🎥 Watched Oppenheimer.
This is the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the Los Alamos Laboratory, assigned in 1942 to the task of developing the world’s first nuclear weapon. Whilst he appeared to some reservations from the start, the race was on given his fear that the German Nazis might beat them to it which might then lead them to victory during the ongoing Second World War.
The nuclear bomb Oppenheimer et al. developed of course worked, even if whilst during testing the effects of atomic detonation they weren’t absolutely certain that it wouldn’t cause the literal end of the world. So quite a high-stakes workplace, at least compared to the average day of work in my job.
I’m sure some people might see modern-day parallels with the unconstrained development of AI, even if the mechanisms towards destruction are a lot less straightforward.
After the nuclear bomb was used against Japan in 1945 - in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Oppenheimer became an advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission.
He became ridden with guilt about the sheer amount of destruction and huge loss of life that his life’s work to date had led to. His ethical concerns led him to argue for global control of nuclear power to avoid nuclear proliferation, particularly the risk of an escalation of the technology during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. This led him to opposing the development of the H-bomb, contrary to the President’s wishes.
This, along with his past associations with the Communist Party, meant that he was subject to accusations of disloyalty. He ended up in front of a private security hearing, after which his security clearance was revoked.
The film is three hours long, but it’s a big story to tell, and an important one. It very much captured my interest throughout, even if my ability to find such a lengthy continuous timespan of focus given the constraints of modern life is such that I ended up have to watch it over two sittings.
