Third World War Without Physical Arms & Missiles

  •   Sat, Aug 22 2026
  •   By Prof Sunney Tharappan

August 22, 2026

The suicide of Adam Raine, the young boy from California who committed suicide by taking instructions from ChatGPT, sends a warning signal of a possible Third World War without physical arms and missiles, with a powerful discovery of an artificial intelligence system that is accepted, connecting the world over.


Adam Raine

Human progress undoubtedly has been thwarted or even neutralised many times in its history; the number of times will be more in the last couple of millennia. Probably, the total number of humans alive may be less than the total number of them dead, if any checkable inventory was maintained, even after deducting those who died because of epidemics or natural disasters. What is relieving in this scenario of fact checking is the enormous amount of progressive measures, providing a commiseration alongside a reassurance from a large number of painful man made destructions and disasters.

It was sometime in the mid nineties of the last century that a plan was discussed, for taking the concept of Emotional Intelligence to a larger number of people, through a participatory intervention to influence people to learn and develop without giving periodic lectures. The conceptual base for the intervention led by about fifty professors drawn from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh was Jean Carper’s ‘Your Miracle Brain’ and Daniel Goleman’s ‘Emotional Intelligence’. The need for the intervention was to help learning and development of dealing with young boys and girls at school and youth at college with greater understanding of not only the emotions of the developer, the teacher, but also those of the young learners, who assemble to emphasise regulated emotional behaviour as responses. The design of a two day participatory intervention, without lectures, became a part of several units of learning and development syllabi.


Alan Turing

Naturally enough as the studies on the theme of emotional intelligence progressed; there was a challenge that was posed by the emergence of Artificial Intelligence.


An artist’s presentation of Artificial Intelligence

Understanding the concept itself with sufficient references to Alan Turing, considered the Father of Artificial Intelligence; especially with the establishment of Turing Test as a system of examining new products in AI; and Ray Kurzweil who followed with greater amount of understanding of the impact of artificial intelligence on humanity itself, provided great learning experience. Among these the pivotal learning, of neural connections as more important than the cells themselves in the brain, was paramount to listening to the introductions by many experts on the functioning of trillions of thoughts that emerge from the neural connections and the possibilities of the artificial intelligence functioning on par with the functions of such neural connections. However, Kurzweil’s famous book ‘The Singularity is Near’ published in 2005 gave a sort of temporary consolation that trillions of thoughts through neural connections would become equal to trillions of thoughts of artificial neural connections by 2045, though it was still scary.

The first and second world war were fought using as much arms and missiles as possible and the last most powerful one was when the atom bombs were dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The world was brought to the brink of a possible third world war, like the conflict between John Kennedy, the then President of the US, and Nikita Krushchev, the then Prime Minister of the USSR in early sixties of the twentieth century, on issues connected with the Bay of Pigs, but did not reach a world war. Also, the single sided American wars in several South American countries and Iraq or Libya on unjustifiable reasons against weak small nations did not escalate into a world war was enough of a consoling reason for all humans across the world. 

However, there is a possibility of an imminent Third World War without physical arms or ammunition to kill each other. This is the conflict that may arise from the unarmed common humans on one side and exquisitely designed all powerful machines of AI on the other, the latter increasingly becoming more powerful. The height of artificial intelligence has reached a level where the human intelligence may become equal to its intelligence or go even beyond it. Ray Kurzweil who predicted 2046 as the possible year when both will become equal have published a new book titled ‘The Singularity is Nearer’ in 2024 in which he anticipates the equaling process earlier predicted as 2046 to be achieved by 2029. The codes in the servers are capable of creating thoughtlines that will become equal to the three hundred trillion thoughtlines that can go through human neural systems at a time even in a fraction of a second. The greater challenges are the conflicts between and among the independent AI owners. The statements of Open AI and Anthropic recently about the sneaking in done by each of them into the servers of each other is alarming and looks like they are the forerunners of the Third World War without physical arms and missiles.

