Originally published June 22, 2023 10:07 am PDT
Democratic 2024 U.S. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) issued a dire warning regarding an escalating bioweapon arms race and uncontrolled Artificial Intelligence (AI) development in an interview with Newsmax host Greta Van Susteren, calling for an international response.
In the Tuesday episode of “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” RFK Jr. broached a topic that is increasingly concerning the global community: the development and use of bioweapons.
He drew particular attention to the emerging threat of “ethnic bioweapons.”
“You’re exactly right, and we know that the Chinese are developing ethnic bioweapons, bioweapons that are designed to attack people of certain racial types. And we’re doing the same thing. We’ve been collecting Chinese DNA, we’ve been collecting Russian DNA specifically for that,” Kennedy explained.
RFK Jr. hearkened back to the late ’60s, when the U.S. achieved what he referred to as “nuclear equivalency with bioweapons.”
He recounted President Nixon’s historic move in 1969 to unilaterally halt the bioweapons arms race: “He went to Fort Detrick and he said we are unilaterally ending the bioweapons arms race. We are giving up all of our bioweapons; we’re going to destroy them; we’re going to disable the capacity at Fort Detrick, and we’re not going to make them anymore,” Kennedy said.
The presidential hopeful indicated that the promise of that moment had not been fulfilled, saying, “The CIA continued to do secret bioweapons production in our country. The Russians found out about that and rejigged their program.”
He further noted how post-2001, the Patriot Act “reopened the arms race which basically canceled out Nixon’s 1979 agreement treaty and launched a new bioweapons arms race.”
In addition to the specter of bioweapons, RFK Jr. also addressed the rapid, unchecked development of AI.
He cited Elon Musk’s infamous declaration on the risks of AI.
“Elon Musk said AI first it’s going to take our jobs, then it’s going to kill us,” Kennedy said, adding, “We cannot allow the uncontrolled development of AI around the world.”
Faced with these looming threats, RFK Jr. argued for urgent and substantive global diplomacy.
“We need to stop the wars, stop saber-rattling, and negotiate directly with Russia, China, and Iran,” he said. “We need to figure out how we are going to have treaties in place and control this out-of-control AI development that is an existential threat to all of us.”
Kennedy’s sobering remarks underscore the multifaceted challenges of the modern global security landscape.
With technology and biology increasingly merging, creating new potential avenues for conflict, the need for international cooperation has never been more pressing.
