Lethal by Design
Military AI and the Crisis of Human ControlBy Andreas Hamberger
Length10h 53m
About this audiobook
Since February 2022, Ukraine has become the first laboratory of mass autonomous warfare. Civilian engineers built first-person-view drones in garages and deployed them at scale before any procurement office had written a specification. Russia answered with Lancet loitering munitions that identify and strike armoured targets without a human in the decision loop. Iran's Shahed drones, built under sanctions for roughly $35,000 each, reached three continents. In Gaza, an AI targeting system processed thousands of names at speeds no legal review process was designed to match.
None of this was authorised by any parliament. No electorate voted on it. No court has held anyone accountable for a single autonomous strike decision in any of these conflicts.
Lethal by Design traces how we got here.
Audiobook details
GenrePolitics and Government, Technology
Length10 hrs 53 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateMay 13, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Dedication
21Chapter 14: The Doctrine of Acceptable Loss
2Preface
22Part VI: Iran and the Proliferation of Autonomous Lethality
3Part I: The Machine Before the Algorithm
23Chapter 15: The Shahed Assembly Line
4Chapter 1: Automation Before Intelligence
24Chapter 16: The Proliferation Network
5Chapter 2: DARPA and the Unmanned Horizon
25Chapter 17: Operation Epic Fury
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6Chapter 3: The Gulf War and the Precision Revolution
26Part VII: China’s Algorithmic Ambition
7Part II: The Drone Wars
27Chapter 18: Intelligentised Warfare
8Chapter 4: Predator
28Chapter 19: The Taiwan Calculus
9Chapter 5: Signature Strikes
29Part VIII: The Proving Grounds
10Chapter 6: Who Is Responsible When a Drone Kills?
30Chapter 20: The Algorithm of Attrition
11Part III: The Corporate Kill Chain
31Chapter 21: The Miracle of the South
12Chapter 7: When Google Went to War
32Part IX: The Ungoverned Battlefield
13Chapter 8: Palantir and the Industrialisation of Military AI
33Chapter 22: Voluntary Norms and the Failure of International Law
14Chapter 9: From Maven to Epic Fury
34Chapter 23: Red Lines
15Part IV: Ukraine
35Chapter 24: Bright Lines
16Chapter 10: The FPV Revolution
36Chapter 25: The Swarm
17Chapter 11: The Electronic Warfare Arms Race
37Chapter 26: Precise Mass and the End of Human Control
18Chapter 12: The Western Tech Stack in a War Zone
38Chapter 27: Democratic Accountability and the Lethal Machine
19Part V: Russia’s Autonomous War
39Epilogue
20Chapter 13: From Uran-9 to Lancet
40About the Author
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