Fiction is playing an increasingly important role in shaping the debate and discussion on the future of warfare. In this short story, Jason Begley explores the enduring nature of technology’s influence on the conduct of war and the challenges associated with managing the short-term benefits gained through a technological edge. Almost dawn. He drew a [...]
We are pleased to welcome back Mick Ryan with the second instalment of his short story AugoStrat Awakenings. You can find the first part of this story here. The bright lights and screens of the room hurt her eyes as she opened them after a short nap. The chair was pretty comfortable, but she would [...]
The Terminator series is something of a touchstone for popular thinking regarding artificial intelligence. Chris McInnes joins the #SciFi, #AI, and the Future of War series to discuss the insights of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines regarding how think about artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons systems. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (T3) is [...]
James Groves joins us to review Arthur C. Clarke’s 1952 book, Childhood’s End. He suggests the book’s dystopian vision of omniscient surveillance illustrates the potential for AI to fundamentally undermine the very things that make us human. Ubiquitous surveillance. Omnipresent sensors. Centralised processing. Deep learning. Intelligent surveillance readies itself to record the next move and, [...]
David McFarlane joins the #SCiFi, #AI and the Future of War series with this discussion of the movie Chappie, directed by Neill Blomkamp. David argues the movie usefully prompts us to think through how our perceptions of AI will shape relationships, and challenges humans to consider that the notion of unintended consequences in dealing with [...]
Jason Begley reviews The Imperial Radch trilogy for our #SciFi, #AI and the Future of War series, highlighting the value of the non-human perspective of the protagonist. Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy form a trilogy set thousands of years into the future where the human Radch Empire dominates most of [...]
Shane Dunn joins our #SciFi, #AI, and the Future of War series to discuss Good News from the Vatican by Robert Silverberg. The book presents a thought-provoking discussion on human perceptions the strengths, weaknesses, and proper place of artificial intelligence. The science fiction story considered here is Good News from the Vatican by Robert Silverberg [...]
Marija Jovanovich joins our #SciFi, #AI, and the Future of War series with a short, and very human, story on the ups and downs of future technologies. It wasn’t meant to be like this. I’m sitting in this boring beige room, have been for what seems like hours. I don’t know what time they left, [...]
The next contribution in our #Scifi, #AI and the future of war series comes from Michael Spencer, who reviewed the 1970 movie; Colossus: The Forbin Project. This movie encourages us to consider human cognitive ability when creating AI systems and code. It calls into question our (in)ability to define and design systems that consider all [...]
Carl Rhodes joins us to look at the artificial intelligence, autonomy, and human-machine teaming implications for Philip Dick’s 1968 book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This book was originally published in 1968. The 1982 movie Blade Runner is based on this book, but only very loosely. The book presents a less optimistic view of [...]
