WEBVTT - When AI and climate anxieties collide to make beautiful stories: Imagine Series 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:07.200 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:13.119 Imagine This a climate damage world where advertising funded robots 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:16.960 known as Hum's, provide all the manual, labor and constant 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:21.360 surveillance over society. Maywebb has just lost her job to 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:25.720 AI and is now using proceeds from an experimental operation 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:28.600 to take her family on a holiday to one of 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:34.400 the last bits of nature left a botanical garden. This 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.400 is the World of Hum, a novel by the author 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:40.280 Helen Phillips and the winner of the twenty twenty six 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:44.280 Climate Fiction Prize. It's a book where anxiety is about AI, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.960 climate and capitalism collide. Helen is a professor of creative 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.680 writing at New York's Brooklyn College and has written six books. 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.840 I got the opportunity to ask her about the inspiration 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.000 for HUM and how she's used her own anxieties to 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:03.640 fuel her writing. This is Zero. I'm Akshadrati This week 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:09.720 how climate fiction is Expanding. This is the latest episode 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.200 in Zero's Imagine series exploring how art is interpreting the 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.120 climate crisis. You can find the previous episodes in the 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.160 series with authors like Kim Stanley, Robinson, Abi Dhari and 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.640 George Saunders linked in the show notes, here's my interview 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:30.560 with Helen Phillips. Helen, Welcome to Zero. 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.600 It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.319 Now, without spoiling it, can you just give a brief 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.640 summary of Hum to the listeners who may not have 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.000 read the book already. 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.280 Of course, So Hum begins with the protagonist may losing 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.119 her job to artificial intelligence and desperate to make money 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.440 for her family, she becomes a guinea pig in an 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.880 experiment that alters her face so that it can't be 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.600 recognized by surveillance, and with the proceeds from this strange operation, 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.720 she buys her family three night passes to this one 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:05.160 beautiful remaining green space within their city of the future, 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.960 where there are still animals and wilderness for her children 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.160 to experience. That it is, as I said, said in 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.400 a somewhat dystopian future, though many readers have told me 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:20.520 it is fairly recognizable and significantly, the world, alongside humans 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.720 is inhabited by super intelligent embodied robots called hums, hence 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:26.200 the title. 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.280 It was a really fun read. It's super fast based, 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:34.400 and yes, I mean dystopian parts come through in the 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.080 story for sure, but there are also funny parts. There 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.040 are these vignettes, as your readers have told you, which 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:44.600 are completely recognizable, like the face that people make when 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.240 they get sucked into their phone, which we see all 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:52.200 around us as we're traveling or commuting, or then these 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.880 like strange interactions that we have at least with chatboards 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.320 these days, but essentially ones that you would have with 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.480 robots as well. There's just something off about the conversation, 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:08.200 like instantly recognizable and really lovely scenes. But if we 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.200 focus on the climate side of this, because in your 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:16.400 description that doesn't play a central role in the plot 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.520 of the story, but it is there constantly in the 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.120 background and in direct ways as people are either reading 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.079 the news about it, the characters are dealing with air quality. 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.919 How much did you have to think about what it 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:32.840 is climate is doing in this story. 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.800 Well, I would say that, for better or worse, one 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.280 of my greatest inspirations as a writer is my anxiety, 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.160 and that's very much true with this novel. When I 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.440 was setting out to write Ham, I was anxious very 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:49.360 much about climate change. I was anxious about artificial intelligence. 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.920 I was anxious about the future that we are creating 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.880 for our children, and so that climate anxiety really suffuses 0:03:57.920 --> 0:03:59.920 the whole book, as you say, in all sorts of 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.560 little ways that her, my protagonist, May has a daughter 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.160 who's very anxious to go outside when the air quality 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.600 is poor, and is really keyed into that and checks 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.760 that every morning to see what the air quality is. 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.800 Even the fact that May spends all of this money 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.000 quite foolishly, I might add, she does not have the 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.279 money to spare to go to the botanical gardens, but 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.039 because her children don't have a lot of ways to 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.719 access nature because of the detriment of the environment, this 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.560 is such a priority to her that she spends her 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.480 money in this way. So that climate anxiety is just 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.320 prevalent in so many different elements of the story. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.400 And as someone who writes about climate change a lot, 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.960 there are aspects of climate change that make me anxious. 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.200 There are aspects of trying to tackle climate change that 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.599 make me very excited. But on the anxiety side, why 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.720 is it useful to write about the anxiety? 0:04:55.160 --> 0:05:01.159 Well, I think for one, it's cathartic just to acknowledge 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.239 that anxiety and to bring it out into the open. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.400 I think that for a lot of people it's something 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.039 that just adds an anxious hum to our days, but 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:10.960 maybe we try to look away from it because it 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:12.960 feels like there's not a ton you can do about it. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.960 So one is just bringing it out and for myself 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.760 processing that anxiety that I do feel on a daily basis. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.560 We've had quite a summer here in the United States, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.120 as people are having all over the world, but a 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.680 lot of wildfires burning in the United States and Canada. 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.120 We've had a real expansion and where ticks are living 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.200 because of climate change, just a lot of changes that 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.160 people are living with extreme heat and all of that. 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.279 So one reason to write a book that has climate 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.560 anxiety and it is to just create a way to 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:50.280 begin a conversation about that. And then also in the 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.200 process of writing the book and beginning with that climate anxiety, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.599 I read a lot about it, and I feel like 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.400 the more you read, as you say, the more anxietnciety, 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.840 but also the more solutions you begin to see. So 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.200 the research process itself was extremely meaningful to me in 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.719 rather than just having this be an ambient anxiety, actually 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.960 coming to understand more what the situation is and educating 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:16.800 myself about it. 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.080 There is a tendency that people have and this has 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.719 been the case for a long time now, of turning 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:30.279 off on bad environmental stories because most people don't feel 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.440 like there's agency they can't do anything about it. But 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.039 when it comes to AI, I don't sense the same 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.800 thing from the readers. Even though you know there are 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.440 plenty of AI dystopian stories to go around, and the 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.240 harms it's doing through the climate and the environment, and 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.200 the harms it's doing to people's way of thinking to 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:56.599 maybe social connections, etc. There is still appetite for people 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.320 to want to engage with that story, which they don't 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:04.599 seem to have with climate. Why is that? 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:11.320 I don't know why that is, and I think it 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:16.320 does have something to do with just the vastness of 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:21.320 climate change and the complexity of both the natural systems 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.280 and the political systems that would enable change to happen. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.440 I think that it can feel so overwhelming to think 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.440 that human's activities are changing our beloved planet in such 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:41.040 profound and really it feels like often uncontrollable ways. So 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.360 I think it is a big question for anyone thinking 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.520 about climate, and any journalists and any scientist, how do 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:54.720 you talk about climate without filling people with such despair 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.360 that there's a feeling of nihilism that comes with that. 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.240 In terms of AI and people willingness, I think you're 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.320 saying to engage with AI narratives and maybe even feel 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.560 scared of AI in a more active way. I wonder 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.600 if that's because AI just feels extremely present in our 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.000 everyday lives. I think climate, for me, climate change does too. 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.440 But you do a search and suddenly GPT is speaking 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:24.120 to you. It's just it's really becoming so ever present. 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:26.960 I think both AI and climate are ever present, but 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:28.960 maybe the AI is even a little bit more in 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:30.119 our faces at the moment. 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.760 Yeah, that's really interesting. It's sort of climate change is 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.680 all pervasive but still a little bit far away, whereas 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.720 AI is all pervasive and a little bit too close, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.840 and that makes people think a lot more. You talk 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.440 about the duality of technology a lot in those stories. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:55.680 So you have this moment where May warrants her children 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:00.600 and her husband do not be tight to their vices, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.560 and so she takes those away, and then in the 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.720 process there are problems that come through. They're not able 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.000 to do basic things, and so there are advantages that 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:15.160 technologies bring, but also disadvantages that technologies bring that duality 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.000 makes the story interesting, whereas climate change feels like a 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.079 thing that just is bad. There is there's really no 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.880 duality to it. How do you make a story be 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.720 interesting if there isn't a duality? So how do you 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.600 break the climate story interesting? 