HEFFNER: I am Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, Rachel Bronson.

She is the president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Rachel, a pleasure to be with you today.

Thanks for your insight and time.

BRONSON: Thanks for having me.

HEFFNER: Rachel, you wrote an op-ed earlier this year with your co-author Daniel Holz.

The Doomsday Clock says we're the closest we've been to apocalypse.

We need to move faster.

Tell our viewers what is the Doomsday Clock and what do we need to do to move faster?

BRONSON: Yeah, thank you.

So the Doomsday Clock was created in 1947, so it's a long standing clock, if you will, and it was set at seven minutes to midnight on the front cover of the first magazine issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

So that's my organization.

And the organization began in 1945 created by Manhattan Project Scientists.

So for any of your guests who saw the movie Oppenheimer, all of those characters in the background likely were founders of the organization and J. Robert Oppenheimer as our chair.

So we come out of that time period about scientists writing about and trying to engage the public on technologies of our own making and how to manage them so that we reduce the harms.

And so the organization started 45.

In 1947 one of the wives of the Manhattan Project Scientist was a renowned artist, and she created the Doomsday Clock.

So happy to go into that history.

So since then, basically at first the editor and now the Science and Security Board sets the hands on the doomsday clock, and they can be set forward or backwards.

And the question is, how close are we to destroying humanity with technologies of our own making?

HEFFNER: It's profound, it's existential.

And in this USA Today op-ed that you coauthored, what were you arguing about our proximity to the destruction of humanity and specifically when it comes to nuclear material being detonated or ending up in the wrong hands, would you argue that we're at greater risk of that in 2024 than we've been since the advent of these weapons, or at earlier points of their birth going decades back now?

BRONSON: Yeah, it's a great question, and that is what we are arguing.

So it's set by the Science and Security Board, and I say that just for transparency, if people want to go to our website, the bulletin.org, you can see who's on the Science and Security Board.

And so it has moved forward and backwards.

So what I find kind of the power behind the Doomsday Clock, if you will, is these are kind of leading experts who over this almost 80 year period have been adjusting the hands of the clock to try to convey like how dangerous do they think the moment is.

So this is the argument, right?

We set it each year thinking about where would we set it this year compared to last year, but also over our more than 75 years of setting the clock, how does it fit into history?

So the furthest away from midnight has been is 17 minutes to midnight, and that was right after the end of the Cold War.

And the closest it's been is where we're at now, which is 90 seconds.

And we moved from minutes to seconds as we were getting closer.

HEFFNER: Well, even closer than at the moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

BRONSON: That's right.

And so that's actually the conversation to have, like, is it really more dangerous now than it was during periods of the Cold War, particularly the Cuban Missile Crisis?

So, the board is answering yes, and in part, it's the focus on nuclear weapons and the recommitment to seemingly to rely on nuclear weapons that I'd love to talk about in this time together.

But also I want to be really clear about this because is that threats are increasing.

So we look at technologies of our own making.

So we have added climate change.

So climate change and nuclear threat is what we're measuring.

But you'll see in the statement, which we also issue along with every time we set the clock is we talk about new disruptive technologies.

Now, we haven't moved the clock because of a disruptive technology, but we talk about them as threat multipliers.

And so going back again to our founders, one of the goals of establishing the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was to engage the public on nuclear risk and nuclear technologies.

Another is to create a space for scientists to engage the public and policy issues.

But the third, and this is relevant to your question, the third goal was to help manage the dangerous presence of Pandora's box of modern science.

And so what they saw at the time, and every word at that I believe is gorgeous, but like modern science, they understood that science was ha starting to move so quickly that we would have more and more of these technologies that would have the potential to create huge harms, as well as huge benefits like nuclear energy, it helps cure cancer and it sends spaceships to Jupiter, but it can also be weaponized to create nuclear weapons, which can destroy humanity as we know it.

So in part, it's the combination of these threats that leads us so close.

But what's important to it is everybody on the science and security Board is very, very concerned of where we are in terms of nuclear weapons and does believe that it's more dangerous than it has been.

And I'd be happy to talk about why that is.

HEFFNER: I do want you to expound on why that is.

BRONSON: So there's a number of things really to look at.

So let's just talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis because that's one that comes up quite frequently, because the bulletin actually missed that.

If you look back and on our site, we have the calendar of when we've moved the clock, hands of the clock.

