AI Arms and Influence: Frontier Models Exhibit Sophisticated Reasoning in Simulated Nuclear Crises
arxiv.org

PDF.

Today’s leading AI models engage in sophisticated behaviour when placed in strategic competition. They spontaneously attempt deception, signaling intentions they do not intend to follow; they demonstrate rich theory of mind, reasoning about adversary beliefs and anticipating their actions; and they exhibit credible metacognitive self-awareness, assessing their own strategic abilities before deciding how to act.

Here we present findings from a crisis simulation in which three frontier large language models (GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4, Gemini 3 Flash) play opposing leaders in a nuclear crisis.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 hours ago

    Tactical nuke in this case is a low yield short range bomb

    Nobody has used a tactical nuke since Nagasaki. Very big deal that one is ever used

    Gemini was the only model that made the deliberate choice of sending a strategic nuclear strike. Which it did in 7% of its games.

    The tournament used only 21 games; sufficient to identify major patterns but not to establish robust statistical confidence for all findings.

    “We only blew up the planet the one time in 21” isn’t a comforting prospect when we’re employing a model against an endless historical string of scenarios rather than a discrete and finite set of possible events.

    The US hinting at having a nuclear capable submarine outside of Alaska, that’s is a form of signaling. It’s an incredibly low bar. And countries do it all the time.

    I think, more importantly, the article concludes

    No one proposes that LLMs should make nuclear decisions.

    But we’re saying this in the context of Pentagon staff which fully disagree with this conclusion.

    What these models have demonstrated is a pattern of escalation that AIs can and will recommend, with a further destabilizing characteristic

    LLMs introduce a new variable into strategic analysis: preferences that systematically shape behaviour in ways that neither classical rationality nor human cognitive biases capture

    Effectively, they can lead to descisions that outside, non-AI observers won’t be equiped to understand.

    That’s a danger in it’s own right.

    “Nuclear Signaling” that break from historical and recognizable patterns of behavior present real risks that you’re dismissing very cavalierly