Defense Futurist Peter Singer

Peter Singer is nationally recognized as on of the premier futurists in the national-security environment. We discuss was future wars may look like.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
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Radio is on the air.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, Oh ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to American Warrior Radio.
This is Ben Bueler Garcia American Warrior Radio broadcast from
the Silencer Central Studios. If you're thinking of getting a
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(00:46):
is legal in your state. They'll complete the paperwork and
ship right to your front door, making silent simple. Slencercentral
dot com. In September of twenty twenty three, we interviewed
Paul Sharire regarding his book Four Battlegrounds, Power in the
Age of Artificial Intelligence. The concepts laid out in that
book were absolutely terrifying to me. I recently saw a
report out of Ukraine stating that Magura V seven sea

(01:09):
drones equipped with US manufactured AM nine sin aired air
missiles successfully shot down perhaps two Russian fighters over the
Black Sea. This would be the first time in history
the A nine missiles were deployed from a sea platform
and the first time a sea drone destroyed fighter aircraft.
In June, inexpensive drones were secretly deployed within the Russian

(01:29):
territory and destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Russian
strategic bomber fleet. Anyone paying attention to realize that the
way we wage wars undergoing a seismic shift. A couple
of months ago, a retired Green Brave friend of mine
sent me a book published in twenty fifteen and strongly
urged me to read it. The title of the book
was Ghostly by Peter Singer and August Cole. The novel

(01:50):
describes the next World War and taken in the context
of what's happened in Ukraine right now, it was chilling.
Peter Singer is not only a best selling author, he
has also been described by The Wall Street Journal as
the premier futurist in the national security environment. The Smithsonian
named him one of the nation's one hundred leading innovators,
and Defense News calls him one of the one hundred
most influential people and defense issues. No author, living or

(02:13):
dead has more books on the Professional US Military Reading List.
Peter currently works as a strategist and senior fellow at
New America, and he's also a professor of practice at
Arizona State University and the founder and managing partner for
an intriguing group called Useful Fiction. Peter, Welcome to American
Warrior Radio.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Appreciate you having me, Peter.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
In addition to your previously mentioned accolades, I just want
to add here kind of an inside baseball thing that
you can also now claim to be the very first
Sun Devil to ever appear on American Warrior Radio. So
I think that's something you should be proud of.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Alright, I'll definitely add that to the bio. Thanks for that.
We had a good football season last year. We'll see
how it goes upcoming.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
For those of you are listening another place around the country,
are on American Forces Network. I'm a graduate of the
u of A, and Peter works at ASU, which is
our main rival here in the state of Arizona. So
there's always you got to get the dig in when
you can now, Peter, I find it interesting. You are
one of the foremost experts in this field, but you
never served in the military. How does that work where
a guy goes from you know, PhD or two or

(03:17):
three to being consulting with the Pentagon?

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Oh gosh. You know, I did a book several years
back called Wired for War, and it was a look
at how we were starting to see robotics used into war.
But the introduction to it was sort of me burying
my soul in my light history. Growing up. I was
one of those kids that if you handed me a stick,

(03:42):
within a couple of seconds, it was either going to
be transformed into a Tommy gunn to defend the neighborhood
against invaders or a light daber to defend the neighborhood
against Darth Vader. And so there was always that part,
but aligned with the real world. Come out of a
military family, so you know, it would spend hours and

(04:04):
hours in my grandfather's study. He was a Navy captain
surf during World War Two in Korea, and you know
was shaped by that. And then my father's experience he
was in the Army, and so you know, those were
shaped by the forces around us. So that was my
origin point and have always been interested in the topic

(04:27):
and then began working researching changes in conflict. My first
book was on private military companies and then moved into
looking at technology issues, and you referenced some of them already,
you know, books on cybersecurity, AI, drones, et cetera. And
so yeah, that's that's my origin point. That's my origin

(04:47):
story on this topic.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, and you certainly seemed like a guy who likes
to keep busy. I mean, there's lots of lots of
things you've got your fingers in. And I just found, honestly,
as I'm a civilian, I always have been. But I
I read, I enjoyed your novel quite a bit, you know.
And the person who referred me to a bit, I mean,
his his word is golden with me if he says
I need to read this book. I read the book

(05:11):
and it was enjoyable but frightening. Am I the only
person that's come back with that reaction? Peter? And this
thing is what ten years old? Now?

