America's first AI-fueled war is unfolding. How'd we get here?

Fresh Air

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4.3 • 36.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

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Summary

‘Project Maven’ is the story of how the U.S. spent a decade building an AI warfare system that's now being used in the war in Iran. Author and Bloomberg journalist Katrina Manson reveals the people behind that mission, and their belief that AI could make war more precise and save lives. She spoke with Tonya Mosley about the ethics of this technology. A troubling research study found AI models placed in simulated nuclear crisis scenarios chose the nuclear option 95% of the time. Also, Carolina Miranda reviews a Los Angeles art installation that harkens to the old days of cinema.

Also, Carolina Miranda reviews a Los Angeles art installation that harkens to the old days of cinema.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley. America's first AI-fueled war is unfolding right now. Over the last three
0:08.6	weeks, the U.S. and Israel have launched strikes against Iran, hitting 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours
0:15.8	alone, nearly double the scale of the 2003 shock and awe campaign in Iraq.
0:21.5	The system helping to enable much of this is called the Maven Smart System,
0:26.4	and running inside of it is clawed from the company Anthropic,
0:30.8	an AI model that millions of people interact with every single day.
0:35.2	On the very first day of the war, a U.S. Tomahawk missile struck a girls'
0:39.8	elementary school in southern Iran, killing more than 165 people, most of them schoolgirls.
0:46.9	A preliminary military investigation found the strike likely resulted from outdated intelligence.
0:53.2	And while the role of AI has not been confirmed,
0:56.6	the Pentagon is still investigating whether Maven played any part. At the center of this story,
1:02.7	is a little-known Marine colonel named Drew Kukor, who spent decades fighting to bring AI to the
1:08.8	battlefield and whose obsession has quietly changed the
1:12.0	future of war. My guest today has been reporting on Kukor for years and how we got here.
1:18.8	Katrina Manson is an award-winning Bloomberg reporter who covers cyber, emerging tech, and national
1:24.9	security. Her new book is Project Maven, a marine colonel, his team,
1:30.6	and the dawn of AI warfare. Katrina Manson, welcome to fresh air. Thanks for having me.
1:37.5	You have been reporting on this Maven smart system for a couple of years now, and now you are
1:44.0	watching it used in a real-time war.
1:47.3	Take us a little bit into how the Maven smart system actually works and specifically
1:53.2	what Claude's role is inside of it. How do those two things work together?
1:58.7	If you imagine looking at something like Google Earth, you begin to have an
	...

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