The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future

by Henry Kissinger

Three qualities have traditionally facilitated the separation of military and civilian domains: technological differentiation, concentrated control, and magnitude of effect. Technologies with either exclusively military or exclusively civilian applications are described as differentiated. Concentrated control refers to technologies that a government can easily manage as opposed to technologies that spread easily and thereby escape government control. Finally, the magnitude of effect refers to a technology’s destructive potential. Throughout history, many technologies have been dual-use. Others have spread easily and widely, and some have had tremendous destructive potential. Until now, though, none has been all three: dual-use, easily spread, and potentially substantially destructive.