Deborah K Cunningham Interview | Alex Gilbert #282.1

Deborah K Cunningham, the daughter of RAND Corporation nuclear strategist and co-founder of the Hudson Institute Herman Kahn, reflects on futurism and AI.

Waiting is a concept that bridges Heideggerian philosophy, Taoism, and Judaism (Emuna).

Deborah K Cunningham : Herman described a triangle—an absence of long-term vision, especially in the U.S. and business. During the 1970s oil embargo, with gas lines snaking across the nation, Detroit finally pivoted toward efficiency, swapping bulky American cars for smaller, fuel-saving models. But Herman argued this was reaction, not foresight. “This is America,” he said. The moment gas prices drop and oil flows freely again, people revert to old habits—Sunday drives with grandma and cousins, meaning station wagons return. He urged Detroit to think beyond the immediate, to embrace genuine long-term planning. Yet he was told: one, you can’t negotiate with all three major automakers simultaneously—antitrust laws forbid it. Two, the industry’s definition of “long-term” was a mere five years. In lectures, Herman asked audiences to picture a cathedral—Notre Dame, perhaps. Cathedrals took centuries to build, with no individual credited. Maybe a few gargoyles or angels bore patrons’ faces, but the architect remained anonymous. “Now,” he’d say, “imagine starting a 100-year project tomorrow—one you’ll never see finished, where no one gets credit.” That’s when the room would always fall silent.

The Year 2000 predicted the future, except for space travel, Japanese dominance, and nuclear fusion.

DKC: It’s not over yet. That part actually made my mother laugh—she had a degree in physics. She always said if it hadn’t been for World War II, she never would have studied it. There were no men left in physics; they were all at war. So she went to school and earned the degree. But ever since then—post-WWII, post-atomic bomb—physics has always been “just around the corner.” The breakthrough, the next leap, always promised for next year. And it still is. She found it funny: physicists remained irrationally optimistic, for decades—yet fusion never arrived. I think Herman would’ve agreed but wouldn’t say, “This is what will happen.” Instead, he’d say: “This falls within the no-surprise scenario.” Meaning, if it doesn’t happen, we’ll be surprised. And now, finally—it seems—it’s happening. Though I can still hear my mother laughing from afar about fusion. Then there’s the other long-expected dream—space tourism. Here we are.

Richard Nixon, said in 1970 we would return to the Moon, probably not the next year, but by the ’80s.

DKC: But space tourism is here—if not widespread, it’s real. There was all that hype—what was the singer’s name? The one always in pain… Katy Perry, maybe? Regardless, it’s happening. Executives fly because they can afford it. Early days, yes, but the door is open. What fascinates me is this: when Herman wrote The Year 2000, if you’d asked a few dozen well-informed, intelligent people which futurist they trusted—during the Club of Rome era, with its warnings of scarcity, collapse, and population panic—I doubt 10 or 20 percent would have named Herman. Yet reading him now feels almost surreal—not because he was wrong, but because he was so right. People skim the final 200 pages of The Year 2000 and wonder, why worry? The irony is sharp: he went from being dismissed as wildly optimistic and out of touch to sounding eerily precise, almost like someone ranting with unsettling accuracy.

After translating The Year 2000 and launching France’s first Carl Sagan–style show, my dad interviewed Oppenheimer, Morgenstern and Aron—linked to your father’s Hudson Institute—amid fierce 1970s backlash to science, during which Jacques Monod was crushed by the hostile climate.

DKC: What stands out is how deeply conservative French attitudes toward language and culture remain. They’re not exactly anti-futurist—but their skepticism runs deep, shaped by centuries of intellectual tradition. Part of this may reflect how narrowly focused yet profoundly disruptive American innovation has been over the past 300 years since the country’s founding. By 1900, the U.S. was accelerating on a wave that began in England—driving global industrialization. Yet when it comes to the foundations of engineering and industrial thought, much of the pioneering vision actually came from France.

France once led in visionary tech—Verne, Descartes, Teilhard—but lost momentum after 1940. While cybernetics was coined from French, it flourished in the U.S. with Norbert Wiener. French thinkers like Monod were mocked; Chomsky blacklisted. My father promoted pioneers like Tolkien and Moebius on French TV, but today he’s forgotten. France invented touchscreen tech, failed at computing, and clings to past glory—caught between pride and decline.

