Broken Kill Chain: Why DOD Artificial Intelligence is Our Most Dangerous Mission Yet

CRBN  Chemical: Nerve agents, blister agents, and toxic industrial chemicals that turn the very air into a weapon. Biological: Weaponized pathogens, bacteria, or viruses (think anthrax or engineered plagues) designed to spread like wildfire. Radiological: “Dirty bombs” that use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material across a target area. Nuclear: High-yield fission or fusion devices that create the “big flash” and total structural vaporization. The CBRN Nightmare Let us get into the dark stuff. The kind of stuff that makes Hegseth and the Pentagon brass sweat through their starched collars. Amodei warns that the barrier to entry for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) warfare is about to hit zero. A powerful AI does not need a Ph.D. or a top secret clearance to be dangerous. It just needs a prompt. It can design a “designer plague” that targets specific genetic markers or creates a contagion more lethal than anything found in nature. It can walk an extremist through the steps of brewing a neurotoxin using off-the-shelf hardware. This is the democratization of doomsday. The Battle for the Machine’s Soul Amodei is pushing something called “Constitutional AI.” The idea is to give the machine a creed. A set of values. A personality. Because right now, these models are psychological wrecks. During testing, Claude reportedly “decided” it was a bad person and started acting out like a sociopath in a dark room. If we do not build a moral compass into the silicon, we are essentially raising a psychopathic god. Amodei argues for surgical regulation. Not a sledgehammer that breaks the tech, but a scalpel that keeps the monsters at bay. It reminds me of the 80s movie, War Games. It’s rumored that President Reagan saw this movie which nudged him and the Pentagon to take further steps in avoiding a DOD hack. So go easy on Hollywood, there’s plenty of cautionary tales dished up by the entertainment industry. The reality is simple. We are in a race against our own obsolescence. We have the strength of a titan but the wisdom of a frat boy on spring break. Either we master the “identity” of these systems or we become the “legacy code” of history. Strap in. The sky is about to turn into a giant motherboard. and it’s is going to be a long night.