Speaker 3 (05:22):
That's actually how the book took off, not just during
its sales, but rocking around the Pentagon was this idea
that it felt scary because it felt so real, So,
you know, for folks that are not familiar with it,
ghost Fleet is the subtitle says, a novel of the
next World War, but it's in a format that's a

(05:43):
little bit different. So it's a novel. It's a story
of what would happen if the United States went to
war with China and Russia. And it all was a
cast of characters, land, air, sea, outer space, cyber space.
But it's also we call the approach useful fiction. So
every single technology is real. The ways that the actors

(06:10):
and the nation state militaries operate reflects doctrine, reflects battle plans.
Even some of the quotes that characters say are literally
from the real world. It's a smashup of novel and
non fiction, and so that that gave it resonance, and

(06:31):
so to give that, you know, specific example, one of
the ways it took off within the military, I was
this was passed on to me was two admirals were
meeting inside the Pentagon and one of them there was
before a meeting, I was in the tank, you know
where the senior leaders gather, and one of them yacht

(06:52):
and the other one said, you know, oh, you know,
why are you tired, and he said, I was up
late last night. This book kept me up and and
you know they started talking about it, and you know,
so that was that kind of that that the way
it went viral but also interested. That's how it had
a real world effect because one of the things that
kept that admiral up on the other one was like,
could that really happen? And I related to a cyber

(07:15):
threat issue and they, you know, like admirals do, made
someone at a lower rank go find out could it
really happen? And well, Ghostly had the footnote to show yes,
it could really happen. So it's that that cross I think,
you know, to me, the most scary is often the
most real, and that's what Ghostly was leaning on.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
And it didn't emphasize this, if I'm not mistaken, Peter,
this was published in twenty fifteen, which was ten years ago,
and you're saying that everything, all the technology featured in
that novel of a futuristic war existed back then. Maybe
not to the extent that it was employed or deployed,
I should say, in the book, but it was all around,
even like the stem packs and those kinds of things.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, we call it the no vapor where role. So
any technology, any weapon system already has to either be
in existence or at least at prototype stage. So you know,
the weapons systems that are in it range from you know,
both United States and Chinese naval ships that were either

(08:18):
already existing or under construction, to certain types of drones again,
whether it's you know, large surveillance ones to the smaller
drones that people have become more familiar with and wors
like Ukraine. Same thing on cyber threats, it wasn't you know,
clicky clack, they can do it. If there was a hack,

(08:42):
it was a kind that had already been shown off
either by deployment in the field. So not to ruin
the stories, but one of the hacks that happens to
the United States was something that we had done to
someone else. Big lesson and war. If you can do
it to someone else, maybe they do it back to you.
Or there were hacks that had been demoed at hacker

(09:04):
conventions like Black Con, et cetera. So you know, again
not and the goal, you know, we talk about it
a little bit. It is a little bit like a smoothie,
so you know, it has the taste of a milkshake.
But hey, there's some good stuff in there in terms
of you'll learn about these issues. You'll learn about this
technology make you think about what should we be doing

(09:25):
in response to it.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your host, Ben Biler Garcier.
We're talking with Peter Singer. When we come back, I
want to follow up more on some of this not
emerging technology anymore. I've just been corrected, but some of
the future things we might see in the future and
and you know, conflicts coming up right away, don't forget.
You can find over six hundred episodes at American Warrior
Radio dot com. Check out Useful Hyphenfiction dot Com as well.

