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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> John Clark <johnkclark@gmail.com> <br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, 4 March, 2026 4:36 AM<br><b>To:</b> spike@rainier66.com<br><b>Cc:</b> ExI chat list <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal> <<a href="mailto:spike@rainier66.com" target="_blank">spike@rainier66.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>> </span></span><i><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif'>Do you know what the US <span class=gmail-il>Space</span> <span class=gmail-il>Force</span> is, and what it does?</span></i><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>>…I know there is no evidence the US Space Force<span class=gmaildefault> has ever done anything very interesting, or very smart, certainly nothing that would require a super intelligence to accomplish…. John K Clark</span></span></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>John, you confidently assert that if we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. But then you add on scale requirements which are not applicable to a military AI. We know a Musk-scale data center doesn’t exist currently, but it doesn’t need to be Musk-scale to be useful for the military, for their scope is far more limited: they need a system to watch and integrate anything that constitutes a military threat, and to control countermeasures. They know about the risk of unfriendly AI. They knew about it long before Eliezer had his first Singularity Ahead conference. Stanford has had an AI safety group since before that time as well. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Let me go at this another way. DARPA and other military-connected agencies often publish requests for proposals (RFP) open to anyone. Some are classified, but others are not. They offer a modest fee just for submitting plausible proposals, assuming they meet all the published requirements. One cannot really make a living writing those proposals, but if one’s proposal is accepted, they are rewarding enough. Adrian might be able to offer details on how to get a stipend for producing a proposal in response to an unclassified RFP.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Suppose an unclassified RFP asks for proposals for an AI data center. It needs a lot of electrical power, say…250 MW. That is two A1B reactors, or use an obsolete older A4W reactors. The open literature says that the older A4W reactors make about 700 MWthermal to produce about 125 MW electrical power. OK about a GW of heat must be dumped into the sea. Sure it takes a lot of water, but from a technology point of view, it wouldn’t be all that hard. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>The data center will need a looootta lotta of computing resources. The technology is already in place as is the production capability. Buy racks of processors from existing technology, such as the ones Bezos is putting into his data center in Louisiana. It needs to minimize its visible footprint and it needs to be highly defensible. Where would you suggest putting that? How would you suggest generating the power and dumping the waste heat? I have an idea: there is an island in the Atlantic due east of Puerto Rico, whose original owner perished from suicide. The island is now owned by Stephen Deckoff. It already has buildings on it, and of course it has access to the sea to dump heat and bring in cool water. The input and output can be in every direction to make for redundancy and reliability. The data center doesn’t need to be invisible, but you want to minimize the footprint and it must be defensible, for many would oppose its existence. Well hell, Little Saint James checks off all those boxes. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>If I were to write up a proposal, I would suggest parking a few of those retired carrier power plants in various locations deep underground, each with its own completely isolatable chamber. The power plants are taken out of service while they still work, for reasons you already know: they don’t make reliability spec for military shipboard use but would still make reliability spec for years if used as land-based power plants. Drilling a deep hole in the ground is cheap: BoringX can do those and have them a mile in there by Easter. Buy Little Saint James from Deckoff, take some boring equipment to drill deep enough and far enough to contain any nuclear spills or accidents. The intention is to run these power plants to failure, then bury them when they no longer produce power.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>I went thru the calculations yesterday on how much heat would need to be dumped into the sea for a Musk-scale AI data center, but it need not be on that scale to be of use to the specific task of the military. They have a different, more focused task than merely slaying humanity, which a military AI exists to prevent.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>John, if you were to write up a proposal for that, what would you suggest? Anyone else here, if you were given a modest fee to produce a proposal for a military AI data center, where and how? BillK and others, you may use AI for ideas on that. I didn’t use AI for that Little Stain James notion (heh, typo intentional) or for using retired naval A4Ws as power sources. Other ideas please?<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'> </span></b></span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>