War in the Age of Intelligent Machines

by Manuel DeLanda

Book Overview

In the aftermath of the methodical destruction of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, the power and efficiency of new computerized weapons and surveillance technology have become chillingly apparent.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0942299752
• ISBN13: 9780942299755
• Release Date: December 1991
• Publisher: Zone Books
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Interesting and informative

Picture the following scenario: two countries, call them A and B have declared war on each other for reasons of their own (usually of course without moral justification). A begins the conflict by sending over to B's territory hundreds of thousands of entities that look like houseflies. Equipped with wings and tiny sensing devices, these entities swarm all over Country B and perform surveillance by communicating with each other and with A's central command. This is followed by a massive cyber attack on B, wherein its computing facilities and networks are flooded with intelligent network agents that work their way through B's networks and stymie their ability to route useful information. Once B's networks have been effectively made useless, A sends over thousands of ground-based and air-based robots, all of which are carrying ordinance and can identify enemy targets and destroy them as they see fit. These machines are able to communicate with other and coordinate attack plans, and they use both explosive power and cognitive disrupters to mentally confuse B's military infrastructure. At no time in this conflict was there any human in country A involved, except perhaps as a spectator. In fact, even the strategies and attack plans, as well as the decision to go to war against B in the first place, were the responsibility of intelligent machines. Country B, not having the same technological capabilities as A, is effectively decimated within a matter of days, if not hours. This hypothetical and future-pointing scenario of the use of intelligent machines in warfare is one possible one that is not too far away from present capabilities. The author of this book gives his views on machine warfare, at least from the standpoint of what was available technologically at the time of publication of the book. It is an interesting book, possibly terrifying some readers, while inducing some to seek further information on just how effective machines would be in actual warfare. In this regard, this reviewer summarized the main points in the book as follows: Machine Autonomy Many times in the book the military is described as supporting the notion that the machines be given the authority to decide whether or not to destroy a target. Although there are no doubt many in the military that show support, there is still a great deal of resistance to this notion. Handing over to the machines the power to conduct a war as they see fit is still an idea that is hotly debated in the military and this is likely to continue unabated in the near future. The technology for conducting an autonomous machine war was not available at the time of publication of this book, but it is now. However the deployment of this type of technology, like many others, has been stymied by human anxieties and moralistic musings. But, as the author points out, a similar reluctance was shown historically in handing over control of battlefield events to the individual soldier. The author's use of lang

military technologies = emergent systems

Manuel DeLanda's preeminent virtue as a scholar is the way in which he applies the ideas of complexity theory (emergence, feedback, etc.) to the historical record, and this book follows this template, looking at moments where technological developments (the conoidal bullet, wireless technology) spur military systems to evolve (a process which, in turn, triggers other armies to evolve in response). If you accept this premise (fail to at your peril), it naturally suggests that the militaries of today will one day evolve even further. So in addition to sketching out historical instances of this sort of thing, DeLanda spends a lot of time drawing attention to contemporary developments in technology or military theory that might be putting us on the road to future phase shifts that might spell Bad News for soldiers and civilians alike. Artificial intelligence, RAND-style war game simulators, and predatory machines (of the sort outlined in DARPA's "Strategic Computing Initiative") all come in for an extended critique, although DeLanda seems more optimistic about technological systems that don't take human beings "out of the loop" (the book ends with an appreciation of humanist interface designer Doug Engelbart). All in all, this book is pretty essential reading for anyone interested in the "machine" part of the war machine, although it could definitely benefit from a little revision and expansion: some of the Cold War anxiety undergirding the book has lost some of its edge in the intervening years, and I could stand to lose some of it in favor of having DeLanda as a guide through past two wars (although War was published in 1991, Desert Storm hardly ranks a mention, a little odd, given the use of Israeli-built Pioneer UAVs in that conflict).

A really good book, though by a non-rigourous popularizer...

De Landa in the book puts together something that is both very impressing in unexpected ways and wholly disappointing in very predictable ways. As to substance, what he does is neat and innovative for what is, essentially, a popular book in an unread subgenre; it's of the same order as DJ Spooky CDs (more or less academic in a popularly predictable sort of way). And, again, like DJ Spooky, De Landa is REALLY smart but in a dilettente-sortish way; I know from having gone there that he is a professor at Columbia-- I'm not sure in what discipline (architecture[?]) but his class, I'm sure, is mind boggling and fun.....And here come this book's problems. Because of the scope of what he takes on, he makes some little mistakes. My academic background is in political economics; he misspells an author's name for the whole of the text (Douglass North has two 's's). That makes me a little scared of what other little mistakes he makes, or if he makes BIG mistakes that because of this work's broad scope I'd never catch.This book is a definate must-read; his '1000 years of Non-linear history' by all accounts is even more amazing (including my own!) and this is a really, really smart book.Buy this!

Must reading for wireheads

De Landa strikes me as a popularizer, but what he lacks in theoretical rigor he more than makes up for with discipline, serious intent, and sheer vision. Best antidote in print to the kind of mostly ignorant, ahistorical cyberphilia that dominates too much of "Wired" and other ongoing public discussions of our technological future. If you like this, you must not miss "A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History", which advances his methods and insight to a much wider, even more significant level.

An excellent and widely-focussed book

This is an amazing piece of work that brings together many diverse fields of study into a remarkable, comprehensive view of humanity's technological and industrial development. highly reccommended for anyone interested in humanity's relationship to the things it makes, and everyone else. A little technical/academic at times, but overall a brilliant work