Like the authors’ previous book, “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War,” “Burn-In” is a blend of fiction and facts that explore how technology will shape the future. The science fiction thriller showcases over 300 technological trends that the authors believe will push the United States into a new industrial revolution. The story revolves around an FBI agent and its robot partner working to stop a cyber-terrorist who has taken control over the nation’s capital.

Singer, a strategist and senior fellow at the non-partisan think tank New America, spoke with Chiara Vercellone about what inspired the book, the response from officials how the duo researched it.

This interview has been edited for brevity.

C4ISRNET: This novel blends fictional characters with extensive research on what technology might be like in the future. You show how AI might have an effect on everything, from politics and economy to our society. Why is this realistic in such a short amount of time?

SINGER: We conducted research on everything from compiling the reports on which jobs will be automated, to Amazon patent applications, to interviews with AI scientists, but also people who worked on the water system of Washington D.C. We even did site visits to inside the White House.

We used that to essentially project forward not just how AI and robotics are going to be used in your city, your business and your home, but also some of the, frankly, scary new vulnerabilities and trends that they are going to introduce. What are some of the security threats that we’re going to be wrestling with, whether it’s in your home or how you think about it for an entire city?

C4ISRNET: The book is set 20 years from now. Is that the right time frame for the development of all encompassing AI ?

SINGER: We had a “no vaporware” rule. Every single technology, every single trend, every single scene in the book had to be pulled from a technology project that is already in motion right now: A technology that already exists or a research project that is already happening, a cyberattack that may not have happened in the U.S. but has happened somewhere else, or has been something that researchers have proved is possible. And, honestly, that kind of grounding, frankly, makes it even more compelling and scarier.

C4ISRNET: As artificial intelligence can be used for good to help defend against cyberattacks, it can also be used to carry out these attacks. As the book shows, the FBI uses AI to solve cases more efficiently but D.C. has been taken hostage by a cyberterrorist using the same technology. Are there any risks that officials are taking today in funding the development of this technology?

SINGER: I think of when we got computers and they’ve move to a point where we don’t even kind of notice them around us anymore. When you go into your kitchen, there are tons of little red lights of different things that are computerized, but we don’t think of them as computers anymore.

Relative to AI, so much of the attention has been on this revolt of the robots. But one of the things that we play with in the book is that we’re seeing all these applications, but we’re also not preparing our economy and our society for these changes that will come. Industrial revolutions are really traumatic: We’re going to see everything from job displacement to new political ideologies, even extremist ones, and we’re not preparing for that. Even more directly related to the development of AI, we’re recreating almost all the mistakes that we made with the regular Internet a generation ago. Even if the internet brought a lot of incredible things, we didn’t think about security and the development of it, and that created a lot of consequences. And we’re doing the very same thing right now, as we wire up our cities, our homes, into what is now an Internet of Things and an increasingly AI-fueled Internet of Things.

C4ISRNET: You and August Cole have been invited to brief the book’s lessons to officials at the White House, Congress, CIA and at the Pentagon. What were those conversations like?

SINGER: For our past book, “Ghost Fleet,” we got to do everything from White House briefings to go to the Joint Chiefs conference room inside the Pentagon, and the Navy now has a $3 billion shipbuilding program that’s called Ghost Fleet. And the same thing has happened with “Burn-In.” Even before it was published, we were able to brief some of its lessons to groups like the Joint Special Operations Command to the NSA and Cyber Command and as you and I are speaking right now, there’s a new government report called the Cyber Solarium Commission. It’s a bipartisan commission, and they issued a major report of ways to reset U.S. cybersecurity strategy for the future. And it actually begins with a scene written by August Cole and I. So, in many ways, Congress has taken the world of “Burn-In” and moved it into official government reports. They wanted a way to share real cyberthreats, and what they didn’t want to happen is what happened to the various reports before 9/11 that warned about the attack but that nobody listened to until after the fact. So, they asked us to help with visualizing that world with the idea that it might emotionally compel them to not make the same mistake.

C4ISRNET: What was the process of deciding which technology was developed enough to think it could become a threat in the future?

SINGER: We would first build up a baseline of understanding and try and draw upon the wisdom of the crowd. For example, when we were looking at the question of which jobs are likely to be automated, we actually built, as far as I’m aware, the first data set that brought together every job prediction report, around 13 different predictions in total. It included everything from what the World Bank says to what consulting companies say. That gives you that factual grounding, and then you have to put your fiction hat on and you say, “okay, of all of these, which ones are not just the most important to talk about, but are the most interesting and compelling to talk about.” So the husband of the main character is a way that we use to illustrate that many people when they think about automation, they think about a factory worker or losing their job or maybe a truck driver, something blue collar but the data shows that it cuts across not just blue collar, but also white collar. So, we chose to make the character, a contract lawyer who’s been automated, and that’s not just to show that white collar jobs are at risk here, but it allows you to have that character hit some more compelling human themes.

t’s really interesting what happens when you read the reports and plans but also talk to not just the Silicon Valley engineers, but all the way up to the billionaires, is there’s this incredible and rightful excitement at the world that they’re creating. But there’s also sometimes a failure to appreciate that their Utopian visions can sometimes seem very dystopian to other parts of society. And you can see this for example, with facial recognition, where they’ll talk excitingly about how you’re going to use it in a restaurant and use it in a train station, and all the money that’s going to be made. And then you pull back and think through everything, from how will the government use this? How do people with a different point of view that the police think about mass scale of face recognition? How does this change on our personal relationships? You think it’s great that the greeter to the store will have automated face recognition, and that they’ll be able to call me by name as I enter. But how am I going to think about that person? Am I going to think of them as friendlier or is it just the fact that I know the computer gave them my name? The visions of the future can be Utopian, but it can also feel really creepy in other ways.

C4ISRNET: How long has this book been in the works?

SINGER: The timeline from when you provide the final version of the book to the publisher, and then when it actually comes out in the stores is about nine months. So, we turned in “Burn-In” in fall of 2019 and it’s coming out in summer 2020, and that’s just the way the book business works.

The challenge of this blend is that there are so many things that that were happening, that are actually a scene or a moment from the book. We would start tweeting them out, calling him a #BurnInbookmoment. And sometimes they were something that was cool and exciting maybe a robot that we write about in the book actually being deployed. But sometimes it was something rather scary, a certain kind of attack that had been researched now actually starting to happen.

In the longer term, there might be a problem with the technology in the book. I’ll give you a an example: In one of the scenes, there is a drone, and it’s pretty clear it’s an Amazon drone that flies overhead but we don’t name if by company, but we describe it and it has a footnote it’s Amazon’s patent for the drone. We didn’t dream up that it had this number of rotors, but this is Amazon’s literal plan for it. Now, five to ten years from now, Amazon might change that plan, and they may plan for it to be a six-rotor trial and it turns out it’s a four-rotor trial or something. That’s where the technology could be thrown off in time, but we were pretty careful.

The U.S. contributed about 35 percent of all the world’s arms exports during that five-year time period, partly supported by the increased demand for American advanced military aircraft in Europe, Australia, Japan and Taiwan, said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at SIPRI.

The study found that the U.S. provided major arms — defined by the think tank as air defense systems, armored vehicles, missiles and satellites, among other materiel — to 96 countries in those five years, with half of the weapons going to the Middle East.

From 2015-2019, Russia’s major arms exports decreased by 18 percent; France’s increased by 72 percent, making it the third largest exporter; and Germany’s increased by 17 percent, making it the fourth largest exporter.

Worldwide arms exports rose nearly 6 percent in 2015-2019 from 2010-2014, and increased 20 percent from since 2005-2009, SIPRI said.

Arm exports to countries in conflict in the Middle East increased by 61 percent in 2015-2019 compared to 2010-2014, the study showed. Saudi Arabia, the country to which the U.S. exported the most arms, was the largest importer globally in 2015-2019. The kingdom’s imports increased 130 percent compared to the previous five-year period. Armored vehicles, trainer aircraft, missiles and guided bombs were among the leading arms purchased by the kingdom.

Despite attempts in Congress to restrict arms exports to Saudi Arabia, the delivery of major arms, including 30 combat aircraft ordered in 2011, continued in 2019 as the U.S. provided 73% of Saudi Arabia’s imports.

In May, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration to push through an $8 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries for precision-guided bombs and related components. In July, he said blocking the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia would “weaken America’s global competitiveness and damage the important relationship [the United States] share with [its] allies and partners.”

U.S. arms exports to Europe and Africa increased by 45 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in 2015-2019. U.S. arms exports to Asia and the Oceania region decreased by 20 percent, as a result of fewer arms exports to India, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Since 2018, the U.S. has exported almost 100 major weapons to international organizations like the United Nations, the African Union and NATO, the report said, noting that Russia did not send weapons to these organizations.

Among the top 10 arms exporters outside Europe and North America, Israel and South Korea showed the biggest increase in exports. Israeli arms exports increased by 77 percent in 2015-2019 — a record for the country, according to the study. South Korea, which showed a 143 percent increase during that same time period, more than doubled its number of export clients.

The two companies are the latest addition to Northrop Grumman’s nationwide team devoted to replace the Minuteman III with next-generation missiles, as the company announced in September its collaboration with hundreds of companies across the defense, construction and engineering industries.

“Together, this expanded team has the capacity, capability and credentials needed to deliver – on time – a safe, secure, reliable and effective nuclear deterrent capability for the U.S. and its allies for the next 50 years,” said Greg Manuel, vice president of Northrop Grumman’s Ground Based Strategic Deterrent team.

