P.W. Singer, author of the book Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, inspires wonder and fear about real-life advances in robotic technology. Thousands of unmanned drones and ground-based robots have become an essential part of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, changing the nature of war and what combat means to our soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women.Singer said he was motivated to write the book in part because the general public is mostly unaware of the rapid proliferation of war robots. The U.S. went into Iraq with a handful of pilotless planes -- called "drones" or "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" (UAVS). Now, we've deployed over 7,000. We had no unmanned ground vehicles at the start of the Iraq war, now we have over 12,000. And these are just early models, like the Model T Ford or Wright Brothers Flyers, Singer said.

Like airplanes at war, at first these robots were deployed just for observation, but now we're mounting weapons on them, and using them to fight, he said.

"The term 'killer app' doesn't just describe what the iPod did to the music industry," Singer said.

The technology is fundamentally changing the nature of war in every way, as the invention of gunpowder and airplanes did in the past. And, because war is such a fundamental part of human nature that change to the nature of war inevitably changes society around it.

Singer and I had a far-ranging conversation, talking about robots at war and how they're changing society. Listen here:

Conversation With Wired For War Author P.W. Singer

And read InformationWeek's' interview with Singer.

The audio interview was part of a little side-project I'm working on called Copper Robot. It's not affiliated with InformationWeek, but every now and then I do an interview there that might be of interest to our readers here, and when I do I like to let you know about it.

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