havens@ubc-vision.CDN (Bill Havens) (04/01/85)
We as Computer Scientists must accept a new responsibility of our technology. We are apparently at a critical decision point. Having created weapons that can literally destroy life on the planet, we are now considering entrusting the use of these terrible weapons to computers and computer software. To the lay public (and unfortunately to our leaders as well) the allure of computers makes it seem like an appropriate technology to apply to our strategic defense against a very real Russian threat. Reagan has painted a picture of a "defensive umbrella" that would forever shield us from Russian hegemony. He has even offered to share the technology with the "enemy". The dream is wonderful but the reality is quite the opposite. Unfortunately, the "arms race" greatly increases the likelihood of nuclear annihilation. Every weapon improvement which makes our forces more accurate, less visible, more numerous, and now more automatic increases the vulnerability of our enemy. Their forces become less effective unless they increase their number, power, accuracy, etc. More ominously, when faced with inherently overwhelming "first strike" weapons (such as the MX-missile, the Pershing missile, and now laser battle stations), their only effective strategic response is "launch on warning" (sometimes referred to as "use 'em or lose 'em"). The Russians have been put in exactly this situation by America's superior technology. And they have stated that, given the 5 to 6-minute flight time between West Germany and Moscow, they must adopt this strategy. How does this argument relate to Computer Science and, in particular, current events here in peaceful Canada? We are the EXPERTS that our government is asking (or will soon ask) to develop automatic systems to protect us from incoming Russian missiles. The decision times are too short for our leaders to make strategic decisions. Laser battle stations will have at MOST 60-seconds of "boost phase" in which to shoot down the Russian missiles. Who will make these decisions? Suppose our leaders are indisposed (or can't be found as happened in the US recently)? Even if available and awake, what kind of decision about the fate of the Earth can anyone make in 60-seconds? The US Congress asked the same questions in hearings and were told by the "Strategic Defense Initiative" representatives from the Pentagon that maybe the President won't be in the decision loop. In other words, the decisions about our planet will be made by automatic systems, that is, by complex AI programs communicating over a vast satellite computer network. The implicit assumption in this technology is that computer systems can be devised to be perfectly safe, absolutely reliable, and employ correct, completely debugged algorithms. Alan Borning has recently written an article called "Computer Reliability and Nuclear War" in which he dispels this myth. No computer system ever will have these properties. At best we can expect machinery and algorithms which are constructed to exacting standards and tested extensively. Unfortunately, automatic strategic defense can never be tested under real conditions (except once!) and subtle bugs will always remain. As Borning points out, it is exactly those subtle unexpected situations when software fails most spectacularly. Yet the Pentagon wants to use our technology for exactly these complex, confusing, split-second battlefield decisions. The idea is insane! Every system will eventually fail. The domestic Nuclear Energy industry has relied on ever increasing safety precautions, redundant systems, and reliability testing to develop a "safe" energy source. But the Three Mile Island (TMI) reactor was within 30-minutes of a real meltdown. All the automatic systems had failed or been disabled. The technology was out of control and no HUMAN understood what was going on. Indeed, President Carter visited the reactor at this time unaware of the real threat of the accident. In short, technology is only "safe" when you are willing to accept the consequences of infrequent but inevitable failures. If TMI had "gone critical", a large part of Pennsylvania would have been made uninhabitable for years and thousands of people would have been killed or contracted cancer. BUT life on the Earth would have continued. We would have survived (and perhaps have been made wiser). This is not the case with "Star Wars". An eventual catastrophic failure will mean a holocaust that no one can even imagine. To relinquish our destiny to our own imperfect technology is not a sane decision. Either our leaders are afflicted by this insanity or they are unaware of the real dangers involved. They do not realize that we as a nation are much less safe with this technology than without it. I choose to believe the latter and have faith that we can use our expertise and reputations to modify our national direction. But common sense will not necessarily prevail. We must make a public stand now if it is to have any real effect. I urge you to voice your concern loudly to colleagues, your MP, anyone in the Press who will listen, and to sign the declaration circulated by Ray Reiter over this network. Bill Havens... havens@ubc.CSNET ..!ubc-vision!havens