(09:48):
That's one of Peter's website. It's Useful Hyphenfiction dot Com.
Stick around, we'll be right back. Welcome back to American

(10:14):
Warrior Radio. Lasion, gentlemen. This is your host, Ben Bler Garcia.
We're talking with Peter Singer, who is just one of
the I guess a futurist is the word I hear
very often describing your work. Peter and I was talking
but to folks about ghost Fleet, your novel that was
published in twenty fifteen. I just completed it oh, I
don't know, probably a week or two ago and was
really enjoyable, but frightening. How does a guy like you

(10:35):
and or guys like you in August write something like
that and not get a knock on your front door
from the FBI.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
So the first thing is everything as a footnote and
nonfiction reference. So it's already out there, often published by
US military. Even if you look in at things the PLA,
the People's Liberation Army is doing there, there's actually a
lot out in the open. And you know that's both
in terms of projects like you know, Ghostly, we did

(11:04):
a followed book called Burnin that looked at the AI
side of things, but also we've been actually directly working
with partners in Defense Department, some of our five By
allies to take that methodology, that useful fiction methodology and
apply it to real war problems, and again in each
of those situations to avoid getting into any issues of classification. Alike,

(11:28):
they're the ones deciding whether to release it or not
out into the open. So you know, whether it's a
contract announcement of a new weapons system to US Army doctrine,
the field manuals out in the open, and so we're
we're working to give that example. You know, we worked
with a partner on helping to tell the story of

(11:50):
what do people know out of the field manual if
you're looking at certain new technologies and what would they
mean for the US military. We've got a project on that.
And you know, it's not us deciding that situation how
much we want to tell about AI or drones or
cyber it's the partner deciding it. And that's that's how
you stay at Street legal and avoid any kind of problems.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Peter the Ghost Sleet starts the World War three begins
in space, and again I don't want I want people
to buy the book and read it, obviously, but I
don't want to go too much away. But there's also
a character in the book who's sort of a elong
musk Ish guy who becomes a space privateer, And I'm curious,
was that inspider? Does that have any connections to your

(12:34):
book Corporate Warriors, or was there a little dose of
that in there.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
There's a little dose of pulling from a couple of things.
One these real world billionaires trillionaires who have become incredibly
important not just to the economy but US and global politics,
and we wanted to tell that story. But also, you
know the questions of do they always perfectly aligned, does

(13:02):
their view of the world what they want to do?
Does that always align with what a government wants to do? Second,
the i it is you referenced, My first book was
a nonfiction book looking at the rise of private military companies,
so everything from the Blackwaters to the Halliburton kbrs, you
name it. And one of the key lessons of it is,

(13:22):
you know, even when they're working for you, there's never
going to be a perfect alignment. They call it to
be technical principal agent dilemma s ID. You know, whether
you're hiring a private military contractor you're hiring a plumber,
or you're hiring a lawyer, you're hiring them to do
the job for you so that you don't have to
spend the time, or they bring in the expertise, or
you know, they're the ones getting dirty again, whether it's

(13:44):
I'm talking about a private military a plumber. But the
trade off is they've got their own interests, right, they
want to make money. You know, how do you make
sure that they're working to their peak performance every hour?
How do you make sure that the expertise that they bring,
they're doing it the right way. Well, you can spend
all your time and energy monitoring them or learning how
to be a lawyer, learning how to be a plumber,

(14:05):
but then you lose the goodness of outsourcing. And so
we were playing without as well. And then the final
thing we wanted to draw upon the use of private
military contractors. We you know, growing familiar with it, kind
of comfortable with it, and wars like Iraq, Afghanistan, we
wanted to ask the question of Okay, but what about

(14:26):
in a major war, what about in a war conventional conflict,
a World War three? Let's think about, you know, the
role of private military contractors there.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
I don't, Peter, I don't don't know if I'm overstating
this or not. But I've heard I'm going to get
the quote wrong. But I've often heard people say, well,
one of the challenges for the United States is we're
always fighting the last war, not the next war. And
you know, taking from your book and frankly, the stuff
we've seen coming out of Ukraine and to a great extent,
what's happening with Israel right now, and some of the