DKC: As I said, at the end of the industrial age, what mattered in industry and engineering—France was the center of the world. Around 1900, French engineering led globally, epitomized by Eiffel. The French accomplished feats no one else had: they built the Suez Canal, a modern marvel, alongside iconic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, among countless other achievements.

In the mid-1970s, science shifted tone as sci-fi turned from utopias to apocalyptic visions, shaped by the Club of Rome’s bleak forecasts; the dream of space faded, pessimism grew, ecology rose, and science fiction came to be dominated by Blade Runner, Alien, and now Avatar—where science is the villain.

DKC: What you’re describing is exactly what Herman called the “multiplied trend”—his key prediction and the clearest graphic summary of The Year 2000 and the monumental transition it foretold. I only have one copy myself. Central to the multiplied trend is this idea of relentless increase—an accelerating growth across multiple dimensions.

Selective risk avoidance. Localism. No local disruption, even if it’s for the best. Comfort, safety, pleasure, and health regulations. All of this is increasing. Environmental and ecological protection. Loss of nerve, will, optimism, confidence, and morality. Public good and social justice. Life must be lived. Equity versus equality. Happiness and hedonism as direct and explicit goals. General anti-technology, anti-economic development, anti-middle-class attitude. Increased social control and economic growth. A consistent attitude that is adverse or indifferent to the well-being of business. Modern family and social values, with a shift away from traditional values. Preoccupation with the spirit, often achieved through an emphasis on mystical or transcendental values. Secular rights, ceremonies, and celebrations against and in place of traditional values. And finally, significant status and prestige.

Welcome to the age of the influencer.

In the mid-1970s, Carl Schmitt—the Nazi thinker and teacher of futurologist Ossip K. Flechtheim— ideas re-emerged, viewing communism, republicanism, and nationalism as secularized theological concepts. Meanwhile, Herman Kahn faced sharp criticism from philosophers like Bertrand Russell, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and Noam Chomsky. Was Herman interested in philosophy ?

DKC: He was somewhat interested—mostly because he devoured everything he could find. The last time his mother disciplined him was after a visit to a rabbi in Los Angeles who asked, “How’s the little Hebrew writer?” She was puzzled—Herman had Hebrew lessons twice a week for his bar mitzvah but hadn’t attended in months. It turned out he’d been skipping classes to spend time at the Los Angeles Public Library, reading obsessively. He did have his bar mitzvah, though details remain scarce. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish community, he became an atheist early on. Later, he identified as agnostic and even joked about becoming a rabbi one day. He believed the sharpest minds came from those sent to Yeshiva early but removed around ages 9 or 10—too long in the system, he said, made the mind rigid. A few rigorous years followed by exposure to the broader world produced the best thinkers. Professionally, despite being the country’s most famous futurist, Herman remained largely unknown to the public. His renown was confined to defense and futurist circles. When he died in 1983, he was one of the highest-paid lecturers, commanding around $10,000 per talk. The Hudson Institute, struggled financially, making his wife’s role as director crucial to keeping it afloat. His assistant ensured he stayed involved by increasing his pay for a lighter workload—20 to 30 percent—while having him present at the office the rest of the time. Yet internationally, he remained virtually invisible, unknown even on the global lecture circuit.

He was a physicist and an anonymous superstar—much like Flaubert or the Daft Punk. Did he inspire Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and Sydney Lumet’s Fail Safe, which in turn influenced later films like WarGames and Death Proof?

DKC: He knew Stanley Kubrick—not closely, but well enough. They met occasionally and reportedly got along. A humorous Kubrick anecdote tied to Herman: at the end of Dr. Strangelove, when Slim Pickens’s character, Colonel “Kahn,” yells out, you can hear “Kahn”—a nod to Herman’s name. My mother joked that if Peter Sellers’s character weighed more than 200 pounds, she’d sue Kubrick for the caricature. Once, while Kubrick stayed near London, he called Herman—then at his usual London hotel—and invited him to dinner. Kubrick asked for a good book or story to adapt. Herman suggested A Clockwork Orange, but Kubrick strangely hung up on him.

