It looks like Valorant PS5 and PS4 versions are in the works, if datamined information and new job descriptions are anything to go by. As spotted by VeryAli Gaming, Riot Games’ Bellevue studio is looking for a senior game designer for Valorant to work specifically on console, and strings found by one dataminer in the game’s files make reference to PSN and Xbox Live.
When is Valorant PS5, PS4 release expected?
According to Valorant leakers Shiina and Valorleaks, the aforementioned strings were just added to Valorant’s files for “backend purposes,” suggesting that Riot’s still in the testing phase. Additionally, the vacancy for senior game designer has been recently advertised.
Console release for VALORANT might be closer than actually expected. These strings were added to the files today:
– “Connection to “PSN” has been lost.”
– “Connection to Xbox LIVE has been lost.”
In June 2020, Riot revealed that it was “prototyping” a console version of Valorant but didn’t make any promises because the studio believes that “there’s a way to experience this game that we’re not entirely sure translates completely to console play.” That it’s now hiring a senior game designer to specifically work on Valorant for consoles suggests that things have been progressing well, perhaps due to Sony and Microsoft releasing PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The question now is whether Valorant will release on the PS4 and Xbox One as well or not.
Opinion: Valorant on PS5 would be most welcome
Zarmena writes… Now that Blizzard Entertainment is a part of Microsoft (pending regulatory approval), it’s unclear what the future holds for the Overwatch franchise on PlayStation platforms. Valorant would be an excellent alternative and one that’s free-to-play. It looks like it’ll be a while before we’ll see Valorant on consoles, but something tells me it’ll be out sooner than Overwatch 2, which seems to have been stuck in development hell for quite a while.
Sony’s kicking off its Spring celebrations with a new PlayStation Store sale, offering discounts on hundreds of games and add-ons. Don’t expect any major new releases here, but if you’ve somehow missed all those opportunities to check out some great games like Deathloop, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, here’s another chance to pick them up for your PS5. Some of the games listed below will drop out of the sale on April 13th and will be replaced with different games. The sale will end on April 27th.
As usual, make sure to log into your local store page for regional pricing.
PS Store sale April 2022 games list
100,000 Red Orbs
112th Seed
5-Coin Set & Madhouse Mode Unlock
911 Operator
A Tale of Paper
A Way Out
A.O.T. 2
A.O.T. 2: Deluxe Edition
A.O.T. 2: Final Battle
A.O.T. 2: Final Battle – Upgrade Pack
A.O.T. Wings of Freedom
ABZU
Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – Season Pass
Aces of the Luftwaffe: Squadron
Aces of the Multiverse
Aftermath
Agents of Mayhem – Legal Action Pending DLC: Day One Edition
Agents of Mayhem – Legal Action Pending: Retail Edition
Agents of Mayhem – Bombshells Skins Pack
Agents of Mayhem – Carnage a Trois Skins Pack
Agents of Mayhem – Firing Squad Skins Pack
Agents of Mayhem – Johnny Gat Agent Pack
Agents of Mayhem – Lazarus Agent Pack
Agents of Mayhem – Legal Action Pending DLC: Digital Edition
Agents of Mayhem – Safeword Agent Pack
Agony
Alan Wake Remastered
Alcatraz
Alekhine’s Gun
Alien Invasion
Aliens: Fireteam Elite Deluxe Edition (Focus)
Alt Hero Colors
Alt Heroine Colors
Alvastia Chronicles
Anima: Gate of Memories
Anima: Gate of Memories – The Nameless Chronicles
Anime Studio Story
Anthem
ARK: Ultimate Survivor Edition
Asdivine Hearts
Asdivine Hearts II
Assassin’s Creed III Remastered
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey – Season Pass
Assassin’s Creed Origins – Season Pass
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – Gold Edition
Assassin’s Creed Unity
Assetto Corsa Competizione
Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey DX
Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings DX
Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack
Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book DX
Attack Coin & Madhouse Mode Unlock
Azure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Pack
Baboon!