(14:58):
stuff that just magic happened apparently in Iran. Are we
looking at a fundamental shift? Because the one thing that
strikes me about cyber and drones, it really gives smaller,
less industrial companies almost a not quite a peer to beer,
peer to peer competition now. But I think what we're

(15:19):
seeing in your career right now shows how a smaller
country can really you know, bloody the nose of someone
like Russia or the United States. You know, we really
thought we had it in with all of our tanks
and aircraft cares and you know, submarines. Is that am
I over reacting or is that a very real potential scenario?

Speaker 3 (15:39):
No? I think there's some some very real, uh. I
think almost like systemic changes that are going on around us,
not just in the economy and society, but it's happening
in warfare too, and we can feel it, we can
see these different examples of it. The way I think
about it is it's a little bit like the tectonic plates.

(16:02):
You know that they're they're always moving and then at
certain moments they erupt in an earthquake. And it's sort
of the same happening to us right now. You know,
clearly the ground shifting underneath US, including in warfare, and
certain parts of it are like erupting in these earthquakes
have change and you reference, you know, what we've seen

(16:25):
in Ukraine, what we've seen in Israel, goazl, we've seen
in Iran. And yeah, there's different aspects of it.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
You know.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
One is very clearly you've got these new disruptive technologies AI, drones,
cyber but the effect of them is it's essentially making
the APEX predators wonder if they're now the prey. And

(16:54):
I could be talking about the dominant role of the
US military. Maybe I could be talking about systems, the tank,
the aircraft carrier, all of those, you know, looking around
and going I dominated hold it, am I now the hunted? Right?
And part of that story of whether we're talking about

(17:15):
overall militaries or we're talking about different types of systems,
it's this new technology that's bringing it in. So you know,
if it's the US military worrying that it can loose
the next war to say the People's Liberation Army, well,
you know, the PLA's plan for winning is bringing in
what they call intelligization, large numbers of AI and drones.

(17:37):
Or if you're a tanker. You work in armor and
you're worried about you know, hey, we were dominant, you're
going hold it? What about in Ukraine? And you know
it with small drones taking out tank So that's part
of it. And then the other thing that you put
your finger on is in each of these disruptive technology areas. Again,
you know, whether it's AI or drones or whatever, very

(18:00):
different than say a nuclear weapon Manhattan project or strategic
bombers or ICBMs or aircraft carriers. They have very low
barriers to entry. So it's not just the big boys
that can build and use them effectively. It's you know,

(18:22):
small state actors, non state actors, and that also means
they come in numbers that are not in ones or
twos or tens. But you know we're looking at in
Ukraine right now, we've got both sides deploying tens to
hundreds of thousands of drones per month.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, i'd Petter, I tell you you're not doing a
very good job. Make me feel more comfortable, but I
guess that's your job. So when we come back, I'd
like to talk a little bit more about China and
some of these technologies. Ladies and gentlemen, there's your host,
Ben Bula Garcia will be back with more in just
a seconds to ground. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio.

(19:14):
This is your host, Ben Bueler Garcia. We're coming to
you from the Silencer Central Studios. Silencer Central is the
largest silencer dealer in the world, and for a limited
time they'll even pick up the cost of the tax
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(19:36):
if you need it, making silence simple since two thousand
and five. Silencercentral dot com. Ladies and gentleen, we're talking
with Peter Singer, who's just an all around smart guy,
and the Army named you officially a mad scientist or
they're mad scientist, right.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
They have a program called Mad Scientists where their training
and doctrine draws in outside experts to you think big
but sometimes crazy thoughts.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
What's the going rate for a mad scientist nowadays?

Speaker 3 (20:04):
To get the title, you got to write a couple
of books. So yeah, well I.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Tell you right now. And I said this in my
email Peter, based on my show prep, and look at
all the stuff you've done, I definitely hopefully, you know,
we can get you back back on the show, because
there's lots of stuff to talk about. Just a couple
of days ago, Arizona had a special congressional election to
fill the seat of a congressman who passed away. And
while not the election was a couple days ago, but

(20:29):
just a couple of days ago, Iranian hackers reached the
Arizona Secretary of State's website and replaced the candidate photos
with photos of Ayatola Komani. I don't know what the
purpose behind that was, but the fact that they could
do that is kind of scary. And I think several
years ago they also hacked into a casino in Vegas
somewhere and took a bunch of money, and that, I mean,

(20:51):
that's pretty frightening as well, right, And I think you
and in some of your peers, i've heard the phrase
a cyber pearl harbor, explain to us what.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
That might be.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
We have seen the world become more and more dependent
on computer networks on the Internet, and you know, whether
it's our banking, to communications with our friends and family,
to how increasingly much of our world operates. You know,
your your car is network your thermostat is networked into

(21:22):
a smart grid, you name it. And alongside that, we've
seen more threats and they've come both from criminal actors,
So I think everyone's now familiar with cyber criminals again
going after any of those targets, but we've also seen
state actors and it's something that in particular Russia, Iran, China,

(21:43):
North Korea put a great amount of investment in. Now
they've been doing it both in terms of this sometimes
it's called gray zone. It's basically, you know, staying beneath
the level of outright conflicts, so you know, whether it's
targeting political discourse, elections, or cyber criminals. We've seen Russian

(22:03):
state Link one, We've seen you know, much of Northforea's
economy is now funded by cyber criminals but working on
behalf of the state. So you've got all of that
going on, but you also have the concern of if
there was an outright war, what happens when the gloves
come off? Right. So, as an example, a couple of

(22:24):
months back, it was revealed that hackers linked to the
Chinese government had entered into networks of a variety of
different not just corporations, military facilities, but public infrastructure. You
don't hack into a water system to you know, steal secrets.
You do it to create a beachhead such that if

(22:47):
there was a war to come, then you activate during
that war. But it's also and a lot like you know,
let's be clear, the United States, we engage in cyber
activities around the world too to steal secrets. But also
there's the aspect of kind of the two sides showing
off what they can do to create a little bit

(23:09):
of a sense of deterrence. Hey, don't push me so
far because I'm in your network, but I've not done anything.
But if you push me too far, I will do something.
And so there's been that kind of signaling going on
between all of these different nations. But I think my concern,
I'll just add is in the last roughly six months,

(23:31):
we've seen a pullback in organization and investment in a
lot of the US organizations that defend US in cyberspace,
and that is a real concern. You can almost think
of as like a bit of kin to kind of
you know, you're unilaterally disarming at the very moment that

(23:52):
your foes are showing off everything they can do.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, in some of the interviews I've seen you've done,
it's almost like so much of this Peter is it's
self inflicted wound, and you know what you're talking. It's
almost like the kind of the cyber equivalent of what
used to be the nuclear deterrent. I'm curious. I was
really concerned during the pandemic and just how that showed
how weak our supply chains were and how dependent we've

(24:18):
become on countries that are not that friendly to us.
There's an article in the I think it's the New
York magazine. Yeah, New Yorker magazine was called is the
US Ready for the Next War? And I pulled a
quote other Jovini, a software company hired by the Pentagon,
trace supply chains for US weapons and found that nearly
forty five thousand suppliers were based in China, producing essential

(24:42):
parts including semiconductors with the B two bomber, the Patriot
air defense missile, and the Ohio class submarine. Peter Let
me ask you this. So I love movies and Charlie
Wilson's War. When they were first introduced, Charlie Wilson, Tom
Hanks's character is talking to the CIA guy and says, okay,
who's looking at this Afghanistan thing? Developing a strategy? And
the I says, well, me and three other dudes. Please, Peter,