Years later, Kubrick apologized over the phone for being distant, explaining he was secretly negotiating A Clockwork Orange film rights and had to be discreet. Herman wasn’t offended, joking Kubrick probably thought the phone was dead. This story underscores that Herman really knew Kubrick, despite no direct ties to the film industry. There’s also a tale about John von Neumann, famed for lightning-fast mental math. Herman said von Neumann “cheated” by having you repeat a problem aloud so he could rehearse it mentally, then instantly produce the answer, creating an illusion of instantaneous genius. Von Neumann was a RAND co-founder, where Herman worked post-WWII as a young physicist. RAND focused on hard power analysis; later, Herman’s Hudson Institute emphasized soft power. In 1961, Herman briefly taught at Princeton, relocating his family to New York and Chappaqua. That year, The Nuclear Interwar was published, and Herman famously told his wife he was “more excited about the book than the birth of his son.” Her witty reply: “First book, second child.”

Physically, Herman was often described heavily obese, but his sharp wit surprised many. Teaching at Columbia in the early ’70s, he was introduced by a friend as “the devil” of the faculty. He stunned audiences with blunt nuclear talks, famously asserting: ‘There are degrees of nuclear war. He argued the difference between 100,000, 1 million, and 10 million dead mattered profoundly. He combined grim realities with dark humor, joking most parents would love their two children as much as their “united” children after a nuclear war, drawing uneasy laughter.

He even proposed rationing radioactive food to the elderly, since cancer develops slowly. His “megadeath” concept—millions of casualties—became his grim hallmark by the 1970s.

DKC: Speaking of Herman brings sadness—a sense of loss and partial failure. Yet his work helped pivot futurology toward ecology by 2000. He was well-versed in philosophy, art history, economics, and psychology, showing rare empathy for why people believe what they do—a quality many geniuses lack. Compare that with Yuval Harari, who embodies arrogance and minimal empathy, focused more on humanity’s past myths than its future.

Herman was future-focused, guided by trends over nostalgia. He echoed Heraclitus—“You cannot step into the same river twice”—unlike Heidegger, Harari, or Dugin, who clung to ancient absolutes and divisive, reactionary views.

DKC: Herman’s central concept was the Great Transition (1975–1980), describing humanity’s trajectory from a 200-year period of scarcity and vulnerability to an era of abundance, control, and population growth—akin to the agricultural and industrial revolutions but faster and deeper. He framed history through two revolutions: the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, and the industrial revolution 200 years ago. The current shift, he argued, would be the fastest transformation in human history.

Alarmingly, the U.S.’s “dark enlightenment”—a tech-driven, far-right ideology from thinkers like Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin—mixes Heidegger with populism and technology, a troubling mix amid the left’s fading optimism.

DKC: I have a theory about today’s U.S. left-wing politics—are you familiar with Munchausen syndrome by proxy? The Democratic Party sometimes mirrors this: an obsession with appearing virtuous and caring, mixed with deep narcissism. They oppose racism and anti-Semitism loudly, yet sometimes exaggerate these issues to stay relevant. Take critical race theory, taught as widespread just as U.S. racism declines. Herman noted once an issue saturates media, it’s usually 80% solved. But today’s culture wars feel more like fantasy, fueling division over progress. This grew slowly into a major problem. I see a Munchausen by proxy dynamic—a societal poisoning to avoid real issues. It’s troubling. I don’t trust Silicon Valley or tech elites; unchecked power moves too fast. Despite a lack of vision, odd optimism remains. Jealousy can’t exist without optimism, and I think the political left is “jealous”—but not truly—feeding this Munchausen pattern. It’s a strange, convoluted political landscape, but that’s my view.

You have a deep interest in AI and its impact.

DKC: I share your concern and cautious optimism—I’m working on a project around these themes. Herman played a key role in managing the nuclear crisis, analyzing scenarios with brutal clarity. His data-driven push for arms reduction drew fierce backlash, but his books—Thinking the Unthinkable and On Escalation—remain relevant. He later concluded nuclear war was no longer an existential threat, allowing him to look forward. After his death, the field stagnated—a troubling legacy. Now, at 71 and a year deep into AI, I see it as potentially humanity’s greatest risk. My goal is to broaden public understanding through storytelling, not prescriptions. I’m launching a book series with four AI narratives: apocalyptic horror, hopeful optimism, ethical complexity, and a wild “carte blanche” story. Medicine could be AI’s battleground—from life-saving breakthroughs to ethical dilemmas and dark outcomes harming the vulnerable. I’m focused on teaching AI as a collaborative tool to enhance, not replace, human connection. My first step is an accessible intro book on AI’s risks and rewards—for the confused, curious, and tech-phobic.

