Michael Dobbs — The Six Minute War: Reagan, Russia, and the Race to Automate Armageddon — at the Wharf

About this Event

New York Times bestselling author Michael Dobbs reconstructs the thrilling inside story of the climactic nuclear crisis of the Cold War, revealing the tension between “the human in the loop” and the algorithms that could trigger World War III.The year is 1983. Ronald Reagan is obsessed by biblical prophecies of Armageddon. A computer revolution is changing everything—from the way we track incoming ballistic missiles to how we share and consume information. And then, over just three months, a series of dramatic events encapsulates the president’s worst nightmares.In rapid succession, a South Korean airliner is shot down over the Soviet Union after straying off course because of pilot computer miscommunication. A glitchy Soviet early warning system mistakenly reports an…

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