How a Cold War plan to stop nuclear proliferation could protect the world from an AI arms race

Robert Oppenheimer developed an innovative plan to stop an arms race by giving the world access to nuclear technology. The plan could also be a model for protecting the world from AI risks.

As Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t often repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” We are fortunate that it does, because it means we can use lessons from the past at least as a rough guide to the present. The lessons can be lifesaving—literally—when we apply them to existential risks, of which the three biggest ones in our present time are climate change, weapons of mass destruction, and artificial intelligence.