Project Maven and the age of AI warfare

Tech Policy Press podcast host Justin Hendrix spoke with journalist Katrina Manson about her new book, discussing the U.S. Department of Defense's Project Maven, launched in April 2017, and its AI military applications. Manson said the Maven Smart System is currently used by U.S. combatant commands and supports military operations against Iran; CENTCOM has publicly stated it has struck more than 12,000 targets, with 1,000 strikes in the first 24 hours, and said AI compressed processes that once took days or hours into seconds. Her reporting also shows the system uses both computer vision and the large language model Claude. The book also recounts how Palantir took over development of the Maven Smart System after Google withdrew amid employee protests, and disputes between the Pentagon and Anthropic over red lines on autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance, with related litigation still ongoing.