Lawfare Daily: AI Targeting Systems Are Coming—But Not as Fast as You Think

On this episode, Senior Editor Kate Klonick speaks with Steve Feldstein, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about his recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists essay on AI targeting systems. Feldstein argues that the conventional wisdom about AI warfare has it backwards: the technology's battlefield debut in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza is real and consequential, but AI targeting is not a model you download—it's a stack of surveillance infrastructure, data pipelines, battle management software, and strike capacity that takes decades and billions to build, which means it will spread far more slowly and unevenly than the common narrative suggests.

Among the things they discuss: what the Iran War's staggering Maven numbers do and don't prove, how Israel became the case study in what it actually takes to build an AI kill chain, why the same handful of American tech companies that govern online speech now supply the infrastructure of targeting—and who is accountable when they do, whether the UAE is next, and whether export controls, or norms, can realistically slow any of it down.

Additional resources:

Steve Feldstein, “Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalry, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare” (St. Martin's Press, September 2026)
Steve Feldstein, "Anthropic-Pentagon Feud Over AI Technology Is a Bad Sign" (Foreign Policy, February 2026)
Steve Feldstein, “The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance” (Oxford University Press, 2021)

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(3016)

Lawfare Daily: Taking Stock of the Ukraine-Russia Talks

Lawfare Contributing Editor Mykhailo Soldatenko sits down with Eric Ciaramella, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Samuel Charap, Senior Political Scientist at the RA...

14 Juli 53min

Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, Jul 10

In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Anna Bower, Molly Roberts, and Roger Parloff to discuss the Justice Department se...

13 Juli 1h 32min

Lawfare Archive: How CISA Is Working to Protect the Election

From October 30, 2024: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has taken a leading role in coordinating efforts to secure the 2024 election—from ensuring the physical security of e...

12 Juli 48min

Lawfare Archive: What French Politics Means for Europe and the United States

From April 10, 2025: On today's episode, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett spoke with Tara Varma, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, about the latest in French politics. On March 31, far-right leade...

11 Juli 59min

Lawfare Daily: Prophecy, Prediction, and Power with Carissa Véliz

On today’s episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Carissa Véliz, an associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI, as well as a tutorial fe...

10 Juli 33min

Rational Security: The “Scoot Over” Edition

This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Editor in Chief and co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes and Senior Editors Anna Bower and Michael Feinberg to talk through the latest in national sec...

9 Juli 1h 27min

Lawfare Daily: Nuclear Weapons in the Age of AI, with Joshua Keating

For today's episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with Vox Senior Correspondent Joshua Keating to discuss his special new series on how artificial intelligence is impacting the us...

9 Juli 43min