(25:04):
tell me there's more than you and three other dudes
working on these kinds of things. I mean, as someone
paying attention.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
There's more than that. But the scale of the problem
is just so daunting. You hit it right. We've never
been in a situation in history where two sides that
you know and it's very Look we're not saying war
with China or Russia is inevitable, but it is. These

(25:33):
are nations that we are in the Pentagon zone phrasing.
We're in competition with them. They're a strategic competitor, and
there's a fear that that competition could turn into conflicts.
And that's what you got to plan for, what you
got to be ready for, and being ready for it
creates the terms. So the challenge, though, is you haven't
in history seen supply chains wrapped together where you know

(25:58):
one side is dependent on the other for large parts
of its system. And you went through different military examples,
but guess what, it'd be the same thing on the
civilian side. It'd be even deeper. And so we've got
that challenge and then you have you know, are we
doing it effectively? And you know, almost in response to
your last question, and you know, I was thinking about

(26:19):
the idea like life's tough. Strategy is tough. Warfare is tough.
It's tough enough without shooting yourself in the foot, right,
So that's the you know, So it's it's going to
be challenging. Even if you have an ideal strategy and
you've got all the money in the world, it still wouldn't,
you know, be an easy task. But if you're gonna

(26:41):
shoot yourself in the foot, or if you're going to
have your blinders up ignoring problems, then yeah, it's gonna
be a lot worse.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
I tell you one of my concerns, and clearly you're
more edumacated than I am, Peter. But I've traveled quite
a bit and I've spent some time in China, and
one of my concerns, one of our vulnerabilities, I believe
is that as a nation, the US tends to think
in terms of election cycles, and plan in terms of
election cycles, and budget in terms of election cycles. The

(27:09):
Chinese they're thinking in terms of centuries. And when the
famous now infamous Israeli pager attack or the pages or
cell phones are both, maybe when they just started blowing up,
you know, bad guys, you know, the press of a button.
I think about that. That must have taken years, you know,
from concept to planning to implementation, to deployment and finding

(27:31):
their use. And I read an article recently was talking
about all these solar panels that we've imported from China,
and I might get this wrong, sir, but I think
they alluded to effectively something like a kill switch in
these solar panels. And I get all parent and I
think about, well, if the Chinese wanted to and in
this kind of conflict, all of a sudden, somebody in
Beijing flips a switch and all of our solar goes down,

(27:53):
that could be problematic.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
So you put your finger on a number of different things.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
I told you we've only got thirty seconds for the break,
So do one.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
It's not limited to solar it's any kind of technology
and the other is, you're exactly right. If you're thinking
in terms of months or maybe just a handful of years,
you're not going to be doing a great job at
business or defense strategy.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Okay, I've got a lot of questions for you, so
let's let's take a break. We've got to pay for
the show. We come back, we'll talk some more. Ladies
and gentlemen, there's our host. We're talking with Peter Singer.
Check out pw Singer dot com. Also useful hyphen fiction
dot com. Lots of great stuff out there, and you
definitely are going I want to get informed, don't forget
share these important messages with their friends, and you can
find over six hundred podcasts at American Warrior Radio dot com.

(28:43):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
If you're enjoying our broadcast, please encourage your friends to
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updates on our Facebook, Instagram and ex social media pages.
Thank you, Welcome back to America Warrior Radio Laser. Gentlemen,

(29:15):
this is your host, Ben deeler Garcia. We're talking with
Peter Singer, who is just a very a very bright guy.
He's written numerous best selling books, and the one that
got me onto his radars a book called ghost Fleet.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
If Peter would have listed three or four of our
top vulnerabilities looking forward, what would they be?