Back 4 Blood: Ultimate Edition PS4 & PS5
Baller Edition Bundle
Baller Edition Pack
Banned Footage Vol.1
Banned Footage Vol.2
Bath Towels Complete Set
Batman: Arkham Collection
Battle Chasers: Nightwar
Battlefield 1 – Revolution
Battlefield 4: Premium Edition
Battlefield Hardline Ultimate Edition
Battlefield V Definitive Edition
Bayonetta & Vanquish 10th Anniversary Bundle
Bear With Me: The Complete Collection
Bear With Me: The Complete Collection Unlock
Bear With Me: The Lost Robots
Beast Quest
Ben 10: Power Trip
Beyond the Walls
Beyond: Two Souls
Big Buck Hunter Arcade
Biomutant
BioShock: The Collection
Black Desert – 1,000 Pearls
Black Desert – 10,000 (+1,500 Bonus) Pearls
Black Desert – 2,000 (+40 Bonus) Pearls
Black Desert – 3,000 (+200 Bonus) Pearls
Black Desert – 4,000 (+360 Bonus) Pearls
Black Desert – 6,000 (+600 Bonus) Pearls
Black Desert – Conqueror Item Pack
Black Desert – Explorer Item Pack
Black Desert – Traveler Item Pack
Black Desert: Conqueror Edition
Black Desert: Explorer Edition
Black Desert: Traveler Edition
Black the Fall
Blackberry Honey
Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom
Blaze and the Monster Machines: Axle City Racers
Blitz Breaker
Blood Bowl 2
Bloodborne: The Old Hunters
Blue Reflection
BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light
BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light Digital Deluxe Edition
BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light Season Pass
BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light Ultimate Edition
Book of Demons
Borderlands 3 PS4 & PS5
Borderlands 3: Bounty of Blood PS4 & PS5
Borderlands 3: Guns, Love, and Tentacles PS4 & PS5
Borderlands 3: Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot PS4 & PS5
Borderlands 3: Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck PS4 & PS5
Borderlands 3: Super Deluxe Edition PS4 & PS5
Borderlands Ultimate Edition DLC (SP1/SP2)
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
Breakneck City
Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia
Brotherhood United
Bundle of 15 Lunchboxes
Bundle of 15 Pet Carriers
Bundle of 40 Lunchboxes
Bundle of 40 Pet Carriers
Bundle of 5 Lunchboxes
Bundle of 5 Mr. Handys
Bundle of 5 Pet Carriers
Burnout Paradise Remastered
Call of Cthulhu
Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War – Cross-Gen Bundle PS4 & PS5
Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare®
Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions – Deluxe Edition
It’s Wednesday, and yet another good day for PS5 restock news. Whether you’re in the US or the UK, there’s some must-know information if you’re to successfully grab the next-gen Sony system. Continue on for the latest info in this PSLS PS5 Restock Update for March 30, 2022.
Which US stores have PS5 stock for today, March 30?
US PS5 Console Restock Update
For today, March 30, 2022, Amazon is the retailer to monitor for US customers. PS5 Digital Edition consoles will be available at 8 AM PT. We’d advise you to start refreshing the page a good few minutes before that time, however!
It’s worth noting that the disc version of the console also has a status that reads: “Amazon Prime customers will be given priority access to the PlayStation 5 through 3/31.” This is big news for those waiting for a disc drive edition.
Target is also worthy of attention, as stores reportedly getting stock and a sale is expected this week. @Jake_Randall_YT, who has been consistently accurate in the past, claims that the major drop is happening this week.
The last PS5 drop was on March 29 when Best Buy had a surprise drop for those with a Total Tech membership.
Amazon – Digital Edition drop on March 30. Disc expected on March 31.
Though there aren’t any easy ways to get a PS5 console, accessories for the next-gen system are thankfully much easier to come by. Give the above links a click for some of our highlights.
Which UK stores have PS5 stock for today, March 30?
For today, March 30, the official PlayStation Store is still the place to be for those in the UK.
The official PlayStation store is still accepting registrations from those who want to buy directly from Sony. This is open to PSN members based in the UK, US, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Get the latest info here.
While previous weeks have proven fruitful for UK drops, it’s been pretty quiet this week so far. Here’s hoping it picks up before the week’s end!
Releasing first-party games on PlayStation Plus day one would negatively impact the quality of PlayStation Studios’ output, according to Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan. Yesterday, we got our first look at the brand-new PS Plus and the very first thing everyone quickly pointed out is that it doesn’t include day-one first-party releases like Xbox Game Pass offers. Sony claims it has a very good reason for not going down that route.
