I was surprised at the avoidance of science fiction examples, especially when the book considers problems of AI taking over human decision making. So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay. This in itself is not a terrible thing because Scharre significantly avoids a common technique of think-tank commentary on emerging technologies of “[coalescing] around familiar and intuitive analytic frames and policy ideas,” rushing into the latter without serious consideration of the former.

S.’s and China’s relative access to AI’s four components may give them more — but not totalizing — incentives to largely tolerate the paths they are currently on. An excellent survey view of the challenges facing the US and allies about AI in terms of its applications in combat, in strategic civilian impacts, and in its potential transformation of conflict.But at times, I did feel as though the author was attempting to raise general awareness of what he perceives as our biggest power rival, especially in the world of AI and augmented warfare. Scharre is mostly concerned with issues such as which military gets the fastest reaction times, uses data the best (e. The four components of AI vary in importance not just in terms of how state-of-the-art AI systems are built over time, but also in terms of how incentivized states are to innovate their way beyond them.

definitely displays a unwavering regurgitation of liberal propaganda/ corporate promises while whitewashing the history of american misdeeds. Brother's core thesis, rooted in the necessity for requisite orchestration driven by cognitive technology, resonates strongly throughout the book. Lastly, hopefully this was an issue limited to the DoD Library’s copy of the audiobook on Libby, but it was one 13-hour track! These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. Scharre marshals fact after fact to explain not just the technology, but the trends soon to unfold and remake our world.Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Paul Scharre is one of the best books I've read on the topic. Scharre is sensitive to overinflating any one aspect of AI — where one AI success is described, its mirrored failure is also discussed. It is likely the least pleasant, and most frustrating, book fitting that description that I have ever read. The claim that "democratic governments are largely sitting on the sidelines of" disinformation and deepfake struggles doesn't hold up against, for example, British and French governments increasing their surveillance and punitive measures against online "radicalization" or the many American moves against disinformation.

Advanced computer chips are the essence of computing power―control over chip supply chains grants leverage over rivals. The author comes off as somewhat antagonistic towards that country, mostly for that reason, but closes the book with the idea that war isn't inevitable. The reader is reminded at appropriate intervals that machine learning-based systems are fundamentally limited, constrained to the types of data they are trained on and narrowly applicable, are generally brittle, and lack after-the-fact explainability.

They represent intentional design choices that link up with the national ambitions of the UAE, and not coincidentally. AI is reaching into every part of our lives, but one of its most widespread applications is largely unseen to ordinary American citizens. A very useful introduction to and update on AI in war, Four Battlegrounds is very accessible for people new to the topic. The book hedges on exactly which forms AI will take as technology continues to develop and proliferate. He outlined a scary Orwellian piece about how you can't even send WeChat payments that use the dates of the Tiananmen Massacre in them.

But Scharre hedges so much on AI’s future that his stated possibilities for the technology begin to rub uncomfortably against his own thesis: that states have agency in how they deal with AI’s four key components. Governments would be wise to channel and use these tools to enhance national security as an adjunct to their other tools and resources. Interestingly the author proposes some against the grain strategies wrt to cooperation with rather than competing against authoritarian illiberal regimes such as the CCP. This will increasingly be the norm and is problematic when it comes to the weaponization of such tools.The author's ability to demystify the workings of AI for the average reader is commendable, making complex concepts accessible without compromising on detail.