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (04/02/85)
> ... The decision times are too short for our leaders > to make strategic decisions. Laser battle stations will have at MOST > 60-seconds of "boost phase" in which to shoot down the Russian missiles. > Who will make these decisions? ... > ...maybe the President won't be in the decision loop. In other words, > the decisions about our planet will be made by automatic systems, that is, > by complex AI programs communicating over a vast satellite computer network. "Decisions about our planet"? Are you not confusing offensive weapons with defensive systems? Surely deciding to shoot down rising missiles is not going to endanger our planet any more than the missiles would. The worst side effect of an incorrect automatic "shoot" decision would be to kill several cosmonauts, a tragedy but hardly a planetary disaster. And this should be simple to guard against, given even a few minutes advance notice of normal space launches. I have heard no suggestion that the offensive weapons should be changed from their current "launch on Presidential command only" status. > Every system will eventually fail. The domestic Nuclear Energy industry > has relied on ever increasing safety precautions, redundant systems, and > reliability testing to develop a "safe" energy source. There are no safe energy sources. Not coal, not solar, not nuclear. They all kill people. The objective of the nuclear-power industry was to build a system that killed fewer people than any other energy source, per megawatt-hour. They have succeeded. Look at the numbers, not the rhetoric, please. > But the Three Mile > Island (TMI) reactor was within 30-minutes of a real meltdown. 30 minutes is a long time, even for human reactions. If you read a detailed and unbiased account of the events, such as the special issue of IEEE Spectrum on the TMI disaster, you will discover that there was never any serious danger of widespread disaster. There were fears aplenty at the time, but in hindsight (although ONLY in hindsight) they were quite unjustified. Please, if we are going to debate SDI, let us debate on the basis of facts, not uninformed hysteria. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
fred@mnetor.UUCP (04/02/85)
> > 30 minutes is a long time, even for human reactions. If you read a > detailed and unbiased account of the events, such as the special issue > of IEEE Spectrum on the TMI disaster, you will discover that there was > never any serious danger of widespread disaster. There were fears > aplenty at the time, but in hindsight (although ONLY in hindsight) they > were quite unjustified. > > > Please, if we are going to debate SDI, let us debate on the basis of > facts, not uninformed hysteria. > -- It is a fact that in the 24 hours after the TMI incident there were no less than 7 official explanations... all different! Now that all the administrators involved have had time to get together and decide on a good story it is next to impossible for anyone to ever find out what really happened. It is not surprising that the story now given shows no cause for fear. At the same time I would like to say that life has never been safe on this planet. We only have different things to watch out for. Radioactive materials are a relatively new danger, and the real problem is that most people don't know how to handle them. This unfortunately includes some of the people that are supposed to handle them. Like any other group of people, the military has good and not so good people involved with it. What bothers me is their tendancy to follow set rules rather than think. True, it is often more "safe" to stay within a framework of regulations, but somehow I would feel better if decisions about nuclear weapons and even peaceful nuclear enterprises were made by poets. I know a few, and these people really think about their decisions, and about life. I could go on for pages, but in the interests of you, who have to wade through this, I'll stop here. Cheers, Fred Williams
clarke@utcs.UUCP (04/03/85)
This whole thing scares me to death (not literally, I hope). It almost cer- tainly won't work, and even if it does, it will be only partially ready for a good long time. In the meantime the Russians will be (a) laughing them- selves silly at the amount of money the Americans -- and perhaps we -- are wasting, and (b) more worried than usual, just in case it does work. I don't want Russian missiles being controlled by worried people. That's me they're pointed at.
jim@hcr.UUCP (Jim Peters) (04/04/85)
> to make strategic decisions. Laser battle stations will have at MOST > 60-seconds of "boost phase" in which to shoot down the Russian missiles. > Who will make these decisions? Suppose our leaders are indisposed (or can't Surely you're not suggesting that we might decide *not* to shoot down antagonistic Russian missiles? The things might cause a lot of damage when they impact upon your (or my) city.
