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 [...]
We welcome Andrew Cruickshank to our #Scifi #AI series with his review of Charles Stross’ 2006 book, Accelerando that explores the notion of a singularity. He highlights the challenge of noticing change and finding causality if change is constant and causality is beyond human comprehension. Singularity stories are now a staple of science fiction, but [...]
We welcome Mark O’Neill to launch our #scifi #AI series with his review of Ray Bradbury’s 1951 classic, Fahrenheit 451. Much of the discussion about artificial intelligence centres on what machines might do to humanity but is, as Bradbury and O’Neill ask, the more significant concern is what AI might enable humanity to do to [...]
Reading science fiction drives us to think about the future and frees us from the constraints of the present, allowing us to see the trends affecting today's military in a new way. It draws our thinking out of current operations, out of the day-to-day meetings and PowerPoint presentations. In many ways, science fiction is the [...]
4 March 2018 Editorial Note: Between February and April 2018, The Central Blue and From Balloons to Drones, will be publishing a series of articles that examine the requirements of high-intensity warfare in the 21st Century. These articles provide the intellectual underpinnings to a seminar on high-intensity warfare being held on 22 March by the [...]
