Computer Says Maybe

Military spending on AI is a triple black box: How is AI being used in the military? Who is winning these contracts and what are they worth? And what is the military’s end-game here?
More like this: How a Calculator Company Reshaped Modern Warfare w/ Jeff Stern

Amos Toh will help us answer these questions in part three of Computer Says Kill. We will cover how military spending has changed over the last couple of decades: there has been a clear shift from the straightforward buying up of jets, to the over-reliance on licensed software. Amos also shares what hasn’t changed, which is: yes, the government still spend a hell of a lot of money on military tech.
Further reading & resources:
The Business of Military AI — Amos Toh, Emile Ayoub, March 2026
Read Amos and Emile’s explainer on the military’s use of AI
Pentagon's use of Claude during Maduro raid sparks Anthropic feud — Axios, Feb 13
Department of War's Artificial Intelligence-First Agenda: A New Era for Defense Contractors — Holland & Knight, Feb 2026
The Double Black Box by Ashely Deeks
AI at war: Five things to know about Project Maven — Euractiv, April 2026
Safety Co-Option and Compromised National Security: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Weakened AI Risk Thresholds — Heidy Khlaaf, Sarah Myers West, April 2025
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Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

Precision weapons are meant to make warfare more exact. But what happens when the executive branch uses precision as an excuse to make more war and target with less and less accountability for accuracy?
More like this: Computer Says Kill: Collapsing the Chain w/ with Matt Mahmoudi

In part two of Computer Says Kill, Jeff Stern shares how a calculator company transformed modern warfare by making more precise weapons. After the Second World War, the US military wanted to be able to wage more war and target with more accuracy. At first it was about saving American troops. Over time it became a permission structure for more executive control over lethal force.
What does this history tell us about the role of precision and accountability in war?
Further reading & resources:
Get The Warhead by Jeff Stern now
More on Weldon Word and the development of precise weaponry during the Vietnam war
Operation Desert Storm: 25 years on — CNN 2019
Right to strike when your boss sells AI to the military? — Cori Crider, The Register Lecture, 2019 
**Subscribe to our newsletter to get more stuff than just a podcast — we run events and do other work that you will definitely be interested in!**
Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

How does a country wage war using LLMs? Oh and WHY?
More like this: AI in Gaza: Live from Mexico City

In Computer Says Kill Ep #1 we are joined by Matt Mahmoudi. The US Department of War is leaning heavily on AI technologies to attack Iran. Matt explains how the use of LLMs to identify ‘legitimate targets’ is collapsing the chain of decisions that lead to lethal force. We discuss what this means at a time when fascist governments are eager to demonstrate their strength on the global stage. From Israel field-testing AI weapons in Gaza, to the US using AI tools in horrifying new ways to perpetuate ever worse war crimes, we start to connect the dots between the technology, the people powering it, and the human costs.
Further reading & resources:
Automated Apartheid — Amnesty International 2023
How Israel uses facial-recognition systems in Gaza and beyond — Matt’s interview in The Guardian about the report
Crimes of Dispassion: Autonomous Weapons and the Moral Challenge of Systematic Killing — Elke Schwartz, 2023
Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? — By Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, The New York Times, April 2026
“Big Brother” in Jerusalem’s Old City — Who Profits Research Centre
What is Israel's secretive cyber warfare unit 8200? — Reuters 2024
Genocide as Colonial Erasure — Francesca Albanese, October 2024
Buy Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence, edited by Mizue Aizeki, Matt Mahmoudi, and Coline Schupfer
Buy The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World by Anthony Loewesnstein
can we add Francesa Albanese report
Matt’s research (Automated Apartheid, and anything else on warfare to link to?)
Palestine Laboratory

**Subscribe to our newsletter to get more stuff than just a podcast — we run events and do other work that you will definitely be interested in!**
Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

This is Computer Says Kill, a new series on series focused on tracing the people, decisions, and systems that have recklessly ushered AI into the business of war.
What we’re watching play out— from AI military chatbots to tech companies in bed with authoritarian governments— isn’t a new story. It's the latest chapter in a much older relationship between technology, military power, institutional systems, and capital— one that has always moved faster than accountability, and always found a way to make the next thing feel inevitable. We're not convinced this is inevitable. But we think it’s time to understand to understand exactly how we got here.
The first episode in the series launches Friday, April 17th.
Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

What better way than movies to help us process the world. Brian Merchant shares how our collective anxieties turn into cultural products.
More like this: One Filmmaker’s Fight Against AI w/ Valerie Veatch

Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, joins us this week to discuss his favorite unsettling, horror and thriller picks that bring our fears about AI and tech to life on screen.
Alix and Brian talk Terminator, Pluribus, and how even comedies about technology have a spectre of violence that helps us understand everything form labour exploitation to alienation to machine autonomy. All of this contributes to the role that film plays in helping us make sense of societal and technological change.
Click here to vote for us for the Webbys!

Further reading & resources:
The best books, film, and TV about AI in 2025 — Brian Merchant, Dec 2025
The Complete Guide to Luddite Horror Films — Brain Merchant, Oct 2024
The Chair Company (TV show)
Pluribus (TV show)
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Exhalation and *The Lifecycle of Software Objects* by Ted Chiang
The Most Aggressively Anti-AI Film of the ChatGPT Era — Brian Merchant on ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’, March 2026
The Comeback (TV series staring Lisa Kudrow)
Mrs Davis (TV series about a nun on a mission to destroy AI)
Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout