Hey, welcome to another episode of the Modern War Institute podcast.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and I am really excited for the pretty unique episode you're about to hear.

In it, I'm joined by Martha Wells.

She is the author of a number of books,

but most recently a four-volume sci-fi series called The Murderbot Diaries. The plot of those

four volumes features at its center, a character that is sort of a cyborg, made up in part of

living organic material but equipped with artificial intelligence. Because of that, the book's offered a really useful tool for helping us to think about things like

robotics and AI on the battlefield, how we make use of those technologies, and even how we relate to

the machines that with increasingly sophisticated capabilities become more and more like us, Beings that think, make decisions, and act.

These are all questions that in military and defense circles are going to have to be contended

with, especially in the context of manned-unman teaming.

Before we get to the conversation, just a couple quick notes.

First, this is the final one of a few episodes I

had a chance to record at a conference organized a few months ago by the army's

mad scientist program if you aren't familiar with them I would highly

recommend following the team on Twitter and checking out their blog the mad

scientist laboratory they are doing some really great work on a range of topics

related to the future of warfare.

Second, if you're new to the MWI podcast, make sure you find it on Apple Podcast, Stitcher,

or wherever you get your podcast.

And if you like what you hear, please take a second and give us a rating or leave a review.

And finally, what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants and don't represent those of West Point,

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