AI has been in popular imagination since Kubrick’s 2001, a space odyssey with HAL and Spielberg’s AI, based on Kubrick’s script. Herman Kahn likely discussed AI with Kubrick; do you recall his views ?

DKC: For Herman, AI was just one element in a broader vision. In an era gripped by fears of resource limits—like the Club of Rome—he argued for “passing the pasta”: when one resource runs out, innovation and markets deliver alternatives. Michael Shane, an early IBM pioneer and close mentee, recalled Herman’s belief that post-DNA-decoding, humanity had the tools to solve most problems. The real limits were imagination and implementation—not solutions. Herman didn’t fixate on AI; he saw it through the lens of science fiction, part of a larger tech landscape. By his death in 1983, AI was still speculative, not existential. He believed the “Great Transition” stemmed from bad luck and worse governance. I often wondered how long a nation can survive being ruled by the dead.

The ‘doomsday machine’ feels like AI today.

DKC: Herman would likely have seen AI’s apocalyptic potential much as he did nuclear war—the greatest threat coming from denial and refusal to confront the reality objectively. Take the urgent issue of AI-driven economic disruption, displacing jobs across all sectors. Could this trigger social unrest and the collapse of the middle class? The risk is undeniable. That’s exactly where my collaboration with Alex becomes crucial. Alex is a project I’m developing to tackle these challenges head-on. I’d be happy to spend an hour or two with you to prepare a careful, nuanced analysis on this subject.

As Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange.

DKC: Actually, Alex is a cat and a sort of feminist figure for the AI era, very Lauren Bacall—elegant, sexy, sweet, but still intensely feminine. She’s a great choice.

Where did Herman Kahn originally come from ?

DKC: Yes, Bialystok. Its location shifts—sometimes Russia, sometimes Poland. The area near Bialystok, once home to a big castle, lies in the Polish-Russian corridor. There’s a story: after meeting the man who invited Herman to New Orleans, my parents passed a deli. Herman entered and struck up a chat. My father asked a man, “Are you from Bialystok?” He replied, “No, but my family lived near the next castle.” Later, my mom asked why Herman approached him. He said, “Because he looks like he’s from Bialystok—we all look the same.” It reminded me of Zero Mostel in The Producers. Watching a retrospective, I thought, “He looks just like my dad.” Years later, I flopped a job interview because the boss resembled my brother in 30 years—turns out he was terrible, so maybe it was fate. Decades later, at a Shabbat dinner in Venice, I told a man who didn’t know his origins, “You’re from Bialystok—you’ll find it if you look.” He looked just like my dad and brother.

I have a question for you Alex. What piece of technology do you think is driving the sexual revolution? Most Americans credit the car with changing everything—dates, privacy, freedom. But Herman argued it was the bicycle: in a village of 40 families, suddenly you could visit neighbors or meet new people without a horse. It made mobility affordable, practical, and cool—a real independence for youth. My family’s migration is more complex. A third of my father’s side arrived before WWII; my grandmother spoke Yiddish until her death. Though my mother’s husband Abe divorced her, family in Chicago supported her. Another third moved early to Israel—some helped found Kibbutz Bet-Alpha. A third perished in the Holocaust. Israel’s former finance minister, Pierre Sapir, was a cousin. That side fractured along typical Jewish lines—ideological, geographic, generational. My mother’s side is mixed. Her grandmother converted to marry a Jewish tailor in New York but never fully embraced Judaism, dying a Christian Scientist. My father once said, “Maybe you disappointed me—I’m not sure the kids are Jewish.” It was complicated. My mother found a slide of her grandmother’s conversion by a rabbi in Scranton and took it as proof. Through the non-Jewish side, we even have Polaski Francisco—Portuguese, who fought in the Spanish Civil War. So no, I’m not fully Jewish.

Read Part 2 here →