From Mazzetti's The Way of the Knife:
But the Americans still had to find al-Harethi [mastermind behind the 200- bombing of the U.S.S. Cole], who eluded surveillance by switching between five different cell-phone numbers. The Gray Fox team had identified several of them, but al-Harethi was always careful enough to use the phones sparingly. On November 4, however, the surveillance net got its first big catch.
The cell phone in the back of the Land Cruiser was beaming its signal into the skies, and Gray Fox operatives sent a flash message to analysts at the National Security Agency’s sprawling headquarters, at Fort Meade, Maryland. Separately, the CIA had dispatched an armed Predator from its drone base in Djibouti, just across the Red Sea from Yemen. As the Predator moved into position above the Land Cruiser, an analyst at Fort Meade heard al-Harethi’s voice over the cell phone, barking directions to the driver of the four-by-four. With confirmation that al-Harethi was in the truck, the CIA was now authorized to fire a missile at the vehicle. The missile came off the Predator drone and destroyed the truck, killing everyone inside. Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi was eventually identified in the rubble by a distinguishing mark on one of his legs, which was found at the scene, severed from his body.
President Saleh’s government was quick to issue a cover story: The truck had been carrying a canister of gas that triggered an explosion. But inside the Counterterrorist Center, the importance of the moment was not lost. It was the first time since the September 11 attacks that the CIA had carried out a targeted killing outside a declared war zone. Using the sweeping authority President Bush had given to the CIA in September 2001, clandestine officers had methodically gathered information about al-Harethi’s movements and then coolly incinerated his vehicle with an antitank missile.
More (#5) from The Way of the Knife:
...[Anwar al-Awlaki's son] went to Shabwa province, the region of Yemen where Anwar al-Awlaki was thought to be hiding and where American jets and drones had narrowly missed him the previous May. What Abdulrahman did not know was that his father had already fled Shabwa for al Jawf. He wandered about, having little idea about what to do next. Then, he heard the news about the missile strike that had killed his father, and he called his family back in Sana’a. He told them he was coming home.
He didn’t return to Sana’a immedi
One open question in AI risk strategy is: Can we trust the world's elite decision-makers (hereafter "elites") to navigate the creation of human-level AI (and beyond) just fine, without the kinds of special efforts that e.g. Bostrom and Yudkowsky think are needed?
Some reasons for concern include:
But if you were trying to argue for hope, you might argue along these lines (presented for the sake of argument; I don't actually endorse this argument):
The basic structure of this 'argument for hope' is due to Carl Shulman, though he doesn't necessarily endorse the details. (Also, it's just a rough argument, and as stated is not deductively valid.)
Personally, I am not very comforted by this argument because:
Obviously, there's a lot more for me to spell out here, and some of it may be unclear. The reason I'm posting these thoughts in such a rough state is so that MIRI can get some help on our research into this question.
In particular, I'd like to know: