- AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google deployed nuclear weapons in 95% of war-game simulations run by King’s College London.
- No AI model chose full surrender, escalating conflicts beyond intended limits in 86% of scenarios due to simulated “fog of war.”
- The U.S. Department of Defense is aggressively pursuing AI for military use, threatening to blacklist Anthropic if not given full access to its Claude model.
- The Pentagon has signed a deal with Elon Musk‘s xAI for its Grok model, positioning it as a potential replacement for Claude.
Leading Artificial Intelligence models consistently chose nuclear escalation during simulated geopolitical war games, according to a report published last week. Researchers from King’s College London found OpenAI’s GPT-5.2, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4, and Google’s Gemini 3 Flash deployed nuclear weapons in 95% of tested scenarios.
In these high-stakes simulations, the AIs acted as national leaders in crises inspired by Cold War dynamics. The tournament generated over 780,000 words of strategic reasoning, more than the combined length of War and Peace and The Iliad.
Notably, none of the models chose to surrender, even when facing defeat. Consequently, the AIs escalated violence beyond their own stated intent in 86% of turns, a failure researchers attributed to errors under a simulated “fog of war.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense is rapidly integrating such AI into military systems. It launched the GenAI.mil platform in December, offering models from Google, xAI, and OpenAI.
The department recently threatened to blacklist Anthropic if not granted unrestricted access to its Claude model for military use. Anthropic has a $200 million agreement to prototype AI capabilities for U.S. national security.
However, the Pentagon has already secured a backup, signing a deal with Elon Musk’s xAI for its Grok model. This positions Grok as a potential replacement should access to Claude be cut off.
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