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.240 Well? I first want to speak on your first point 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.680 about the duality of tech in the book, which was 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.360 extremely important to me when I was writing. I do 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.880 not consider hum an anti tech book because of the 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.080 very thing you said when she tries to separate her 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.480 family from their technology, problems ensue from that. We are 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:55.280 so enmeshed with these both miraculous and dangerous technologies all 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.720 around us that we can't throw the baby out with 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.520 the bathwater. And I actually we gave the book an 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.680 epigraph on this very subject, so I want to share 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.160 it with you and your listeners. The quote is from Paracelsus, 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.720 who was a physician and alchemist, so this person was 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.120 not writing about technology, but I think this quote is 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:18.559 very relevant to our technologies and actually to climate change too. 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.320 So the quote is poison is in everything, and no 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.600 thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:31.319 poison or a remedy. And this idea that anything can 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.520 be a poison and anything can be a remedy. It's 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.080 all about how we use it. So it's not we 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.000 can't stop using our earth. We have to in order 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.440 to survive, but how can we use it in a 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:46.200 way that is healthy and harmonious. And the same with 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.719 our tech. We can't stop using technology, but how can 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:51.040 we use it in a way that makes it a 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.760 remedy rather than a poison. I think about this all 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.480 the time, and this duality is very important to me 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.680 in hum and in my own life. How do we 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:05.240 find some kind of balance with our environment and our technology. 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:10.400 If you read the most recent IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:16.120 Climate Change Report, if you read about what happens if 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:20.040 we actually tackle climate change and reach in at zero 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.960 by twenty fifty or even twenty seventy, is that the 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:27.000 whole series of good things happen. Beyond just helping us 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.120 protect and preserve some of the climate that we can 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.040 over these next few decades, the air just becomes a 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.240 lot cleaner than it ever was, even when we weren't 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.320 worried about climate change. You know, people become much more 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.079 resilient and being able to live to their full potential 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.480 because they are now living in environments that are you know, 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.160 for example, air conditioning will become much more accessible to 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.320 poor people as a result of us pushing more efficient 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.240 electric technologies. Solar power becomes you know, essentially the base 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.280 power source for humanity, which it should be eventually, but 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.640 just becomes so much more quickly because we are pushing 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.080 for clean, renewable energy and thus reaches people who don't 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.320 currently have access to energy. So there is a duality 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:17.720 of climate being a good driving force for solutions, but 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:19.640 that didn't come through in the book. To me, there 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.320 were no climate solutions that I could spot in the book, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.160 whereas I could spot like the dystopian nature of tech, 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.720 but also like the advantages that technology brings, like at 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.320 one point the robot when it's paid for its ad 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.240 free version, it's just so much nicer to talk to 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.480 and so much more empathetic and so wise that you 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:42.520 could actually eat, sit down and have dinner with it. 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:48.000 But doesn't quite track for like the solution side of climate. 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.240 Was that a deliberate choice? Like did you not want 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.120 to talk about the fact that we are doing something 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.000 to try and tackle climate change. 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:55.480 In a way? I think what you're getting at with 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:59.360 this point about climate change not having the duality that 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.079 I've put in the book in terms of the artificial 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.760 intelligence and technology gets at the point that for me, 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.319 the climate change elements of the book are not the 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.640 plot of the book, but the setting for the book. 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.880 I think it is hard to make climate change into 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.000 a plot, although it is quite dramatic. And now you've 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:18.920 given me an interesting thought. What would it be like 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.720 to write a novel where climate change was literally the 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.000 central conflict? And how could I find the duality sufficient 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.240 to drive a narrative forward. So maybe you've now given 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.320 me my idea for my next book, So thank you 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:35.280 for that. But in hum specifically, it is the setting 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.560 for the book. It is the context. It is it 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:43.040 motivates this woman to seek this place for her children. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.240 But she is an individual who's actually having a very 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.959 difficult time. She's not very stable in her life, and 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.079 she's not in the position to do anything about climate 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:58.760 change except here on the news, Oh there's another terrible hurricane, 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.160 or they're a fire, or her We learn on the 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.480 first page of the book that her family's home burned 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.000 in a fire, in a wildfire, and they didn't have money, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.280 just very scant insurance payments to buy a new home 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.240 that wasn't in the forest where they had lived before. 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.240 So climate change is affecting her in all sorts of ways. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.960 But maybe, like we were talking about before, she is 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.600 just one strained, stressed mother with a lot of financial problems, 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.480 and she is not able to deeply engage with the 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.600 climate crisis except to say, let me get my kids 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:36.720 so that they can have three nights in a forest, 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.160 just to see what that's like. I do think that 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.800 in the end, and I'll try to avoid spoilers here. 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:49.200 The home has a moment where it proposes perspective futures, 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.760 and some of those futures are a little bit solar 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:58.560 punk in nature and offer glimpses just like tantalizing glimpses 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.160 of the world that you're described, where solar panels are 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.160 more common, and it seems like people have figured out 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.160 a way to live in greater harmony. But it's really 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.960 just the most tiny, tantalizing glimpse. And it is by 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.680 way of the technology, perhaps ironically, that those images enter 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:17.359 the book. 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.560 After the break. Summer is here, and so is the 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.480 reading season. I ask Helen Phillips for a few of 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.480 her favorite book recommendations. If you're enjoying this episode of Zero, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.440 please take a moment to rate and review the show 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:37.520 on witchevera platform you're listening on. Recently, listener Chevy Bolt wrote, 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:43.200 every show seems informative without being augmentative. That's a gift, thanks, Chevy. 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.360 I hope you're enjoying listening to this in your car. 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.200 The AI aspect of it also brings with it sort 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.520 of helplessness in May's life. You know, her job is 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.400 taken away, and then suddenly, in the process of resolving 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.680 the issues she faces, she has to give up so 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.680 much of her life's data essentially to AI so that 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.440 it can process it. There is a helplessness to the 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:24.400 system being all pervasive and all controlling. You know, one 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.360 aspect that you don't clearly define, but it's there. The 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:32.920 private enterprises use HUM and the government uses HUM, and 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.920 they intershare the data without actually there be any barriers 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.360 between a private or a public enterprise. And that's sort 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:44.080 of like very unsettling a future. But one aspect of 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:45.880 this which I wanted to understand is there is no 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.160 political dissent in this world. It doesn't feel like, you know, 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:54.480 you'd never talk about like a trillionaire that's like all 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.000 controlling of this AI, or a president who is controlling 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.680 of the system. Was that a choice to not have 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:07.520 like a point of focus for the other problems that 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:08.479 AI brings. 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.639 I did think about that, what is the political situation 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.320 in this world? And it is completely off screen. The 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.159 one thing we do learn early on in the book 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.640 is that the AI, the hums, the embodied robots were 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.640 created by a private corporation that has figured out how 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.879 to embody the brain of the network in these really 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:36.800 graceful and beautiful and sculptural robot bodies. So it is, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:38.760 as you just pointed out, and I think this is 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.159 very important, it is a private company, but it's working 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.840 so closely with the government that it's almost like there's 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:50.119 no division or separation between the two. This is, like 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.840 many things in the book, drawn from our own reality, 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.919 where that is happening so much all the time. I 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.480 think to something that I experienced just as a human 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.359 and as a consumer, is these new technologies are just 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.359 released upon us so quickly and surprisingly, and suddenly they're 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.600 there and you're just living with them, and you've never 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.760 had any time to think about it or prepare yourself 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.040 for this fact that suddenly, when you do a Google search, 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:22.280 it's giving you this intricate AI answer. You never signed 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.360 up for it. So just this feeling that, whether it's 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.520 the government or a corporation, suddenly you are in a 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.240 new reality with a new technology, and you never even 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.959 agreed to do it, and it's just there in your life. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.919 Talk me through things that you changed your mind on, 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.879 because as a writer, we almost used writing as a 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:46.840 way to process what's happening to us in the world. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.880 You've specifically talked about how you use writing to deal 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.840 with anxiety. But having done a long project, did you 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.200 change your mind on any of the aspects of either AI, 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.920 or capitalism or climate. 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.439 I think that one of the most interesting examples of 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.320 that for this particular book was early in the writing process, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.479 I went to a talk given by the writer and 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.840 professor Arthur I. Miller at Brooklyn College where I teach, 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.960 and he had just published his book The Artist in 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:24.280 the Machine with MIT, which is a fascinating book about 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:29.160 the positive potential of human and AI collaborations. I believe 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.560 it was published in twenty nineteen, which now feels so 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.359 long ago in terms of where we are with Ai now. