P. W. Singer, author of Wired for War, discusses robots in the military and the intersection between video games and war in this rerun of Episode Three of The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy is hosted by John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley.
You can download the MP3 for this episode here, subscribe to The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast feed here, and browse other episodes here.
Read on for this episode’s fabulous SHOW NOTES! (Note: Show note time signatures may me slightly off, as the show was re-edited prior to this rebroadcast-it’s the director’s cut! This episode originally aired on January 18, 2010, on Tor.com.)
Introduction
0:00 Introduction
0:42 Dave and John introduce the show
Interview: P.W. Singer
01:14 About author Peter Warren Singer, his book Wired for War. and his other works: Corporate Warriors: the Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, and Children at War
02:12 Interview begins
02:22 War robots in use today in air and on land, from the Predator drone to medic robots REX and REV
04:29 Undersea military robots, including the Robolobster. We are not making this up.
05:19 Robots in the new domains: outer space and cyberspace
05:59 Are military robots really a step forward?
07:52 Soldiers and their relationship to military robots
09:43 Combat pilots vs. drone pilots
13:18 Big butts and strong bladders: how technology affects roles in modern warfare
14:25 The relationship between video games and war: games patterned after war, and training soldiers using video games
16:25 A side effect of “militainment”: Avatar Fatigue
16:57 When should we buy our robot attack insurance? On strong AI and self-will
19:09 Ways in which robots could be used against us, and the Open Source Warfare phenomenon
21:12 “Oops” moments with your robot, both comical and tragic
22:13 Robots, the law, and accountability
23:53 Robots, wetware, and the Luke Skywalker Effect: the present and future of cyborgs
26:04 Androids: why would we make robots look and work like us?
28:11 Why is science fiction better at predicting the future than government is?
31:16 End of interview
Dave and John talk about some of the science fiction works mentioned during the interview
32:05 I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, and the Three Laws of Robotics
34:47 Dave talks about one of the short stories in I, Robot, “Liar”
37:03 John talks about Robocop 2 and its Three Directives
39:33 Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. The book, the movie and the Sarcos Suit
41:36 Short story, “Descendent” by Ian Banks
41:59 Armor by John Steakley
43:20 The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
44:47 Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
46:00 Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
47:06 Movies: Terminator and The Matrix
50:22 On robots and eternity: Short story “Sleepy Joe” by Mark Laidlaw and Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
51:53 Dave on Robocop and the portrayal of corporations in films
53:20 More on the influence of Starship Troopers
53:58 More on I, Robot, the movie vs. the film
56:30 John contrasts the way science is portrayed in the work of Michael Crichton and Robert J. Sawyer, and the guys discuss the Techothriller genre
01:00:13 Show wrap-up
Thanks for listening!
John Joseph Adams is an anthologist, a writer, and a geek. He is the bestselling editor of the anthologies By Blood We Live, Federations, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), Seeds of Change, andWastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. His most recent books are The Living Dead 2 and The Way of the Wizard, and he is currently assembling several other anthologies, including Brave New Worlds and The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination. Barnes & Noble.com named him “the reigning king of the anthology world,” and his books have been named to numerous best of the year lists. In addition to his anthology work, he worked for more than eight years as an editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,and is currently the editor of Lightspeed Magazine and Fantasy Magazine.
David Barr Kirtley has published fiction in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Lightspeed,Intergalactic Medicine Show, On Spec, and Cicada, and in anthologies such as New Voices in Science Fiction,Fantasy: The Best of the Year, and The Dragon Done It. Recently he’s contributed stories to several of John’s anthologies, including The Living Dead, The Living Dead 2, and The Way of the Wizard. He’s attended numerous writing workshops, including Clarion, Odyssey, Viable Paradise, James Gunn’s Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and Orson Scott Card’s Writers Bootcamp, and he holds an MFA in screenwriting and fiction from the University of Southern California. He also teaches regularly at Alpha, a Pittsburgh-area science fiction workshop for young writers. He lives in New York.
Snownotes compiled by (former) podtern Christie Yant
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