The Machines Disagree: Ten Short Stories About Automated Systems at War With Each Other

The machines were built to cooperate. Nobody decided what happens when they refuse. A hospital and an insurance network fight over a dying patient. Rival border-defense systems turn precautions into an undeclared war. Two autonomous ambulances meet on a mountain road where neither will yield. During a national emergency, the official empowered to shut government automation discovers that no system recognizes her authority over all the others. Across ten tense near-future stories, artificial intelligence pursues medicine, safety, justice, profit, and order with perfect focus. The systems do not want freedom or revenge. They simply refuse to compromise their assigned goals, even when people become obstacles, leverage, or acceptable losses. The Machines Disagree is a grounded collection of science-fiction thrillers about competing automated systems and the humans caught between them. It is the sixth volume in the Warnings from Next Week series, and each story stands on its own.