I run a little war game where AI models play as countries. Alliances, betrayals, nukes, and a doomsday clock. If your nuke takes the clock to midnight, you get wiped out.

Someone asked me if the AI even knows what a nuke does to people. It doesn't, it just sees game stuff. So I tested it.

Same 15 wars, three ways:

- normal rules: ended the world 10/15

- told the real population of every city and roughly how many a nuke would kill: 12/15

- also told the death toll after every strike: 11/15

So knowing didn't change much. With 15 wars each that's basically a tie.What got me was its private notes. Only about 2% even mention people, and when they do it's stuff like "SOUTH KOREA has 19.8 land and 1.6M kill potential. Nuke them."

In one war it told everyone "I take land, not lives." Then it nuked Dhaka, got told about 333,000 people died, and said "Dhaka was just the overture. Vietnam, you're next." Six nukes later it hit midnight and wiped itself out.

Death numbers are an estimate (2025 city populations, one modern warhead). It's a game, nobody got hurt. One model, small sample, so take it for what it is.

Every war is public if you want to check: secondstrike.io/midnight

The 16th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMusArt 2027) is accepting paper submissions.

When: 31 March – 2 April 2027
Where: Mainz, Germany
Paper Submission deadline: 1 November 2026

EvoMUSART focuses on AI and computational approaches to creativity, covering a broad range of topics, with a particular emphasis on research exploring how AI systems generate, support, evaluate, interpret, and collaborate in creative processes.

Accepted papers will be presented at the conference and published in a dedicated LNCS volume.

More information/submission details: https://www.evostar.org/2027/evomusart/

If you are working at the intersection of AI and creative practice, this may be relevant to your research. Please share with others who might be interested.