And if you actually look right after the Cuban Missile Crisis, several months later, we move it and we actually move it away from midnight to suggest almost that it's safe, or certainly safer than it had been.

And that becomes a topic of conversation.

It was such a terrifying time.

And that we actually, if you read the issue right after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we had a guest editor who is writing the intro and he's writing in the bulletin, like, I'm on a plane right now.

I don't know if I'm going to land, and if I do land, what will be waiting for me?

So the terror of the time was clearly palpable.

However, what happens after the Cuban Missile Crisis is everybody was so terrified about what had almost just occurred that you got a raft of arms control agreements, driven by the US and then Soviet Union, that begins to put in place what becomes kind of the modern period of arms control, agreements and a whole landscape or architecture that is built in to help keep us safe.

And by the time, back in the day, right, it's kind of early 1963, where the bulletin leadership is able to like come together now and physically come together, right?

Their next issue.

By the time they get that together, those arms control agreements are now in place.

And so it's away from midnight.

So just because, Cuban missile requests comes up often, I wanted to kind of talk about that.

But yes, we agree, that it is more dangerous now during the Cold War, even when you look at nuclear threats.

So why is that?

Once nuclear weapons were created, you started to get a series of confidence building measures and a commitment to figure out how not to use these.

I mean, back in the 50s, we were building them and everything like that, but we were new to this with the Soviets, and we started putting in place things like, you know, the red phone where you could call back, leaders could call back and forth.

We began trying to figure out how would we mitigate their concerns.

How do we reduce this?

All of that is now gone.

So we had this new period of kind of investing hugely in nuclear weapons, got as close as two minutes to midnight, but then through the 70s and 80s, we were moving it backwards and forwards.

So since 2010, we have pretty steadily moved the clock back towards midnight because every major nuclear power is investing in their nuclear weapons as if they are usable.

And as if they are required to stay up with their adversaries.

The United States is investing, it will be up to $1.8 trillion now in a new nuclear arsenal.

The Russians themselves have gone through a huge investment, and they actually exercise their military as if nuclear weapons will be used.

The Chinese are absolutely changing their strategy where they used to we believe they were investing for a minimal second strike deterrence, minimal in quotes, but a second strike deterrent.

Now it seems absolutely clear that they're building up to be able to have the kind of arsenals that the Russians and the Americans once have.

Pakistan had traditionally had the fastest growing nuclear program in the world, and now it's only kind of looking the Chinese might be out strong them.

So every country, and we can go through all of them, North Korea, all of them.

So every country is responding as if nuclear weapons are usable.

So that's very different than when we were with Reagan and Gorbachev.

And even before that, when there was concerned efforts to reduce the likelihood that they were used, that they'd be used.

In addition, the way that were on a hair trigger alert, which means right now we have payloads that are fused together or put together with the delivery systems ready to go on a moment's notice.

And military personnel out there right now with just waiting for the call.

And there's ways you can separate that to make, so there's a number of things happening that, that, uh, that make this dangerous.

And then the last piece that I'll add and then see where you want to take the conversation next, but we have systematically unhooked all of the arms control agreements that kind of kept us connected during the Cold War with the Soviets, now Russians kind of in particular.

So now we've, we are about to let expire the last remaining agreement that we have with the Russians.

And there's very, very little else.

And you'll remember the last thing we were kind of talking about is like, well, we have to figure out how to bring in China and Russia into this, and all of that's true, but we have nothing now.

So we are back in those early days of the 1950s where we're investing significantly.

We don't have an architecture to rely on, and we know better.

And we've got more states now that are nuclear armed.

So even if you're looking only at nuclear weapons, it's a very dangerous time.

HEFFNER: That's the explanation.

Historically, a question, was there a moment when the dominoes fell in the wrong direction?

So you cite the fall of the Berlin Wall, Reagan and Gorbachev, you identify the end of the Cold War, as we originally understood it.

If you read the Bulletin and the board's determination, there must be some history lesson to be learned about when this went off the rails and the buildup resumed because we were downsizing or suspending activity, and then we started enlarging and proliferating again.

And I could understand the American instinct to do that in the wake of 9/11.

But is there an event or a few events that you find, and your board, catalyzing why at least the Americans, we, went in this direction?

BRONSON: Yeah, it's a great question.

And I usually pinpoint it to around 2010.

And I'll talk through it, but I think one of the big lessons, at least for me, that I'll take away from the take away from it is basically at the end of the Cold War, there was great relief that, you know, it was over and we could create a peace dividend and we could sensibly walk away from nuclear weapons.