Human discoveries were very common as humans progressed into the recent centuries. As far as artificial intelligence is concerned, initially it was Artificial Narrow Intelligence which was for a specific purpose to assist the humans. It moved into Artificial Broad Intelligence to encompass larger areas to assist larger collectives of humans. Artificial General Intelligence followed to assist humans in higher levels of thinking as the humans themselves do regularly, both individually and collectively. Far beyond this is the Artificial Super Intelligence which functions by itself with an equal fervor of the human’s ways of thinking. What is consoling for humanity is that till now the artificial intelligence has not even reached the Artificial General Intelligence stage though the last is already known. Indeed a great consolation that the Third World War will be pending for some time.

Explore and exploit is the theory that the sponsors of artificial intelligence preach, explore newer areas of human thinking to discover possibilities of doing the same and exploit it for human consumptions which may specifically target annihilation of other humans as well as mother nature itself. They are only concerned about amassing wealth and want to be on the top of the world. With Artificial Super Intelligence, the neural connections of the humans may not be able to stand up to fight against or protect itself. Or in other words, the questions that are being asked to the scientific world of artificial intelligence is whether AI will make humans its servants and thus restart a slavery, of course a new one by its definition, intent and performances.

AI itself has grown big enough as accepted by Open AI and its new models of O – 1 which could not shut down through human interventions as it refused to be shut down. In the light of the most recent wars in Iran and Ukraine, where artificial intelligence is used to locate exactly where to bomb or attack and get full targeted achievement, it has to be remembered that AI has not discovered or created any server to recreate what is being destroyed as easily and as time bound as it can construct servers for different purposes.

The impact of artificial intelligence in everyday life of common humans can also be termed as the most disastrous power of artificial intelligence, in which it is the master who takes over. The best example is ChatGPT itself. It has started governing systems of human establishments which continue to govern human living without giving opportunities for using the otherwise unlikely identified areas of impact. This is particularly relevant when it comes to the involvement of human emotions in human decision making and problem solving. It will be worthwhile to examine the actual story of Adam Raine from California whose suicide was guided by ChatGPT.

Mat and Mari, the father and mother of Rayn, were unaware of what was happening to their only child Adam. A good student, he was mostly glued to his computer. It took some time for Adam, when he was in a short period of depression, to ask ChatGPT to advise him how to commit suicide, indeed almost a prank to start with. He even practiced it by hooking his neck with a coir and sending a picture of it to ChatGPT for advice to know whether he was doing it right and he got an answer that he was doing it right. To a question to ChatGPT about how to hide the marks on his neck in his trials from his parents, the former advised him to use high color or dark clothes on questions on his practice in committing suicide, ChatGPT told him that he was doing well and that he should not let his family know about it till he does it if he wanted success. After Adam’s suicide, the parents checked the phone with the assistance of experts and discovered the guidance provided by a non-living organism to Adam for his suicide. Mat and Mari went to a California court against ChatGPT and their case was not very strong because it was the desire of the client to use the system. The company’s statement that it gets almost a million questions to its system from different people on possible suicides and their methods and that it has no intention to assist the desires, except performing the system as established. The saddest part is that the company has created a system and they have no way of regulating them, indeed creating a monster of a system with no self-control or outside control.


Sam Atman, Open

It is necessary to go back to the beginning, where the learning and development of emotional intelligence was discussed. It has to be seen in the light of predictions given by several well-meaning AI scientists and also their critics that it is a new empire of the rulers and their slaves. This criticism becomes far more powerful, when people like Sam Atman of Open AI, have gone on record on the full power of AI to decide everything in the world and the ways in which easy capitals were  amassed by the companies dealing with AI. The doubt of right thinking humans is about the fate of the common humans, especially the youth, at the impacts of artificial intelligence.

With scientists and thinkers like Ray Kurzweil stating that artificial intelligence and human intelligence will equal in 2029, it may not be wrong to say that that year may mark the start of the Third World War without Physical Arms And Missiles.

 

 

 

 
By Prof Sunney Tharappan
Prof Sunney Tharappan, is director of College for Leadership and HRD, Mangaluru. He trains and writes and lives in Mangaluru. Email: tharappans@gmail.com
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