Why PS Plus day one games are a bad idea
“We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success,” Ryan explained to Games Industry. “Putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release… as you well know, this is not a road that we’ve gone down in the past and it’s not a road that we’re going to go down with this new service. We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken.” Ryan added that the loss of revenue from releasing first-party games on PS Plus day one would hurt its ability to invest into PlayStation Studios, and as a result, the quality of games would be affected.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ryan revealed that the new PS Plus tiers will include games from “every major publisher” and Sony’s negotiations with third parties are going “well.” He also acknowledged that the Premium tier might not appeal to everyone because some gamers aren’t into streaming and retro gaming.
In other news, soon players will no longer be able to renew their PS Plus subscriptions on PS3 and PS Vita, and Everybody’s Golf’s online servers will shut down in September.
What better way to celebrate twenty years of Kingdom Hearts than with Tamagotchi. You remember those virtual pets, right? And this fall, they’re teaming up with Square Enix’s Disney-themed RPG.
I remember first writing about Tamagotchi for Wired Magazineback in 2004, when infrared sensors were introduced, making…
It’s not only the Waddle Dee Town Café in Kirby and the Forgotten Land where you can stuff your face with Kirby-themed eats. At Kirby Café in Japan, try out real-world mouthful mode as you chow down on Kirby burgers and cakes.
Last year, Amazon revealed one of the more original products we've seen, the kid-focused Glow that does video calls and projects a touch-sensitive play space onto a flat surface. Now, the company has announced that the Glow is available for all customers in the US, complete with a 1-year subscription for books, visual arts activities, play options and more.
The Amazon Glow combines an 8-inch LCD teleconferencing display with a projector that creates a 19-inch, touch-sensitive interactive space. Parents and others can connect to the device via the Glow mobile app that lets them speak with kids and interact with the projected play space remotely. In the original announcement video, for example, Amazon shows kids doing puzzles, drawing and playing reading games, while parents and grandparents are able to see what the kids are seeing.
"We know a majority of parents say it’s challenging for their kids to stay engaged on traditional video calls, and, let’s be honest, stay in one place," said Glow GM Joerg Tewes. "For parents who are miles or minutes away from home for work, Glow provides a new way to say good morning or good night to keep those important relationships strong."
The device comes with "nearly 100 games and visual arts activities" through Amazon Kids+, Amazon said. Those include Chess, Checkers, go Fish, Whac-A-Mole and others. It also includes thousands of books, different play options (remote or side-by-side), the ability to interact with Disney characters (Anna and Elsa, Woody and Buzz, etc.) and more. Parents, friends and others can use the Glow app on their existing Android and iOS smartphones/tablets or on the 2021 Fire HD 10 tablets.
Glow looks like a pretty cool product, but it isn't exactly cheap. You can now pick one up at Amazon, BestBuy.com and Target.com starting at $300, with a mat and mat case plus a 1-year Amazon Kids+ subscription included. It's also available with a Fire HD 10 tablet for $380.
from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/MLhvrF7
Those with a PS Plussubscription not only gain access to free monthly titles and online multiplayer, but they also get an additional discount in the current sale. The “Mega March Promotion” is the current sale. Unfortunately, it’s tough to filter through the normal sale prices to find the bonus PS Plus discounts. Thankfully, this post is here with all PS Plus games discounts for today, March 28, 2022.
Best PS Plus Games Discounts for Today, March 28
These are the best PS Plus games discounts for March 28:
Transformers: Battlegrounds
At $13.99 (down from the sale price of $14.99), Transformers: Battlegrounds is a strategy title that makes use of the popular IP to pit the Autobots against the Decepticons. In addition to a single-player strategy campaign, players can team up in local multiplayer for modes like Capture the Flag, Horde, Last Stand, and more.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood
Coming in at $14.99 (further reduced down from $19.99), Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood has been steeply discounted since its release last year. Players take on the role of a werewolf, who must use his abilities as a wolf and a human on his mission of redemption and blood. Read the PlayStation LifeStyle review for a more comprehensive overview.
PS Plus Free Games
Four free PS Plus games are now available to download for March. They are Ark: Survival Evolved, Ghostrunner, Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, and Team Sonic Racing.