And I think the public rightfully kind of said, okay, we did our part.

We marched in Central Park, we wrote letters, we were out there.

This focused our attention for decades.

It's over.

We're going to leave it to the politicians and the experts to deal with it and just make it go away.

And understandably kind of focused on other things, focused on the smaller wars that were happening around the world focused on advancing technology, focused on the everything that globalization was going to bring, and many of the positive benefits of the end of the Cold War.

But I think that nuclear weapons are really kind of like poverty or crime.

Like it never, it will never fully go away.

And when we don't pay attention to it, it gets a lot worse.

It's nothing that we can ever say like, that's done.

They're as much as that's what we're working towards, we're working to make them unusable.

But I think on the public side, we focused on other things.

And then the policy leaders didn't do their jobs.

They didn't continue to find ways to make these things unusable.

Now they did, to be fair, we dramatically reduced our numbers of nuclear weapons, but they're still well beyond anything we need.

And now we're just building back up.

So I do think there was- HEFFNER: In effect, in effect, the scenario we have right now, even though we don't call it such, is a Cold War with Russia, a Cold War with China, a Cold War with North Korea, a Cold War with Iran.

If you think about it that way, that's why your assessment is what it is, because it's kind of a hidden invisible, if you will, Cold War as a result of the nuclear buildups with in all of these countries.

BRONSON: It's as result of the politics too, so right, the politics and the weaponry.

HEFFNER: The feeling that all those countries are adversaries, in effect.

And, and we're not battling them militaristically, but we are ideologically and through, yes, the military buildup independently in our respective countries.

BRONSON: Yeah, that's right.

And here's something for our viewers to really think about.

Nuclear weapons can also be in many ways a weapon of the weak.

If you think of Russia right now, their reliance of nuclear weapons has increased significantly.

Because they have little else, if you will, like their military, right?

When they first invaded Ukraine, there was a huge concern of like what if they lost, right?

Like, would they use their nuclear weapons?

So the Russians have invested and they see their nuclear weapons as a symbol of power, and it is a very powerful weapon.

And so with limited resources, they're investing in it.

Chinese to some extent too, Iranians for sure are investing.

North Koreans for sure, as if they have one more dollar to spend, you spend it on your nuclear program, it will give the perception of disproportionate strength.

What we in the United States, I would argue have to be so careful about, and we're not succeeding in this just because they're investing in their nuclear weapons does not mean that we need to do that.

Because I would argue the United States is so wealthy and so powerful that we have other ways to combat their nuclear strategy.

HEFFNER: Understood.

BRONSON: What I worry about is we're jumping in and counting how many do the Russians have, how many do the Chinese have?

If you add them together, do we have more?

And that's what's fueling some of our behavior, which then causes them to respond.

And I would argue we don't need to do that.

We have better ways to respond.

HEFFNER: So I really want to follow up in just the minutes we have left on that question.

You say 2010 is where it went all downhill, but I would wonder if it was earlier, especially in the reaction to 9/11 and the feeling that we had to protect the homeland.

Why 2010 and not 2002?

BRONSON: Yeah, so I think that you could also argue 2008 when the US pulled out of the ABM treaty.

But what you had seen is the US and the Russians failing to come up with arms control agreements that would continue the path of the end of the Cold War.

And you can go back a little further to what the Russians were pulling out or when the US pulled out in 2008.

But I go to 2010 because that was when Obama administration was working with the Russians and wanted to push through another arms control agreement that was important.

But they weren't going to be able, this is on the US side of the story.

They weren't going to be able to move it through Congress to be able to move that support for a very important arms control deal through Congress, they had to make some concessions.

And the concessions were to heavily invest, or refurbish, or modernize is the term our nuclear weapons.

So at the time, there was a strong caucus, a particularly Republican one, but a strong caucus to say, we're not investing in our nuclear weapons, and you can't rest your way to disarmament, which is true.

We need more money to invest in our nuclear weapons to keep them safe, secure, and reliable.

And so the agreement was made, we would sign this arms control agreement and they'd get the support for it.

But a lot of money had to go into nuclear weapons.

And what I would argue happened is the kinds of resources that went in were well beyond keeping them safe, secure, and reliable.

It's really creating an entirely new arsenal or what you see as a refurbishment and like our contribution to the arms race, which was in part arguing that the Russians are investing and we need to do it too.

