Ford’s ‘Rise of the Robots’ is not about the military, but it may well be the most important military book in many years

 

Best Defense is in summer reruns. Here is an item that originally ran on June 17, 2016.

That’s my conclusion after reading this book (btw, on the recommendation of a very smart former Marine intelligence officer).

The argument of the book is that as machines learn how to learn, they are getting “dramatically better at performing specialized, routine, and predictable tasks.” And because most jobs are mainly made up of such work, the machines will be able to replace most workers. We’ve already seen this happen in manufacturing, but it is beginning to happen in white collar tasks, such as writing or radiology.

He also suggests that weaponry may change dramatically. For example, he posits a carbon-based material that will be 100 times stronger than steel, and far lighter.

I suspect there is more information in this book about the future of military operations than everything being written by TRADOC.

Image credit: Amazon