This article was submitted in response to the call for ideas issued by the co-chairs of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, Eric Schmidt and Robert Work. It addresses the first question (part b.) which asks what might happen if the United States fails to develop robust AI capabilities that address national security issues. The year is 2040 and the United States military has limited artificial intelligence (AI) capability. Enthusiasm about AI's potential in the 2010s and 2020s translated into little lasting change. Domestic troubles forced a national focus on budget cuts, international isolation, and strengthening the union. Civil unrest during the 2032 elections worsened everything -- factionalism and partisanship smashed through the walls of the Pentagon. Major initiatives floundered over costs and fear of aiding political opponents.

Pedestrians will quickly learn how to game tomorrow's robocar-dominated traffic system, often bringing it to a halt, according to a model based--of course--on game theory. "From the point of view of a passenger in an automated car, it would be like driving down a street filled with unaccompanied five-year-old children,"writes Adam Millard-Ball today in theJournal of Planning Education and Research. Millard-Ball, who teaches environmental studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, modeled what he calls crosswalk chicken, in which a brazen pedestrian crosses in front of oncoming cars, daring them to run him over. Of course, in today's world, such effrontery is dangerous because drivers may be inattentive, particularly when operating under the expectation that pedestrians will not act like total jerks. But in the right context, say that of a college town--where students can be at once inattentive, inebriated, and jerks--drivers "adjust to the unpredictability of pedestrians and modify their speed and behavior accordingly," Millard-Ball observes.