This is NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Kia Miyaka-Natis. Happy Friday. You know what that means?

Two books for the price of one pod. Tuckies to the front, these books are for you and for everybody, but especially you.

In a minute, we'll get into the idea someone could track our actual brain activity, which may be more science than fiction.

But first, with the AI future coming, the real cause for concern, according to Paul Shari, is the way governments and militaries might utilize their power.

His new book, Four Battlegrounds, Power and the Age of Artificial Intelligence,

goes deep into the halls of power to explore what just might be to come.

He shared more with NPR's Ari Shapiro.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts,

diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground

bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

At least one billion surveillance cameras are spying on the world right now, according to one estimate,

and more than half of them are in China, though the country has less than a fifth of the world's population.

To sort through data from those hundreds of millions

of cameras, the Chinese government is enlisting the help of artificial intelligence, technology

that can identify faces, voices, even the way someone walks. Paul Shari investigated the country's

surveillance systems for his new book, Four Battlegrounds, Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

He writes that AI has the power to reshape the entire landscape of human governance and warfare,

from enabling the spread of authoritarianism to influencing how wars start and end.

Paul Shari, welcome back to all things considered.

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

...