Inside Project Maven and AI-Powered Warfare with Katrina Manson

Why It Matters

Project Maven has materially accelerated the tempo and automation of U.S. and allied strike capabilities, raising urgent questions about oversight, accountability, and the proliferation of semi- and fully-autonomous lethal systems in international conflicts. Its diffusion to partners and integration into nuclear deterrence and classified platforms make it a pivotal case for defense policy, industry governance, and AI ethics.

Summary

Katrina Manson’s new book, Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare, traces the evolution of a modest Pentagon initiative into Maven Smart System (MSS), now deployed across U.S. services and adopted by NATO partners. Manson documents how computer vision and large language models integrated into Maven scaled targeting from under 100 strikes a day to roughly 5,000, and how the platform now feeds hundreds of data streams, dozens of contractors, and systems ranging from submarines to autonomous surface vessels. The narrative follows founder Col. Drew Kukor’s battlefield-driven push, the internal Pentagon debates, Google employee protests, and years of technical and ethical struggle that preceded widespread operational use. Manson reveals that elements of the system now exist in highly secretive autonomous weapons intended for Taiwan’s defense, underscoring the program’s far-reaching impact.

Original Description

In this special episode, we sit down with Katrina Manson, author of Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare. We explore what drew Katrina to this story (2:31), trace the turbulent history of Project Maven and the obstacles it has overcome (8:03), examine how the U.S. leveraged Maven to support Ukraine against Russia (31:32), and discuss Katrina's latest reporting on Maven's role in the ongoing conflict with Iran (47:40).

You can order a copy of Katrina's book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/project-maven

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