Four Battlegrounds

Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

By: Paul Scharre

Narrated by: Steve Marvel

Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

An award-winning defense expert tells the story of today's great power rivalry—the struggle to control artificial intelligence.

A new industrial revolution has begun. Like mechanization or electricity before it, artificial intelligence will touch every aspect of our lives—and cause profound disruptions in the balance of global power, especially among the AI superpowers: China, the United States, and Europe. Autonomous weapons expert Paul Scharre takes listeners inside the fierce competition to develop and implement this game-changing technology and dominate the future.

Four Battlegrounds argues that four key elements define this struggle: data, computing power, talent, and institutions. Data is a vital resource like coal or oil, but it must be collected and refined. Advanced computer chips are the essence of computing power-control over chip supply chains grants leverage over rivals. Talent is about people: which country attracts the best researchers and most advanced technology companies? The fourth "battlefield" is maybe the most critical: the ultimate global leader in AI will have institutions that effectively incorporate AI into their economy, society, and especially their military.

©2023 Paul Scharre (P)2023 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Peripheral Insight into Military AI

For beginners this book offers a good peripheral insight into what the American military is working on in terms of automation, productivity improvement and process streamlining. However, just as in Plato's Cave the general population is only seeing the shadows of the great work occuring in Government labs and especially the private sector. If this book is new information to you, it's already at least 5 years away from the bleeding edge.

Too long, nothing new

Way too long for a book that talks about what could happen (or not).

Insights into AI military applications and possibilities

Worthy of an audible credit & listening time. Excellent insight into military and intelligence applications.
Could be better edited to focus on technology, applications and potential. Often drifts into policy & geopolitics which are better covered in other books.

A clear explanation of this rapidly evolving space

With a clear breakdown of AI into the 4 battlespaces of data, computing power, talent, and institutions, Sharre identifies the policy choices the Administration should be considering/taking now. It left me with the very uneasy feeling that the US - and other democratic nations - do not have the institutional/governance latitude that more authoritarian and autocratic states do to win this race. And, as was stated in the book - and perhaps believed by many - Putin said, "the nation that wins the AI race will rule the world". Time to improve our game or learn to speak Chinese.

Possibly written by AI?

One could be convinced this book was written by AI itself. The overuse of fear mongering lines gets beyond old. The author could have stopped his blathering many chapters ago and simply repeats the same things over and over.
The narrator struggles with trivia lexicon and unfortunately adds little value to the tech worlds’ silly acronyms and nuances.

Anti Trump Rant

This book is an anti Trump rant that reads like an application to the Biden administration. The author’s assessment of AI students studying in America is quite naive as well. He assumes that Chinese students who remain in the US to work in the AI field are not beholden to the CCP. In fact the Chinese government has many mechanisms to compel obedience. There is a lot of good information on AI implications in regard to military applications but the political bias is too distracting.