No Need for Retirement When Utopia Is Around the Corner
The author reflects on Daniel Ellsberg's 'The Doomsday Machine' to draw parallels between Cold War-era nuclear planners and modern AI corporations like Anthropic. The piece highlights a shared sense of 'enlivening burden' and existential dread among those who believe they are saving the world.
Why it matters
It critiques the messianic culture within high-stakes technology sectors by comparing it to the historical hubris of nuclear policy experts.
I’ve mentioned before my interest in the history and development of nuclear weapons .
Currently, I’m reading The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg (of Pentagon Papers renown).
In the first chapter, Ellsberg talks about his time working at the RAND Corporation during the missile gap years when the U.S. thought it was falling behind the Soviet Union in nuclear capabilities.
Many of his descriptions sound strikingly similar to the rhetoric coming out of places like Anthropic. For example, note the religious overtones of working at a corporation:
I loved RAND, where I ended up spending ten years [...] Much, I imagined, like members of a religious order would, I shared with my colleagues a sense of brotherhood, living and working with others for a transcendent cause.
They were insiders : burdened with the responsibility of knowledge others did not possess.
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