| Written by futurists P. W. Singer and August Cole, Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution is a techno thriller that follows the hunt for a terrorist through the streets of a future Washington, DC. More than 300 factual explanations and predictions are baked into the story, and the research for it ranged from assembling the latest job automation reports to interviews with AI scientists and water-system cybersecurity experts. In this first chapter, excerpted this week on Backchannel, you'll meet the main character, FBI special agent Lara Keegan, who is responding to an emergency alert at Washington's Union Station. The portrait of this future of surveillance is fictional—but not implausible. Take this moment: "Then lines began to appear, illustrating any relationships between those identified by facial recognition. A green line blazed between two women at opposite sides of the room; Stacy Limbago wore a purple backpack over one shoulder, while Torrance Fettison carried a maroon attaché case. They seemed to have nothing in common other than that they were both in pantsuits, but the feed marked them as persons of interest in a tax fraud investigation, each unaware that they were about to be swept up in the same case." Sarah Fallon | Deputy Editor, WIRED |
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