While there’s some really scary science fiction depictions of AI and robotic warfare. What’s actually happening in the world is even scarier.
Monsters of Man is a 2020 Australian science fiction film about a robotics team testing a new military robot for the CIA in Southeast Asia hunting drug traffickers that becomes sentient and goes rogue, attacking nearby villagers.
“A robotics company is hired by a corrupt CIA Major (Neal McDonough) trying to position themselves to win a lucrative military contract.
The company illegally airdrops four prototype robots into the middle of the Golden triangle to perform a live field test on unsuspecting drug traffickers. However, a group of volunteer doctors witness the robots going rogue, killing an entire village, and become hunted by the robots to cover it up. What the CIA didn’t know is that Mason (Brett Tutor), a former Navy SEAL, was living in the village, and seeks revenge on the robots.”
Here’s the movie trailer.
Kill Decision was written by Daniel Suarez and published in 2012. For a more detailed explanation of the book, here’s a Wikipedia link. I’m a huge Daniel Suarez fan and read this book when it came out.
“Linda McKinney studies the social behavior of insects—which leaves her entirely unprepared for the day her research is conscripted to help run an unmanned and automated drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into a faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention. Together, McKinney and Odin must slow this advance long enough for the world to recognize its destructive power. But as enigmatic forces press the advantage, and death rains down from above, it may already be too late to save mankind from destruction.”
May 15, 2026 New York Times Article By Andrew E. Kramer
“Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s 35-year-old defense minister, sees futuristic military technology as crucial to his country’s survival.
As Ukraine’s 35-year-old defense minister strolled about in tennis shoes, jeans and a fleece, gazing at displays of his country’s latest crop of oddball weapons, he paused to eye one gigantic, ungainly new device.
It was a drone with muscular carbon fiber arms stretching eight feet to each side, propellers the size of scythes, and a sprawl of wires, protruding antennas and Velcro straps. The drone substitutes for a 155-millimeter howitzer, carrying shells to targets and dropping them.
“Can you make it bigger?” the minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, asked the drone’s developers during a recent defense exhibition. They were working on it, they replied.
The future of warfare is being written in Ukraine, and Mr. Fedorov, a technology evangelist who is four months into his job, is one of its authors.
In the same way that apps remade taxi services and food delivery, Mr. Fedorov believes that warfare is ripe for disruption. That, he says, means offloading the fighting as much as possible onto machines — including, someday, those that can make lethal decisions on their own.
“The world needs security, and only autonomous weapons can ensure it,” Mr. Fedorov said in an interview in his office at the Ministry of Defense. “Autonomous weapons are the new nuclear weapons. Countries that possess them will be protected.””
NOTE: On July 16, 2026 Mykhailo Fedorov was removed as Ukraine’s Defense Minister. Many Ukrainian citizens protested this move.
From CBS News
This news video shows interviews with US Military members and shows AI weapons and robots in action. This is the future of warfare.
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I’m working on a new novel, Patriot Enforcer. This new story is filled with near future military and political action. The book features a new female protagonist, TEA (Temporal Enforcement Agency) Commander Jac Remington. She’s a military pilot and a time traveler. Her job is to keep the Patriot Party in power. By controlling the past, the Party can control the future. It’s a job Jac never wanted and now she’s fighting back.
The image above is an AI book cover mockup. As I’m writing I keep this image up on my second monitor to keep me motivated. It was an interesting and fun experience to create this using AI and bringing my vision to life. If you look closely, you can tell it’s AI created as a couple of the image details are off. When it’s time to create the real book cover I’ll work with a human cover artist, the same person who created the cover for my recent novel, Electromagnetic Assault. I found it interesting that in the process of creating this AI book cover mockup using the image functionality in ChatGPT, even the AI strongly suggested working with a professional cover artist for technical reasons.
I’ll write monthly posts over the summer and plan on getting back to weekly or every other week posts after Labor Day.
Enjoy the summer weather!
My debut novel, Electromagnetic Assault, is available for purchase in all three formats:
Print book
ebook
Audiobook
You can order now from Amazon.
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