5.0 out of 5 stars Great Overview of Ai and (Near-) Future Warfare
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 21, 2023
Author Paul Scharre's new book, Four Battlegrounds, is a useful reference for the many issues surrounding the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) in modern and future warfare. He starts his book with a description of the current landscape, then moves on to what the US and China, the two principal players in this area, are doing. He also touches on a number of related topics such as ethics, the potential to change the nature of warfare, and some worst-case scenarios for the use of AI in future warfare, such as AI being in the decision loop for the use of nuclear weapons. Scharre's book is a good general reference for this important topic and should be of interest to anyone who is concerned with how the incorporation of advanced technologies in next-generation weapons platforms will impact the future of national security.

One Of The Few Books That Gets AI Right

This was a really great book on military AI, AI strategies, and looking towards the future.

This book OPENS with a quote from Putin, THEN a quote from Xi Jinping. It alerted me immediately as some red flags, but those concerns were quickly washed away. I believe the quotes were just to indicate how even these communist countries are prioritizing AI.
That being said, the first chapter detailed a lot of worry and intensity around these authoritarian regimes and what they are doing and planning with AI.

The author also did a really great analysis on Taiwan's chip supremacy (TSMC).

This was an absolutely amazing book that detailed how invasive technologies are changing the lives of people in China especially. It detailed face scanning technology the Uyghur detention and "reeducation" campaigns, along with the social credit score and even gait detection on how you walk.

He also went into great detail about how China uses tactics like in 1984 - controlling the past and the future. He outlined a scary Orwellian piece about how you can't even send WeChat payments that use the dates of the Tiananmen Massacre in them.
A really important book on surveillance capitalism and the ills of communism.

Another really important example in the book is how companies kowtow to China - for example, China requested a whole bunch of companies, specifically airlines, that they list Taiwan as a province of China. One of the companies that fell for this is Air Canada.

It went into some great detail about The amazing rise of ChatGPT

Also some really good points about deepfakes.

Also, I thought this was a really important book on human rights and how you can support human rights as a consumer by carefully looking at what companies you are buying from and what those companies' values are. Big on this front was how certain companies such as buying Hikvision cameras support the facial identity scanning of minorities in China.

This book really covers a ton of amazing topics and really gets some great arguments and key points about the use of AI and the potential future we all face

I especially like how this book focused on geopolitical tensions, military strategy & use, and international relations - for example foreign policy.

Excellent writing on how to protect against espionage and intellectual property theft from foreign actors.

Recommended Reading
Some books I recommend reading alongside this great book:
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony
The Great U.S.-China Tech War
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City

Check this book out! You won't be disappointed!
I look forward to more books by Scharre.

4.8/5