Interview with Jeffrey Smith and Zachary Fryer-Biggs, AOMD Episode 025

Welcome to the episode number 25 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast. If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re […]

Welcome to the episode number 25 of the Authors of Mass Destruction podcast. My name is Natasha Bajema, aka WMDgirl on Twitter. I’m a fiction author, national security expert and your host for this podcast.

If you’re interested in science & technology, in reading good fiction, or want to write fiction based on technology, you’re in the right place. Before we get started, a few notes:The views expressed on this podcast are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.The AOMD podcast is proud to be part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Check us out at www.authorsontheair.comIf you enjoy my podcast and want me to keep it up, I hope you’ll become a patron for only a few dollars a month at Patreon at www.patreon.com – p a t r e o n / natashabajemaI’m really excited about this episode about hypersonics and AI for a number of reasons. First, I covered a piece in the NYT on hypersonics in my intro for episode 18. A few weeks ago, I got to interview the author of that piece. Second, I’m currently writing a scholarly paper about the impact of artificial intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. The paper will represent the culmination of my thoughts for the past few years and present a framework for how data, automation, and machine learning tools will shape nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the future. A key piece of the future context for nuclear weapons and AI is the acceleration of war and shortening of decision-making timeframes. This interview dives into some of those issues. Third, in August, the War on the Rocks published a piece entitled “AMERICA NEEDS A “DEAD HAND” by two long-time nuclear deterrence experts. The authors propose that we might need to automate U.S. early warning and command and control systems, which sounds a lot like the doomsday device in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.Finally, I just got back from D.C. where I spent three days with a group of talented people as part of my N Square Fellowship where we’re exploring innovative ways to raise awareness about the threat of nuclear weapons. I told a few of them about my big idea… And no one balked. Yesterday, I started a blog series on my next big project. I believe the time is right to have a serious conversation about the future of nuclear weapons and their interactions with new technologies–artificial intelligence, robotics, cyberspace, and social media. But rather than do so through academic publication, I’m going to do something different. In the next year or so, I hope to contribute to the conversation by creating a musical stage play called… American Doomsday.Let’s get to the interview.