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The Author Behind ‘Arrival’ Doesn’t Fear AI. ‘Look at How We Treat Animals.’

The Author Behind ‘Arrival’ Doesn’t Fear AI. ‘Look at How We Treat Animals.’

FromThe Ezra Klein Show


The Author Behind ‘Arrival’ Doesn’t Fear AI. ‘Look at How We Treat Animals.’

FromThe Ezra Klein Show

ratings:
Length:
50 minutes
Released:
Mar 30, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

For years, I’ve kept a list of dream guests for this show. And as long as that list has existed, Ted Chiang has been atop it.Chiang is a science fiction writer. But that undersells him. He has released two short story collections over 20 years — 2002’s “Stories of Your Life and Others” and 2019’s “Exhalation.” Those stories have won more awards than I can list, and one of them was turned into the film “Arrival.” They are remarkable pieces of work: Each is built around a profound scientific, philosophical or religious idea, and then the story or the story structure is shaped to represent that idea. They are wonders of precision and craft. But unlike a lot of science fiction, they are never cold. Chiang’s work is deeply, irrepressibly humane.I’ve always wondered about the mind that would create Chiang’s stories. And in this conversation I got to watch it in action. Chiang doesn’t like to talk about himself. But he does like to talk about ideas. And so we do: We discuss the difference between magic and technology, why superheroes fight crime but ignore injustice, what it would do to the human psyche if we knew the future is fixed, whether free will exists, whether we’d want to know the exact date of our deaths, why Chiang fears what humans will do to artificial intelligence more than what A.I. will do to humans, the way capitalism turns people against technology, and much more.The ideas Chiang offered in this conversation are still ringing in my head, and changing the way I see the world. It’s worth taking your time with this one.Recommendations: "Creation" by Steve Grand"On the Measure of Intelligence" by Francois Chollet"CivilWarLand in Bad Decline" by George Saunders"A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan"Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise" (movie)"On Fragile Waves" by Lily Yu"Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie DillardControl (video game)Return of the Obra Dinn (video game)You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Rogé Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.
Released:
Mar 30, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

*** Named a best podcast of 2021 by Time, Vulture, Esquire and The Atlantic. *** Each Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?