Bechtel, an engineering, construction and project management company, will provide construction and integration, and launch system design, according to the announcement. Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, which specializes in unmanned systems and missile defense, will provide vehicle transporters.

Northrop Grumman is the de facto winner of the $85 billion contract, expected to be awarded in the fourth quarter of 2020, after Boeing declined to bid on the program by the Dec. 13 deadline. Boeing claimed Northrop Grumman had an advantage to offer the lowest-cost system, thanks in part to its acquisition of one of only two U.S. solid-fuel rocket motor manufacturers. Boeing proposed, unsuccessfully, that the Air Force demand a joint team be formed between the two companies.

The Air Force said it will proceed with “an aggressive and effective sole-source negotiation,” according to a statement released in December.

Members of Congress have expressed concern over a sole-source contract. House Armed Services Committee Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., suggested the Air Force has shown bias toward Northrop Grumman and questioned the need for the program.

“It is very troubling that it’s going to be a sole source contract,” Smith said at an event sponsored by Ploughshares Fund in October. “The thing to do would be to address the concerns that Boeing raised about the procurement process. Because, if Boeing is to be believed, they didn’t say ‘We just can’t do this anymore.’ They said the process wasn’t fair.”

In August, Northrop Grumman broke ground near Hill Air Force Base on a new facility that will serve as the headquarters for the company’s workforce, which will add thousands of jobs in the state of Utah, according to the release.

Under the 14-month-long contract, Persistent Systems will provide “a robust, secure, and high-throughput communications network” for robotic and other autonomous systems during Manned-Unmanned Teaming operations (MUM-T), which combine intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions with traditional combat support operations.

The contract was worth $5 million. Brian Soles, vice president of business development for Persistent Systems said “it’s very plausible for [the U.S. Army] to have these manned-unmanned teaming relationships in the future.”

Such a network will allow the Army to continue with its next-generation Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle that can link up with as many as four unmanned remote combat vehicles, according to the release.

Persistent Systems has already developed a computer-like network, the MPU5, able to create secure networks anywhere without relying on a vulnerable central node, while keeping teams connected in real time, according to the company. The Army has been evaluating the MPU5 for over a year while testing it with remote combat vehicles.

Today, leaders often rely on satellites for long-distance communications, which can cause the information to be delayed and, consequently, slow the decisionmaking process in tactical operations, the report found. With 5G technologies, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems would process and disseminate information from battlespace sensors and rely the information immediately.

The Department of Defense is expected to test 5G applications at four military bases this year, according to a November solicitation. The bases, located in Georgia, Utah, Washington and California, would experiment with smart warehouses, augmented and virtual reality in training scenarios and the optimization of wireless communication channels.

The military 5G upgrade would also enable drones to autonomously carry out coordinated missions or tasks by increasing the speed of data transfer between operators and self-driving vehicles, according to the report.

The United States’ primary competitors in this space are Chinese companies such as Huawei, which works as a global 5G supplier to many nations, including U.S. allies. The United Kingdom recently allowed Huawei to build part of its 5G network despite U.S. opposition.

In December, the State Department supported a European Union Council plan that highlighted security risks to 5G networks built by Chinese companies, and urged its partners to deny “untrusted vendors” from accessing their future 5G networks, according to a statement from the council.

The Congressional Research Service report highlighted potential issues for Congress with the development of 5G, including national security risks from those allies who are involved with Chinese 5G infrastructure and whether the U.S. should limit intelligence sharing with countries such as the United Kingdom who operate Chinese-supplied 5G equipment to avoid the risks of cyberattacks or military espionage.

The report, an independent assessment mandated by Congress in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, proposed the revamping of C4ISR systems as they remain “brittle in the face of Chinese cyberattacks, electronic warfare and long-range strikes.”

The Pentagon’s C4ISR capabilities have fallen behind technologically, as they were developed “in an era when competitors or adversaries could not attack U.S. assets in space or at long ranges,” the report found. At the same time, a 2019 Department of Defense’s report on China’s military and security developments found that country has prioritized military capabilities with disruptive potential, including hypersonic weapons, counterspace capabilities, artificial intelligence and C4ISR advanced robotics.

Thus far, the Department of Defense has been able to develop countermeasures against China’s abilities, said Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow at CNAS and one of the authors of the report.

“As the threat continues to get more sophisticated, these [countermeasures] will likely lose their effectiveness,” Dougherty said. “This necessitates building a new architecture that is designed around resiliency, kill webs, and graceful degradation.”

While under attack, U.S. systems sometimes fail to have any connectivity and have sporadic dial-up speeds. Instead, they should still have some level of communication even while the attack is going on, even if this means at lower bandwidths.

