Useful Fiction: Leadership, Innovation, and Useful Fiction with Dr. Peter W. Singer

24 Jul 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

2:00

In this segment of Dr. Peter W. Singer’s talk, he explains the core principles behind "useful fiction"—fictional scenarios and wargames that are deliberately anchored in real, existing or prototype technology. He describes the "no vaporware rule," which mandates that any technology featured must already exist or be at a prototype stage, and that cyber‑attack depictions must be based on actual incidents or the team’s own prior operations. This grounding prevents the work from becoming speculative and gives it credibility. Singer outlines the multiple strategic purposes of useful fiction: it can serve as a warning to avert undesirable futures, it can educate audiences about how emerging technologies function, and it can act as a catalyst to push forward policy ideas, doctrines, or strategic proposals. He cites the novel Ghost Fleet as an example where readers reacted to fictional scenarios, prompting real‑world discussions about preventing those outcomes. Overall, the segment highlights how useful fiction is employed within U.S. military and policy circles to shape thinking, influence doctrine, and steer technological development toward desired futures.

Chapters

and even wargaming, we had the no vaporware rule. You know, the technology either had to already exist or already be at the prototype stage. The cyber attacks that are in it, we didn't just go clickety-clack, they're in. It had to reflect a kind of cyber attack that had already happened. In some cases, something that we had done to someone else, and then we would have our blinders up. Of course no one would do that back to us. Well, yes they would. So that's the key is, You always have that research grounding in useful fiction, and that's what makes it useful and avoids being so ungrounded, so speculative. And then the other is, it's— there's a sense of mission. You know, again, the goal for it isn't always to predict. It might be the opposite. It might be to warn and prevent. So for example, there are certain things that happen in Ghost Fleet that will not come true because of the book. Someone read it, "Oh, I don't like that scene. What are we going to do to keep that from coming true?" And we— and so we've continued on in the work for useful fiction, including for parts of the US military. You know, sometimes the intent, the strategic side of that useful fiction is to, um, explain, uh, here's how a certain technology works. Uh, here other times the intent might be to, um, help push forward an idea. Um, here is a proposal, here's a strategy, here's a doctrine, here's what we could achieve, here's a future to aim for. I like it, I want it to come true. What am I going to do to have that come true? Or it could be, as we talked about before, to warn. If we don't change