All PS Plus Games Discounts for March 2022
“Mega March Promotion”
Transformers: Battlegrounds $13.99
Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood $14.99
Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood PS4 and PS5 $12.49
WRC 10 FIA World Rally Championship $14.99
88 Heroes $2.24
A Pixel Story $1.79
Holy Potatoes: What the Hell?! $6.74
Holy Potatoes! A Bundle?! $11.24
Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! $5.24
Holy Potatoes! We’re In Space?! $5.24
Rims Racing – Ultimate Edition PS4 and PS5 $31.99
Death’s Door $13.99
Decay of Logos $4.99
Digerati Horror Bundle Vol.2 $4.79
Bloody Rally Show $16.99
Bonkies $6.74
Bonkies – Bananas Bundle $7.19
Glass Masquerade $3.59
Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions $5.39
Handball 21 $9.99
Hunting Simulator 2 $12.49
Hunting Simulator 2 Elite Edition $20.99
Lichtspeer: Double Speer Edition $2.99
The Crew 2 Special Edition $11.99
The Sinking City $7.49
Theme Park Simulator: Rollercoaster Paradise $5.24
Timber Tennis: Versus $0.89
Trailblazers $4.49
Anima: Gate Of Memories – Arcane Edition $7.49
Bassmaster Fishing 2022 $17.99
Bassmaster Fishing 2022: Deluxe Edition $20.24
Bleed Complete Bundle $4.19
Butcher $2.99
Butcher – Special Edition Bundle $3.24
Trollhunters: Defenders of Arcadia $11.99
Tropico 5 – Complete Collection $10.49
Underhero $8.49
Warhammer Bundle: Mordheim and Blood Bowl 2 $7.49
Warsaw $8.99
Cinders $7.99
Commandos 2 & Praetorians: HD Remaster Double Pack $13.49
Conga Master $1.49
Cricket 22 $36.74
Blood Bowl 2: Legendary Edition $2.99
Zombie Army 4: Dead War $12.49
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom $17.99
Monster Slayers $3.74
MotoGP 20 $5.99
Natsuki Chronicles $10.99
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs – Royal Edition $11.24
Shikhondo – Soul Eater $4.19
Sniper Elite 4 – Deluxe Edition $8.99
Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut $4.24
Nefarious $3.74
Ninja Shodown $2.24
Odallus: The Dark Call $2.99
Oniken: Unstoppable Edition $2.49
Oniken: Unstoppable Edition and Odallus: The Dark Call Bundle $3.29
Overpass $5.99
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs – Royal Edition OST Combo $11.39
It’s Monday, which means it’s the start of a brand new week full of PS5 restock opportunities. For those in the US and UK, there will be multiple opportunities to buy the next-gen Sony system. Get the latest information in this PSLS PS5 Restock Update for March 28, 2022.
Which US stores have PS5 stock for today, March 28?
US PS5 Console Restock Update
For today, March 28, 2022, those in the US should have one eye on Amazon and one eye on Target. According to the proven-to-be accurate @Tracker_RY, Amazon is expected to sell PS5 disc consoles at some point up to or on March 31.
As for Target, stores are getting stock and a sale is expected this week. @Jake_Randall_YT, who has proven reliable in the past, claims that the major drop is happening this week.
Those who still haven’t registered their interest in buying a system directly from PlayStation can do so here.
The last PS5 drop was on March 23 when AntOnline had a surprise drop.
Though the PS5 system itself remains tricky to buy, accessories for the next-gen Sony system are in more plentiful supply. Give the above links a click for our highlights.
Which UK stores have PS5 stock for today, March 28?
For today, March 28, the official PlayStation Store is the place to be for those in the UK. If you missed it in the US Section, the official PlayStation store is still accepting registrations from those who want to buy directly from Sony. This is open to PSN members based in the UK, US, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Find out the latest information here.
While the PS Store is the only place to shop for now (aside from Ebay and other auction websites), it’s expected that some UK retailers will announce drops as the week goes on. Stay tuned!
You know what’s cuter than regular Pokémon characters? Fuzzy Pokémon characters! Beloved Pocket Monsters look even more adorable in felt.
Needle felting is, as Craftsy explains, “the process of transforming wool into 3D objects using a barbed needle.” To create needle felting crafts, it’s necessary to “agitate” the…
Earlier this week, Club 8-bit, one of Ukraine’s largest privately-owned computer museums, was destroyed during the siege of Mariupol. Kotaku spotted news of the event after its owner, Dmitry Cherepanov, took to Facebook to share the fate of Club 8-bit.
