But when you start looking at a lot of the technologies and trends and how they're being

utilized today, though I suppose there is that existential risk out there in the longer horizon

from superintelligence or AI, then your term problem is in fact us, right?

How do we manage forces at scale when warfare is being conducted at machine speed? Can you do air-tasking orders? Can you coordinate frequencies and communications at the scale and speed when you have hypersonic weapons, energy weapons, cyber, moving at machine speed.

Hey, welcome back to the Modern War Institute podcast. I'm John Amble, editorial director at

MWI, and I'm joined on this episode by August Cole. He is the co-author, along with Peter

Singer, of a new book that has just been released called Burnin.

It's a novel about technology and really about humans' relationship with technology.

But although it's a work of fiction, it is really well researched. And the pretty remarkable technologies it includes are actually things that, as you can see in the hundreds of footnotes included in the book, already exist in some

form or are starting to emerge, which gives it a sort of hybrid fiction, nonfiction feel.

In the conversation, we talk about the book and its plot, but August also discusses the way

he conceptualizes fiction as a tool with which to think about and even better understand

the world and the future, including

the future of war. I think it's a great discussion and I hope you enjoy it. Before we get to it, though,

a couple quick notes. First, if you aren't yet following MWI and social media, find us on Twitter,

Facebook, and LinkedIn. It is a great way for us to stay in contact with the incredible community

of listeners and readers who

share our interests in topics related to modern war. And lastly, as always, what you hear in this

episode are the views of the participants and don't represent those of West Point, the Army,

or any other agency of the U.S. government. All right, here's my conversation with August

Cole.

August, thank you so much for joining us.

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