funding shortfalls. Analyzing the structure of the problem, emphasizing the super-linearity of expected costs; not all nuclear wars are equal, and bigger nuclear wars could be disproportionately more damaging than smaller nuclear wars for both current generations and the long-term future. Sketching guiding principles for nuclear philanthropy based on these ideas:Prioritize minimizing expected global war damage;Prioritize neglected strategies;Multiply impact by shaping great power behavior;Exercise leverage via policy advocacy;Pursue a strategy of "robust diversification."       4. Exploring practical implications of these principles. The section briefly describes               concrete projects that philanthropists can support. A conclusion enumerates key               uncertainties and sketches a path forward for philanthropists

Pathways to the Present

'Pathways to the Present' is a thoroughly researched and concisely argued account of economic and environmental change in the postwar "American" Pacific, covering interactions among native Hawaiian, developmental, military, and environmental issues in in Hawai'i; land- and water-use problems that have intersected with more nebulous quality-of-life concerns to generate policy controversies in the Seattle and San Francisco Bay areas; and economic expansion and environmentalism in Alaska. From there the study considers Hiroshima after its destruction by the atomic bomb in 1945, looking at residents’ desire to combine urban-planning concepts, the effort to remake Hiroshima as a high-tech city in the 1990s, and postwar planning on Okinawa, where American influences were particularly strong. The final chapter examines the growth of tourism on Guam and the use of the island for military purposes and links these to developments in the Philippines and American Sâmoa