It has been reported that the Mariupol Computer Museum in Ukraine, a privately owned collection of over 500 items of retro computing, consoles and technology from the 1950s to the early 2000s, a collection nearly 20 years in the making, has been destroyed by a bomb. pic.twitter.com/7xKi3yYjth
“That’s it, the Mariupol computer museum is no longer there,” he said on March 21st. “All that is left from the collection that I have been collecting for 15 years are just fragments of memories on the FB page, website and radio station of the museum.”
Club 8-bit’s collection included more than 500 pieces of computer history, with items dating from as far back as the 1950s. Gizmodovisited the museum in 2018, describing it at the time as “one of the largest and coolest collections” of Soviet-era computers to be found anywhere in the world. It took Cherepanov more than a decade to collect and restore many of the PCs on display at Club 8-bit. What makes the museum’s destruction even more poignant is that it documented a shared history between the Ukrainian and Russian people.
Thankfully, Cherepanov is alive, but like many residents of Mariupol, he has lost his home. If you want to support Cherepanov, he has opened a PayPal account accepting donations to help him and other Ukrainians affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since the start of the war, nearly 10 million people have been displaced by the conflict, making it the fastest-growing refugee crisis since the second world war.
from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/uQ7aX8g
Barely a month into its already floundering invasion of Ukraine and Russia is rattling its nuclear saber and threatening to drastically escalate the regional conflict into all out world war. But the Russians are no stranger to nuclear brinksmanship. In the excerpt below from Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie's latest book, we can see how closely humanity came to an atomic holocaust in 1983 and why an increasing reliance on automation — on both sides of the Iron Curtain — only served to heighten the likelihood of an accidental launch. The New Firelooks at the rapidly expanding roles of automated machine learning systems in national defense and how increasingly ubiquitous AI technologies (as examined through the thematic lenses of "data, algorithms, and computing power") are transforming how nations wage war both domestically and abroad.
As the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union reached their apex in the fall of 1983, the nuclear war began. At least, that was what the alarms said at the bunker in Moscow where Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was on duty.
Inside the bunker, sirens blared and a screen flashed the word “launch.”A missile was inbound. Petrov, unsure if it was an error, did not respond immediately. Then the system reported two more missiles, and then two more after that. The screen now said “missile strike.” The computer reported with its highest level of confidence that a nuclear attack was underway.
The technology had done its part, and everything was now in Petrov’s hands. To report such an attack meant the beginning of nuclear war, as the Soviet Union would surely launch its own missiles in retaliation. To not report such an attack was to impede the Soviet response, surrendering the precious few minutes the country’s leadership had to react before atomic mushroom clouds burst out across the country; “every second of procrastination took away valuable time,” Petrov later said.
“For 15 seconds, we were in a state of shock,” he recounted. He felt like he was sitting on a hot frying pan. After quickly gathering as much information as he could from other stations, he estimated there was a 50-percent chance that an attack was under way. Soviet military protocol dictated that he base his decision off the computer readouts in front of him, the ones that said an attack was undeniable. After careful deliberation, Petrov called the duty officer to break the news: the early warning system was malfunctioning. There was no attack, he said. It was a roll of the atomic dice.
Twenty-three minutes after the alarms—the time it would have taken a missile to hit Moscow—he knew that he was right and the computers were wrong. “It was such a relief,” he said later. After-action reports revealed that the sun’s glare off a passing cloud had confused the satellite warning system. Thanks to Petrov’s decisions to disregard the machine and disobey protocol, humanity lived another day.
Petrov’s actions took extraordinary judgment and courage, and it was only by sheer luck that he was the one making the decisions that night. Most of his colleagues, Petrov believed, would have begun a war. He was the only one among the officers at that duty station who had a civilian, rather than military, education and who was prepared to show more independence. “My colleagues were all professional soldiers; they were taught to give and obey orders,” he said. The human in the loop — this particular human — had made all the difference.
Petrov’s story reveals three themes: the perceived need for speed in nuclear command and control to buy time for decision makers; the allure of automation as a means of achieving that speed; and the dangerous propensity of those automated systems to fail. These three themes have been at the core of managing the fear of a nuclear attack for decades and present new risks today as nuclear and non-nuclear command, control, and communications systems become entangled with one another.
