Killer Apps : War, Media, Machine / Jeremy Packer and Joshua Reeves.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Packer, Jeremy, 1970- author.

Reeves, Joshua, author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Artificial intelligence--Military applications.

Artificial intelligence.

Robotics--Military applications.

Robotics.

Armed Forces and mass media--United States.

Armed Forces and mass media.

War in mass media.

War in literature.

Military art and science--Technological innovations--Social aspects.

Military art and science.

Military art and science--Technological innovations.

Social aspects.

United States.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 270 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 2020.

System Details:

Mode of Access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

"From the telegraph and the two-way radio to high-frequency satellites and free-space optical communications, media technologies have changed the way in which troops are organized and deployed, the constitution of armies, and the nature and definitions of warfare itself. Focusing in particular on the rise of artificial intelligence technologies, KILLER APPS shows how media helps to produce enemies and enable war. Co-authors Jeremy Packer and Joshua Reeves offer what they call a polemocentric theory of media escalation, demonstrating that media will never usher in world peace. Quite the opposite-when animated by struggle, media will always escalate towards greater chaos and creative destruction. Each chapter begins with a Department of Defense definition of a military term, and draws from it to theorize the recent escalation of technologies of violence and surveillance. In one chapter, Packer and Reeves critique liberal ideologies of artificial intelligence that suggest it could offer us a feminist and egalitarian future: instead, they demonstrate, AI technologies developed by military contractors serve only to reproduce global capitalism and militarism. Another chapter takes up the historical interpenetration of climate knowledge and warfare to show how global climate catastrophe has enabled and inspired new forms of military and surveillance media technologies. Packer and Reeves trace the history of unmanned military aircraft from explosive balloons used by the Austrian military in 1849, to aerial remote-controlled torpedoes deployed in World War 1, to CIA drone attacks in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan. Finally, they turn to science fiction visions: while authors and filmmakers have often imaged post-apocalyptic moments as a setting for building a liberal future of global harmony, freedom, and unfettered capitalism, Packer and Reeves turn to science fictional visions of robot mutiny and AI-driven nuclear annihilation to consider the role militarized media will have to play in catastrophe. KILLER APPS will interest scholars of media and communication studies, technology studies, and critical studies of militarism and surveillance"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Preface to an inauthentic document

Event matrix

Identification friend or foe

Centralized control / decentralized execution

In extremis

Hostile environment

Autonomous operation

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

Escalation

Vital ground

Unidentified flying objects

Conclusion: Armistice.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Packer, Jeremy, 1970- Killer Apps.

ISBN:

9781478007272

1478007273

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.