Speaker 3 (29:32):
I think we'd break it down between technology, mindset, but
also our sense of self. On the technology side, we
have a wide variety of disruptive technologies that are that
have come along. I don't know if we've made a
full enough embraced telling them. There's there's a lot of
I think it was like some costs. So despite the

(29:53):
Pentagon spending more and more on these systems over the
last not just this administration, but the one before, the
one before, it's still not to the scale that needs
to be. We're still kind of, you know, much of
us stuck in the past. On the mindset side, I
don't think we pay enough attention to vulnerabilities that are

(30:14):
baked into a lot of these technologies. You know, we
were just talking earlier about supply chain networks and cyber threats,
et cetera. As a people were very optimistic, one of
the great things about America. But we also will put
our blinders up on problems that have hit other nations
as if no, that couldn't happen to us too, So
you know the kind of things that the Russians and

(30:35):
the Ukrainians been doing back and forth at each other.
What you were referencing, you know, Israel versus Iron. You know,
let's not think that we're special, unique that it couldn't
happen to us. What are we doing to prevent it?
The third, I don't have to say whether I am
right or left wing to I think persuade much of
your audience that we have incredible deep divisions in America

(30:58):
right now, and it is hard for us to accomplish
much of anything when we have these incredible deep divisions.
But and this connects to some of the work that
we've done the past on social media organization, Like it's
not just that we disagree about, you know, a policy,

(31:20):
it's increasingly we disagree about just the basic facts of it.
So you know, the is this something is something a
problem or not? What happened or not. That's different than
you and I arguing about the best way to solve
that problem and having different political philosophies. We're like a
whole other level right now. And so whatever that big

(31:42):
grand problem is it's very hard for us to come
together on it and to go back to the worries
about conflict. Of course, our enemies are going to exploit
that and you know, pour salt into that wound, find
those divisions. And again it's been happening, you know, even
now when we're not at outright war, the kind of

(32:03):
World War three style with any nation, we've been seeing
it play out, and it would be a lot worse
if there was a conflict. So it so deeply worries me.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
I mean, it's you know, it was playing chess and
three and maybe even four dimensions now, Peter, I know,
one of my concerns of artificial intelligence, and you know,
particularly in the US, sir, where we you know, news spreads,
you know as fast as TikTok. You know, as a
teenager thumbs on TikTok. And I saw an interview where
you were talking about the colonial pipeline hack and you

(32:32):
reference it. It wasn't just the hack, but it was
what happened afterwards.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, Colored Pipeline is a great example of how false
information online can can still go viral and have a
real world effect. So you know, in that situation, the
company does get hacked, but it gets hacked in its
financial system. It's not that you know, there was a
shortage of gasoline or anything like that. However, word spreads

(32:59):
online and you'll recall like roughly a third of the
United States. It's along the eastern seaboard. You have, you know,
run on gas stations. People are standing online and there's
no real need for it, but we've been driven to
that by misinformation. Now, think what an actor who's deliberate
about it, which is the idea of disinformation, you know,

(33:21):
looking at that example, can go hmm, all right, I
see Americans are pretty vulnerable in that way. How can
I do this? And then you have what you mentioned,
which is what if you add an AI, and it
might be AI making hyper realistic content what they're called
deep fakes, you know, so you reference like it's a
video that looks really realistic of a politician saying something

(33:42):
when they're not. We have already seen lots of examples
of that. Or it's the other part of AI, where
it's what we call micro targeting. It's knowing about you,
knowing your kind of psychological profile, or your likes or dislikes.
It's it's when you go online and there's those ads

(34:02):
that pop up that you know, know what you've been shopping,
what makes you emotionally respond? Now, think about all that
that you know convinced you to watch that YouTube clip
or you know, buy that new piece of gear for
hunting whatever it was, and go huh okay, So they
could they could manipulate me in that way. Well, guess what,

(34:24):
you know, move that marketing side over to politics, and
we've already seen that move into elections. And like, the
worry is what happens as actors that are foreign advisaries
get more and more skillful at it, and then a
big worry again is what happens is we become more
and more divided, more and more distrustful, and we pull

(34:47):
away from the institutions that had previously been investigating these
foreign actors trying to prevent foreign actors from taking those things.
And that's that's something again that we've seen over the
last year, as we've seen kind of more interest on
foreign actors and attacking, but also a weakening defense is
here against it.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
We've got about three minutes left. Is there any good news?