Perhaps nothing shows the perceived need for speed and the allure of automation as much as the fact that, within two years of Petrov’s actions, the Soviets deployed a new system to increase the role of machines in nuclear brinkmanship. It was properly known as Perimeter, but most people just called it the Dead Hand, a sign of the system’s diminished role for humans. As one former Soviet colonel and veteran of the Strategic Rocket Forces put it, “The Perimeter system is very, very nice. Were move unique responsibility from high politicians and the military.” The Soviets wanted the system to partly assuage their fears of nuclear attack by ensuring that, even if a surprise strike succeeded in decapitating the country’s leadership, the Dead Hand would make sure it did not go unpunished.
The idea was simple, if harrowing: in a crisis, the Dead Hand would monitor the environment for signs that a nuclear attack had taken place, such as seismic rumbles and radiation bursts. Programmed with a series of if-then commands, the system would run through the list of indicators, looking for evidence of the apocalypse. If signs pointed to yes, the system would test the communications channels with the Soviet General Staff. If those links were active, the system would remain dormant. If the system received no word from the General Staff, it would circumvent ordinary procedures for ordering an attack. The decision to launch would thenrest in the hands of a lowly bunker officer, someone many ranks below a senior commander like Petrov, who would nonetheless find himself responsible for deciding if it was doomsday.
The United States was also drawn to automated systems. Since the 1950s, its government had maintained a network of computers to fuse incoming data streams from radar sites. This vast network, called the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, or SAGE, was not as automated as the Dead Hand in launching retaliatory strikes, but its creation was rooted in a similar fear. Defense planners designed SAGE to gather radar information about a potential Soviet air attack and relay that information to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which would intercept the invading planes. The cost of SAGE was more than double that of the Manhattan Project, or almost $100 billion in 2022 dollars. Each of the twenty SAGE facilities boasted two 250-ton computers, which each measured 7,500 square feet and were among the most advanced machines of the era.
If nuclear war is like a game of chicken — two nations daring each other to turn away, like two drivers barreling toward a head-on collision — automation offers the prospect of a dangerous but effective strategy. As the nuclear theorist Herman Kahn described:
The “skillful” player may get into the car quite drunk, throwing whisky bottles out the window to make it clear to everybody just how drunk he is. He wears very dark glasses so that it is obvious that he cannot see much, if anything. As soon as the car reaches high speed, he takes the steering wheel and throws it out the window. If his opponent is watching, he has won. If his opponent is not watching, he has a problem; likewise, if both players try this strategy.
To automate nuclear reprisal is to play chicken without brakes or a steering wheel. It tells the world that no nuclear attack will go unpunished, but it greatly increases the risk of catastrophic accidents.
Automation helped enable the dangerous but seemingly predictable world of mutually assured destruction. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union was able to launch a disarming first strike against the other; it would have been impossible for one side to fire its nuclear weapons without alerting the other side and providing at least some time to react. Even if a surprise strike were possible, it would have been impractical to amass a large enough arsenal of nuclear weapons to fully disarm the adversary by firing multiple warheads at each enemy silo, submarine, and bomber capable of launching a counterattack. Hardest of all was knowing where to fire. Submarines in the ocean, mobile ground-launched systems on land, and round-the-clock combat air patrols in the skies made the prospect of successfully executing such a first strike deeply unrealistic. Automated command and control helped ensure these units would receive orders to strike back. Retaliation was inevitable, and that made tenuous stability possible.
Modern technology threatens to upend mutually assured destruction. When an advanced missile called a hypersonic glide vehicle nears space, for example, it separates from its booster rockets and accelerates down toward its target at five times the speed of sound. Unlike a traditional ballistic missile, the vehicle can radically alter its flight profile over longranges, evading missile defenses. In addition, its low-altitude approach renders ground-based sensors ineffective, further compressing the amount of time for decision-making. Some military planners want to use machine learning to further improve the navigation and survivability of these missiles, rendering any future defense against them even more precarious.
Other kinds of AI might upend nuclear stability by making more plausible a first strike that thwarts retaliation. Military planners fear that machine learning and related data collection technologies could find their hidden nuclear forces more easily. For example, better machine learning–driven analysis of overhead imagery could spot mobile missile units; the United States reportedly has developed a highly classified program to use AI to track North Korean launchers. Similarly, autonomous drones under the sea might detect enemy nuclear submarines, enabling them to be neutralized before they can retaliate for an attack. More advanced cyber operations might tamper with nuclear command and control systems or fool early warning mechanisms, causing confusion in the enemy’s networks and further inhibiting a response. Such fears of what AI can do make nuclear strategy harder and riskier.