To strengthen its systems, the report recommended, the U.S. military should develop space capabilities resistant to kinetic attacks, synthetic training environments for U.S. forces to practice C4ISR operations, systems that can transmit data via multiple pathways and surveillance systems that can avoid being detected.

A recent project by RAND found that, while the Department of Defense maintains an advantage in airspace penetration capabilities, it remains vulnerable to air base attacks and Chinese anti-surface warfare.

An initial system with these developments could be in place in the next decade if the Department of Defense and armed services create a basic system and improve it over time, Dougherty said.

“If, as we have done in the past, we wait around for a ‘perfect’ set of requirements to develop an ‘objective’ future system, we could see this take 15-20 years, at which point China will likely have far surpassed us in this competition,” he said.

The MQ-4C Triton drones, manufactured by Northrop Grumman, will serve as part of an early operational capability to develop a concept of operations for the high-altitude, long-endurance systems, according to the Navy.

“The inaugural deployment of Triton UAS brings enhanced capabilities and a broad increase in Maritime Domain Awareness to our forward Fleet commanders,” Rear Adm. Peter Garvin, commander of the Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, said in the release.

Northrop Grumman says the Triton can detect, track, classify and identify naval vessels, and can fly nonstop for more than 24 hours.

The drones will operate under Commander Task Force 72 in 7th Fleet, which will use the aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions to complement the P-8A Poseidon, a military aircraft that provides anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capabilities.

In December 2017, Northrop Grumman received a $255 million contract modification to build three MQ-4C Tritons along with ground stations, tooling and related support equipment.

Germany recently canceled plans to buy Tritons for about $2.5 billion, as officials believed the aircraft wouldn’t meet a deadline to adopt Europe’s airspace safety standards.

Under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, which runs through 2023, Viasat will provide its Battlefield Awareness Targeting System-Dismounted (BATS-D) handheld Link 16 radios, which give warfighters access to real-time, secure and reliable communication for enhanced close air support communications. Viasat will also provide operator training and maintenance. The contract came from the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

“We continue to see strong demand for [the radios’] use across multiple military branches, and among coalition partners as it has the proven ability to significantly enhance situational awareness, improve mission coordination and accelerate decision timelines in a multi-domain battlespace,” said Ken Peterman, president of government systems at Viasat.

Link 16 is a tactical data exchange network that provides a picture of where friendly and enemy forces are located, allowing the military to share a common understanding of the battlefield. Military leaders rely on Link 16 as a critical tool in identifying friend from foe in the heat of a battle.

The radio features direct voice communications with other Link 16 users, which “dramatically shortens the kill chain and decreases the risk of fratricide,” according to Viasat.

In 2019, Viasat announced it had shipped its 1,000th BATS-D radio. To date, Over 2,000 BATS-D radios have been shipped to U.S. warfighters worldwide, according to the release.

In 2018, the National Security Agency authorized Viasat to immediately open the use of the radios to members of Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The training and maintenance will take place in Carlsbad, California through December 31, 2023, according to the Department of Defense.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit selected L3Harris Technologies to provide the Navy with an underwater drone for use in expeditionary undersea missions, according to a Jan. 14 news release from the company.

As part of the contract, L3Harris delivered for testing an Iver4-900 PW unmanned undersea vehicle, which comes with two field swappable modular payload sections that, along with additional sensors, will allow the vehicle to detect, classify, localize and identify targets on the ocean floor, the release said.

This drone was delivered in December 2019 and will be modified through 2020, which is the expected duration of the program, according to a company spokeswoman. She would not share the value of the contract.

“The Iver4 is leading the next generation of small class UUVs,” said Daryl Slocum, vice president of unmanned maritime systems at L3Harris Technologies. “This platform has been custom-built to address the needs of the Expeditionary Mine Countermeasures and Explosive Ordnance Disposal communities.”

The contract award comes as the Navy seeks to bolster its unmanned inventory. Congress recently approved the purchase of two large unmanned surface vessels for the service.

In 2019, L3Harris received a contract from the University of Southern Mississippi for an older version of the underwater drone to be used by the university’s school of ocean science and engineering.

Under the five-year contract, L3Harris will provide software and hardware to maintain and upgrade the Hawkeye III Lite very small aperture terminals, or VSAT.

“This agreement extends the service life of our customer’s existing terminals and highlights the priority USSOCOM places on ensuring their deployed users are equipped with the latest in VSAT technology,” said Chris Aebli, president of global communication systems at L3Harris Technologies.

For its part, the U.S. Army has received 4,000 Hawkeye systems to date.

In 2017, L3Harris delivered 46 Hawkeye III Lite VSATs to the U.S. Air National Guard’s Joint Incident Site Communications Capability teams and trained personnel to facilitate direct communications with the satellite terminals.

In 2019, USSOCOM awarded L3Harris an $86 million contract as part of a $390 million program that started in 2015 for handheld tactical radios that can be used with multiple channels for special forces.