Speaker 3 (35:10):
If money my my business partner, and also I've written
a number of these books with August Cole. He describes
himself as a optimist Darien to the Abyss, and you know,
I'm going to try and steal from that a little bit.
We're talking about a lot of bad things, but are
we talking about them in terms of a woe is me?
There's nothing we can do? No. The whole point of

(35:33):
you know, whether you write a book to entertain and
educate or you know, I do an interview with you
and talk about, you know, things we need to be
aware of, or trends that are happening. The idea of
it is that, hey, let's understand, let's identify, then let's
go after it. And so that's that that optimism side.
You know, if you if you were truly pessimistic, you

(35:55):
wouldn't even you know, think it was worth writing or
reading about east Rail trends.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
I tell you what, after reading Ghostly, I want to
curl up in a fatal position on my living room
floor under a weighted blanket with two boxes of Girl
Scout cookers. And that's how that. I don't know if
that was the impact you were looking for, Peter, but
it certainly.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
But hey, you know the positive side. There are certain
things in Ghost Fleet that will not come true because
folks in the US military read it. There was a
certain part that happened in the book, and they said, Okay,
what can we do to prevent that bad thing from happening?
And that's that approach what we call again useful fiction,
is can you use this scenario to either paint a

(36:34):
positive future what can I do to make that come true?
Or a negative future? Wow, I don't like that future.
What am I going to do to keep that from happening?
And so again it's the power of narrative to change
the real world.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
I tell you one of my main concerns, and I'm
not a technical person. I don't even know if my
roomba vacuum cleaner is spying on me or not. But
I'm okay with that. Probably I've got a pretty boring life,
so I'm not worried about that. But real quick, if
I always want to have a pilot in the cockpit,
that's maybe I'm old school that way now, But if

(37:07):
it seems to me if I've got an autonomous system, computers, robots,
all this stuff, you know, what's to keep the enemy
from hacking into that system and sudden turning those weapons
against me. Is that a very real threat? I assume.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Anything that is networked is potentially vulnerable to an actor
going after it, trying to hack it, trying to cut
off communications. Again, whether we're talking about a drone or
a dry releist car or your RAMBA that said, do
you want to be in a world where you know,

(37:45):
to use the plane example, it's only human pilots and
they don't add GPS, and they're navigating, you know, with
a map to you and I when we're on vacation.
You know, we'll remember going back to having the flipbooks
and like now is GPS to find where we're going.
You and I are doing an interview right now where
I'm not physically in the studio with you. We are

(38:07):
doing it remotely. That's all the good stuff that technology brings.
So what you want to do is, you know, embrace
that technology, but not forget about the security side. Not
forget about also the you know what's appropriate, not just
for security reasons, but you know, maybe I want a
human pilot in there, not just for fear o at hack,

(38:27):
but like if I'm thinking in the US military, they're
the ones who might make a more ethical decision. So
it's the same thing about you know, if I'm thinking
about surgery, so uh do I want a robot surger
and maybe a doctor? And here's the endpoint of this
is repeatedly they find that there's certain things that machines

(38:49):
are really good at, and there are certain things that
humans find quite simple that machines are terrible at, and
that work's also an opposite. And whether we're looking at
chess or mat or warfare, it keeps turning out that
the team, the human and the machine together are the
most effective.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Peter, that's great. I really appreciate you spending your time
with our listener city. I think I probably am still
going to throw my room out into the trash, but
that's my call. Peter. Thank you so much for spending
your time with us, and hopefully we can have you
back again soon.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Don't forget folks, check out pwsinger dot com also a
useful hyphen fiction dot com. Lots of great stuff there.
Really appreciate you spending time with us. Until next time,
Ladies and gentlemen, all policies and procedures are the remaining place.
Take care you've.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Been listening to American Warrior Radio. Archived episodes may be
found at americanwarriorradio dot com or your favorite podcast platform.