For some, just like the Cold War strategists who deployed the expert systems in SAGE and the Dead Hand, the answer to these new fears is more automation. The commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces has said that the original Dead Hand has been improved upon and is still functioning, though he didn’t offer technical details. In the United States, some proposals call for the development of a new Dead Hand–esque system to ensure that any first strike is met with nuclear reprisal,with the goal of deterring such a strike. It is a prospect that has strategic appeal to some warriors but raises grave concern for Cassandras, whowarn of the present frailties of machine learning decision-making, and for evangelists, who do not want AI mixed up in nuclear brinkmanship.
While the evangelists’ concerns are more abstract, the Cassandras have concrete reasons for worry. Their doubts are grounded in storieslike Petrov’s, in which systems were imbued with far too much trust and only a human who chose to disobey orders saved the day. The technical failures described in chapter 4 also feed their doubts. The operational risks of deploying fallible machine learning into complex environments like nuclear strategy are vast, and the successes of machine learning in other contexts do not always apply. Just because neural networks excel at playing Go or generating seemingly authentic videos or even determining how proteins fold does not mean that they are any more suited than Petrov’s Cold War–era computer for reliably detecting nuclear strikes.In the realm of nuclear strategy, misplaced trust of machines might be deadly for civilization; it is an obvious example of how the new fire’s force could quickly burn out of control.
Of particular concern is the challenge of balancing between false negatives and false positives—between failing to alert when an attack is under way and falsely sounding the alarm when it is not. The two kinds of failure are in tension with each other. Some analysts contend that American military planners, operating from a place of relative security,worry more about the latter. In contrast, they argue that Chinese planners are more concerned about the limits of their early warning systems,given that China possesses a nuclear arsenal that lacks the speed, quantity, and precision of American weapons. As a result, Chinese government leaders worry chiefly about being too slow to detect an attack in progress. If these leaders decided to deploy AI to avoid false negatives,they might increase the risk of false positives, with devastating nuclear consequences.
The strategic risks brought on by AI’s new role in nuclear strategy are even more worrying. The multifaceted nature of AI blurs lines between conventional deterrence and nuclear deterrence and warps the established consensus for maintaining stability. For example, the machine learning–enabled battle networks that warriors hope might manage conventional warfare might also manage nuclear command and control. In such a situation, a nation may attack another nation’s information systems with the hope of degrading its conventional capacity and inadvertently weaken its nuclear deterrent, causing unintended instability and fear and creating incentives for the victim to retaliate with nuclear weapons. This entanglement of conventional and nuclear command-and-control systems, as well as the sensor networks that feed them, increases the risks of escalation. AI-enabled systems may like-wise falsely interpret an attack on command-and-control infrastructure as a prelude to a nuclear strike. Indeed, there is already evidence that autonomous systems perceive escalation dynamics differently from human operators.
Another concern, almost philosophical in its nature, is that nuclear war could become even more abstract than it already is, and hence more palatable. The concern is best illustrated by an idea from Roger Fisher, a World War II pilot turned arms control advocate and negotiations expert. During the Cold War, Fisher proposed that nuclear codes be stored in a capsule surgically embedded near the heart of a military officer who would always be near the president. The officer would also carry a large butcher knife. To launch a nuclear war, the president would have to use the knife to personally kill the officer and retrieve the capsule—a comparatively small but symbolic act of violence that would make the tens of millions of deaths to come more visceral and real.
Fisher’s Pentagon friends objected to his proposal, with one saying,“My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the president’s judgment. He might never push the button.” This revulsion, ofcourse, was what Fisher wanted: that, in the moment of greatest urgency and fear, humanity would have one more chance to experience—at an emotional, even irrational, level—what was about to happen, and one more chance to turn back from the brink.
Just as Petrov’s independence prompted him to choose a different course, Fisher’s proposed symbolic killing of an innocent was meant to force one final reconsideration. Automating nuclear command and control would do the opposite, reducing everything to error-prone, stone-coldmachine calculation. If the capsule with nuclear codes were embedded near the officer’s heart, if the neural network decided the moment was right, and if it could do so, it would—without hesitation and without understanding—plunge in the knife.
from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/rAqTt1k
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