> I expect at the time the distinction was irrelevant.

Detection of nuclear bomb explosions is central to arms control treaties. Those are pretty much the opposite of nuclear weapon creation.

I understand. However, in the climate of the nuclear arms race, I think that all projects having anything to do with nuclear physics were likely to be kept under tight wraps.

The comment I replied to seems to be taking a snarky tone toward a comment that was interesting and furthering the actual topic of the post. By highlighting that it didn't take a stance:

> one of the creators wasn't aware the immediate application of the algorithms they were optimizing was nuclear weapons

Even your reply to me seems to only allow interpreting "application ... was nuclear weapons" to mean "building" or "developing" instead of "detecting" when to me it simply means "in the domain of." And certainly you agree that detection is in the space of nuclear weapons?

The obvious reason detection technology falls under the same secrecy umbrella as weapons design is because one leads quite quickly to the other if you start to think about why it might be developed.

To me at least it would very clearly mean building or developing. “In the domain of” would require explicit clarification.

Right. And I think that's an unnecessarily narrow perspective to take.

Just letting you know as a native speaker, that’s what the words mean to your audience.

As a native speaker I disagree with the unnecessarily narrow interpretation. It may be the simpler conclusion to reach but with the accompanying material it is obviously not the intent.