mnh@utcsri.UUCP (Mark N. Hume) (04/09/85)
I have had extensive discussions with a friend in the International Relations field (specializing in nuclear arms matters) and his analysis of the SDI is far more threatening than the discussions on this group indicate. He is obviously following quite closely the US SDI proposals, and is also concentrating on the USSR's responses. His analysis goes like this: The US defence establishment (not the Political wing of the government but the military) wants SDI not to 'make nuclear weapons obsolete' but to protect missile silos from a preemptive Soviet attack (remember all the debate about putting the MX in moving launchers under the desert?). The analysis follows by saying that the Military does not want SDI as a defensive shield for people but rather to make it possible for the US to wage in a *controlled* manner, a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (who starts the war is not defined). All the political talk about 'just a research project' is a load of ****, as show by statements made in congress by the military to the effect that SDI is an integral part of the US weapons systems. The political talk about 'making nuclear weapons obsolete' is the line given to the president (who does beleive this) by the military so that congress and the people of the US will support SDI. So the bottom line of his analysis is that the US military want SDI so that they can controll a nuclear war (not to prevent one). Isn't that scary?! -- Mark N. Hume
west@utcsri.UUCP (Thomas L. West) (04/11/85)
Isn't much of this worry unfounded? Is there any indication that the system is even going to work? It seems kind of funny that I haven't heard of any laser physicists talk about the feasability on either side. Since all the US cities can still be nuked by sub launched and cruise missiles, even if does sort of work (i.e only 4 times overkill instead of 40), it's not going to stop the US from being vaporized in the event of war. In my opinion, the only point is what the money would have been spent on otherwise. If it was just going to be more nukes, then why not have them spend it on something relatively useless (and helpful to laser physicists!) rather than just making more boring bombs. Then again, if there was any hope that the money would have gone to something interesting, I would reconsider my opinion. Tom West
yali@utai.UUCP (Yawar Ali) (04/12/85)
In reference to SDI, Tom West writes: > Isn't much of this worry unfounded? Is there any indication that the system > is even going to work? It seems kind of funny that I haven't heard of any > laser physicists talk about the feasability on either side. > In my opinion, the only point is what the money would have been spent on > otherwise. Yes, serious technical questions have been raised about the feasibility of SDI. However, it is worth bearing in mind that in practice SDI is likely to boil down to some sort of defense for a limited number of military targets, such as missile silos, rather than the grand umbrella described so grandiloquently by President Reagan in his public announcement. The former scheme is likely to be more technically feasible, especially if combined with a first-strike policy, since if most of the other side's missiles could be disabled in their silos the defensive system would not need to be all that comprehensive anyway. It need not necessarily be the case that the side deploying a defensive system actually intends to combine it with a first-strike policy; the other side will be forced to assume that it does, using the standard military "worst case scenario" analysis. Moreover, the true effectiveness of such a system will always be uncertain, since it can't be tested under realistic conditions. Thus, SDI need not be particularly effective in itself; in the present political and military climate, the mere threat of one side potentially gaining a unilateral advantage over the other can prove extremely destabilizing by fuelling a major arms race. For instance, see the article by Bundy, Kennan, McNamara, and Smith in the Winter 1984/85 issue of the journal Foreign Affairs for some arguments along these lines. By the way, SDI has also been criticized on technical grounds, by laser physicists and others. See the article by Hans Bethe et al. which appeared in I believe the October 1984 issue of Scientific American, for instance. Yawar Ali utzoo!bnr-vpa!bnr-di!yali
yali@bnr-di.UUCP (04/14/85)
In article 70 Tom West writes (in reference to the SDI): > Isn't much of this worry unfounded? Is there any indication that the system >is even going to work? > In my opinion, the only point is what the money would have been spent on >otherwise. Yes, serious technical questions have been raised as to the feasibility of the scheme. However, it is worth bearing in mind that in practice SDI may boil down to something that is less ambitious than the leakproof umbrella so grandiloquently described by President Reagan in his public announcement. More likely (i.e., feasible) is a system that is designed to protect a limited number of military targets, such as missile fields. Of course, such a system would work all the better in conjunction with a first-strike policy, since if a large proportion of the opposing side's missiles could be disabled in their silos a The potentially destabilizing effects of SDI have been catalogued by numerous commentators; for instance, see the article by Bundy, Kennan, McNamara, and Smith in the Winter 1984/85 issue of the journal Foreign Affairs.