As a New York Times bestseller which has received countless positive reviews, and which features a quote from The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart on the cover saying ‘This book is awesome’, it’s safe to say you may have already heard about ‘Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century‘ by P.W. Singer, but if not, I strongly suggest you take a look at it.
I’d recommend it to anyone with an interest in technology, futurism, AI, etc whether or not you have an interest in the military itself or find warfare abhorrent. Singer is quite open in the fact that he has attempted to write for people interested in technology as much as the military, and does a great job of blending scholarly information, awe at the progress of robotics, and character stories in a readable way.
It’s fairly substantial, with the paperback hitting 436 pages before the acknowledgements and footnotes, and the fact I’ve raced through it in a matter of days shows that it’s pretty digestible despite the fact it’s got a lot of interesting, useful and surprising facts. And there are a lot of references to consumer technology alongside the military applications, whether it’s because iRobot split their time between army products and the Roomba, or because warehouse management technology can be applied to U.S Navy ships.