AIs, Honesty, Murder and Trolleys

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Even the trolley version is pretty forced, something that will kill millions through inaction quickly and by surprise is going to be pretty hard to make believable.

Canonically there are multiple rogue AKVs leftover from the Pacific War, each with at least one H-bomb aboard and most with several. One might make it to LEO in some sort of concealing enclosure and gamble that enough of it can stay intact long enough into re-entry to strike Kuala Lumpur or Beijing after the first X-Laser pack removes any defense assets close enough to strike it directly. But one of those passenger craft might be able to ram it off course or provoke a premature detonation....