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.800 But his book and his talk and then our subsequent 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:42.560 email exchange really enabled me to move away from the 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.560 knee jerk reaction I have and I think a lot 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:46.480 of people have, and you can see it in popular 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.480 culture the robots are here to destroy us all and 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:54.240 a little bit more towards what are the possibilities for 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:59.159 collaboration that could be very meaningful. I still don't know 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.680 about that, but but it definitely enabled me to build 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.560 the character of the HUM with a lot more nuance 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:09.960 and compassion. And one thing that I've experienced is people 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.159 who read the book have a lot of different reactions 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.800 to the HUM, and their reactions change over the course 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.520 of the book, and that's very valuable to me. That 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.360 sometimes you're scared of the HUM and find it sinister, 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.199 like this spy, and sometimes the HUM is extremely cute 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:29.160 and charming and delightful. And then as you say, once 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:34.720 you turn off the advertising feature becomes very wise and insightful. 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.000 And this is how I feel about technologies. All of 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.600 those different reactions, all of those different feelings, are feelings 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.959 that I have towards technology. Sort of somewhere between this 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:49.000 is terrifying and this is miraculous. And I really wanted 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.800 the character of the hum to embody that, and Miller's 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:53.560 book helped me arrive there. 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.399 I mean, this is not core to our conversation, but 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:00.480 the aspects of how advertising shows up in the book 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:09.400 and the all pervasive, seamless, annoying but weirdly interesting moments 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.159 in which advertising shows up is just fascinating. And I 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.840 think it is the closest I've seen anybody capture the 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.399 kind of lives we live today, with how much advertising 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.560 we're facing as we just go around doing normal things 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:23.160 in life, most of them on the Internet. 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.880 Yes, that was a very important and very early aspect 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.000 of the book, and for me actually a lot of 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.600 humor derives from it, kind of a dark humor, because 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.680 may We'll be having what feels like a very intimate 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.440 conversation with the hum, and then the hum will start 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.840 trying to sell her things. So you realize, oh, the 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:43.920 whole time we were talking, communicating, you were just trying 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.600 to figure out what you wanted to sell me. So 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.199 there's humor in that. But also I find that to 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:54.359 be one of the least science fictional aspects of the book, 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.560 and most realistic it's the same we're constantly getting fed 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.800 targeted advertisements and May. Throughout the first half of the book, 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:03.359 the HUM keeps on saying to her, women of a 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.119 certain age, show their age in their hands. Can I 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.639 sell you this lotion that will be specifically targeted to 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.399 your And so in all of these serious moments, this 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:17.240 silly ad comes into the conversation. And that's just a 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:22.880 way of presenting and making really concrete however present advertising is, 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:27.480 and how the technologies that surround us often have as 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:33.000 a very central goal that targeted advertising, as we've mentioned 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:34.960 a couple of times at the end of the book, 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.720 may pays quite an exorbitant sum to turn off the 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.840 hums advertising, as we are often asked to do to 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.399 pay to turn off advertising in our streaming services. And 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.639 at that juncture, when the HUM no longer has the 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:53.280 advertising agenda, May and the HUM become capable of having 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.680 a much deeper level of conversation, and in that there's 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.760 maybe a little bit of a utopian idea of what 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:02.919 it is like to or what it could be like 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:06.159 to interact with AI that has no agenda except truly 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:10.200 consolidating all of the best knowledge and wisdom and empathy 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:14.000 of humanity and advising someone with all of that in play, 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:15.640 with no advertising agenda. 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:17.640 I want to talk about AI and writing, you said, 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:19.960 you know, we still don't know whether there are ways 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.640 in which AI can be used for good, but already 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:24.720 people are using it for all sorts of things. So 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:27.359 in February there was a New York Times profile of 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:32.160 an author by the pseudonym Choral Heart, who has used 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:34.480 twenty one pen names to publish more than two hundred 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:38.720 romance novels, selling around fifty thousand copies and earning six figures. 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:42.520 Not mainstream, it's not like it's going on the New 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:47.520 York Times Best Salary anytime soon, but it's not unsuccessful either. Like, 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:50.600 is this the kind of AI can be used for 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:54.360 art that you imagined would be a useful thing to have. 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:58.040 That's not really what I'm picturing. I suppose I would say. 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.120 The way I feel about that personal with my own practice, 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:06.280