So I look at that 2010 deal as the beginning of a path that we're currently on now of just not really having great arms control agreements and importantly, huge investments in nuclear weapons beyond what was necessary to even maintain the base that we were at.

HEFFNER: Another factor that I would guess contributed to your board's assessment that now is the most dangerous time in the nuclear age.

The Doomsday Clock being right at DEF CON- BRONSON: Maybe seconds.

HEFFNER: With whatever the most serious DEF CON level, is AI, the detachment of humanity from ourselves.

And the idea that not only could we have these multiplicities of arsenals around the world, but that they could be controlled by entities other than us.

Tell me if that factored into their assessment or your consideration of AI in the nuclear age.

BRONSON: Yeah.

I want to urge our viewers here today that every time we issue a time, so we set the time, every January we issue a statement to make transparent why we've set it where we are.

And I urge everyone to go, go take a look at that.

So AI is something that we're watching so closely because of what it will mean on the battlefield.

We know that AI is going to bring huge benefits, but where we're looking at it is really on the battlefield.

How is it being used?

So our concern about right, unmanned vehicles and swarming drones that have no people involved in it.

We also are paying attention to what does it mean to our command and control, especially when it comes to nuclear weapons.

So just as a caveat, what makes this so tricky is we know that AI's going to be helpful to us in potentially avoiding mistakes, right?

So there are, there are examples throughout recent history, where people were sitting in the command structure and they could see incoming missiles from the command center that turned out to be not what it looked like.

So can AI help reduce the chances of those kind of mistakes, but could they also increase the chances of those mistakes?

So if the system saw something swarming in, would they be able to read it as, oh, that's, you know, those are geese, versus those are incoming missiles?

So yes, to some extent, but you can get more sophisticated.

You have good examples of it.

What are we building into the algorithms?

What kind of biases are we building into those algorithms?

What happens?

There's been so many cases where humans have said, I'm not going to respond to this because something doesn't feel right about this.

We have examples of the Russians with all the data coming in, not responding because it didn't feel right.

AI can't necessarily do that.

So we spend a lot of time thinking about the battlefield, thinking about space, but thinking about also the coming battlefield with AI and what happens when decision makers need to make faster and faster decisions based on all the AI that's coming in.

And at what point do you make sure that there's humans in the, in in the chain of command?

HEFFNER: Rachel, Does it give you any pause knowing that we averted disaster in the nuclear race, in the Cuban missile crisis and since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has not been free of chemical attacks, but really has been free of nuclear attacks as far as we know.

And that's without AI.

So for all those Luddites like me who believes in the power and the compassion of human beings to adjudicate this more carefully than what would presumably be the technical prowess of AI detection that you say, and I know a lot of people say, well, it's going to help us in innumerable ways.

I'm not so sure, if I could have a choice of an autonomous vehicle and a highly rated Uber driver.

I'm choosing the latter every time.

I mean a highly rated human Uber driver.

BRONSON: I think the point on this is we just don't know.

And the consequences of getting it wrong is the end of humanity.

HEFFNER: And my point is, can we argue, and we only have 60 seconds left, but can we argue that we've gotten it right so far in that there has not been a manmade disaster like what the atomic bombs unleashed.

Haven't we gotten it right?

Should we give ourselves credit for that?

BRONSON: We should give ourselves credit.

But what I would say is there's too many examples of where luck has played into it to have any confidence that we will continue to get that right.

So there are a number of things we can do to reduce the risk factor into even like how, what our readiness looks like, what I talked about being on a hair trigger alert, reducing that about ensuring people are in the chain of command- There are a number of ways.

HEFFNER: Understood.

BRONSON: So there are things we can do.

My point to you is we shouldn't rest easy because in fact, that's gotten us to this position where anybody who looks at where we are in terms of our security with these weapons would, there's a lot to be very concerned about the direction this is going.

HEFFNER: And Rachel, I hope that you and your colleagues, and inspired leadership, like yours at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, will chart a path forward so that there are rules of the road and we understand where we are not going to outsource our human capacity to AI.

Thanks again for your time today.

BRONSON: Thank you so much.

HEFFNER: Please visit The Open Mind website at thirteen.org/openmind to view this program online or to access over 1500 other interviews.

And do check us out on Twitter and Facebook @OpenMindTV for updates on future programming.

Continuing production of The Open Mind has been made possible by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Angelson Family Foundation, Robert and Kate Niehaus Foundation, Grateful American Foundation, Robert S. Kaplan Foundation, Draper Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund.