The story follows a group of soldiers deployed alongside TED, the Army's first self-aware combat drone. TED is relentlessly efficient, quickly outpacing its human counterparts--and leaving them worried for their jobs. But when a wrong call from the clunky robot puts soldiers' lives at risk, they realize just how hard it is to program for battlefield experience. After the story, Ireland shares how her own time in the military shapes her writing, and why tech dreamed up in D.C. rarely reflects the needs of soldiers on the ground. Guest: Justina Ireland, a veteran and author of books including Dread Nation, Deathless Divide, and Ophie's Ghosts

A writer and military historian responds to Justina Ireland's "Collateral Damage." The histories of the military and technology often go hand in hand. Soldiers and military thinkers throughout the past have continually come up with new ways to fill the people over there full of holes as a means to encourage them to stop trying to do the same to their opponents. After the introduction of a new weapon or the improvement of an existing one, strategists spend their time trying to come up with the best way to deploy their forces to take advantage of the tools and/or to blunt their effectiveness by devising countermeasures. The development of the Greek phalanx helped protect soldiers from cavalry, the deployment of English longbows helped stymie large formations of enemy soldiers, new construction methods changed the shape of fortifications, line infantry helped European formations take advantage of firearms, and anti-aircraft cannons helped protect against incoming enemy aircraft.