1 00:00:06,970 --> 00:00:17,390 Narrative futures. How did the stories we tell shape how we think about the future, the present and the past? 2 00:00:17,390 --> 00:00:27,370 What is speculation for? And how might we construct better narratives for a better future? 3 00:00:27,370 --> 00:00:41,280 Narrative Futures is a podcast coming to you from Futures Thinking, a research network housed in the Oxford Centre for Research in the Humanities. 4 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:47,790 My name is Chelsea. Hey, I'm a doctoral researcher in the faculty of English here at the University of Oxford. 5 00:00:47,790 --> 00:00:54,390 You're listening to the Fed episode of Narrative's Futures in conversation with Sami Shah. 6 00:00:54,390 --> 00:00:59,670 We explore what it means to bring religious and secular worldviews together in speculative 7 00:00:59,670 --> 00:01:09,780 fiction and discuss the possibility of our eventual subjugation to benign A.I. overlords. 8 00:01:09,780 --> 00:01:13,260 This podcast is interactive, following the interview, 9 00:01:13,260 --> 00:01:20,790 you'll be treated to to writing prompts designed by novelist and creative writing tutor extraordinaire Louis Greenberg. 10 00:01:20,790 --> 00:01:30,510 We invite you to share your response to these with us via email at Futures Thinking at torch dot o x, dot ac dot UK. 11 00:01:30,510 --> 00:01:37,410 We'll share these on the blog where you'll also be able to find the full transcript of each episode with links to the books, 12 00:01:37,410 --> 00:01:42,600 writers and ideas that we discuss. As the world so radically changes, 13 00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:53,810 we hope these conversations and ideas give you insight and inspiration to think about how else we might live and create collectively going forward. 14 00:01:53,810 --> 00:02:00,050 Sami Shah is a radio broadcaster, Stand-Up comedian and author of The Boy of Fire and Earth, 15 00:02:00,050 --> 00:02:06,920 which is about a young man's quest through a fictional Karachi filled with creatures from Pakistani and Muslim mythology. 16 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:11,750 He is also the author of A Migrant and the Islamic Republic of Australia. 17 00:02:11,750 --> 00:02:20,930 And in a past, life was part of Pakistan's first English language improvised comedy troupe Blackfish, currently based in Melbourne, Australia. 18 00:02:20,930 --> 00:02:26,960 Shah also contributed his critically acclaimed short story Reep to the short story collection, 19 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:41,640 The Djinn Falls in Love and other stories edited by Jared Suran and Mahvish Murad, who also feature in the next two episodes of this podcast. 20 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:48,300 What follows is an extract from Shaa story Reep in which myth and technology become intertwined 21 00:02:48,300 --> 00:02:59,630 in a way that demands that we reconsider how we categorise the unknowable in the world. 22 00:02:59,630 --> 00:03:07,040 So Reba's a story about a a a drone operating centre in America. 23 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:12,650 You know, because the drones that work in Afghanistan in all these places are basically based out of the US. 24 00:03:12,650 --> 00:03:21,800 And so it's about a drone operating centre kind of viewing a village in Pakistan and watching for Taliban activity and everything. 25 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:34,870 And then somehow accidentally witnessing a child's possession by again and the subsequent of tearing apart of the village. 26 00:03:34,870 --> 00:03:39,990 So the main characters in it are a grant who is one of the who is the protagonist? 27 00:03:39,990 --> 00:03:44,840 He's a operator in America who works at the Air Force and runs drones. 28 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:50,480 And he's got a few other people. The analyst was a civilian and a few other people around him as well who work. 29 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:54,740 So when the story the bush I'm about to read to you is when they've just noticed because they 30 00:03:54,740 --> 00:03:58,910 watched this village all the time and so they know the lives of the people in the village. 31 00:03:58,910 --> 00:04:04,340 And now they've just noticed that one of the children of a family of 11 children, 32 00:04:04,340 --> 00:04:08,870 that they know one of the children hasn't returned from school that day. 33 00:04:08,870 --> 00:04:15,810 And that's a bit strange. So. What's happening out of the analysts asked. 34 00:04:15,810 --> 00:04:19,020 Miriam isn't back with the other kids. And I think something's happened to her. 35 00:04:19,020 --> 00:04:25,730 Grant said. The kids were all clustered around their father, pointing back the way they had come, 36 00:04:25,730 --> 00:04:33,690 grant with eyes that could see further and a vantage point that allowed a wider view was already scanning alights landscape a grazing donkey. 37 00:04:33,690 --> 00:04:40,590 Trees scrub. These became bright spots of light as grass cycled through to Infra-Red, picking up heat signatures. 38 00:04:40,590 --> 00:04:44,700 Well, [INAUDIBLE]. Hope she's OK, said ANSTO. I don't know. 39 00:04:44,700 --> 00:04:49,550 You get at, the analyst said it's not exactly a great place to be a little girl anyway. 40 00:04:49,550 --> 00:04:56,720 Grant scanned one last time, then returned to the primary zone. The father, David, had set off to set up the father. 41 00:04:56,720 --> 00:05:00,800 David had set off with his elder teacher and. Retracing their steps. 42 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:06,290 They've named all the people in the village themselves. So they've called the father of the little girl, David, and then called little girl Miriam. 43 00:05:06,290 --> 00:05:13,820 They have no way of knowing the actual names. So the father, David, is set off with his elder three children until retracing their steps. 44 00:05:13,820 --> 00:05:17,840 The rest had gone back inside. The excitement, it's Julie, been too much for Tommy. 45 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:19,490 The Taliban's bowels to contain. 46 00:05:19,490 --> 00:05:28,050 And he was back in his house late, flaring out from under the edges of the wooden, our cheque of the wooden shack outhouse. 47 00:05:28,050 --> 00:05:31,730 There's almost no activity worth noting for the remainder of the shift. 48 00:05:31,730 --> 00:05:38,060 David and his sons were out of observable range and grant lord all of Tommy the Taliban entrances and exits. 49 00:05:38,060 --> 00:05:45,170 Jefferys back ANSTO said Grant focussed the cameras, bringing interview a man pedalling across the desert. 50 00:05:45,170 --> 00:05:52,280 Jeffrey was thin and wore giant spectacles. He didn't wear a turban around his head, but he went out like David and told me that Daniel did, 51 00:05:52,280 --> 00:05:57,080 didn't know why, nor did they know much else about him. He had always lived alone and seldom left the house. 52 00:05:57,080 --> 00:06:01,700 When you did leave, we went to the bazaar a few miles away, returning with just enough room for one. 53 00:06:01,700 --> 00:06:08,130 He barely spoke to the others and we gave him a wide berth when possible. He's scared or anxious. 54 00:06:08,130 --> 00:06:13,390 Is something for sure. Out of the analysts said, leaning over Grant and pointing at Geoffrey's face, 55 00:06:13,390 --> 00:06:16,700 they could read emotion through thermal imaging had been trained to do so. 56 00:06:16,700 --> 00:06:20,930 When the subject was experiencing heightened stresses, the blood moved differently to parts of the face. 57 00:06:20,930 --> 00:06:26,600 The tip of the nose was the give away drawing growing brighter, an angry or embarrassed and darling when frightened or surprised. 58 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:32,120 Jeffries faces or as grey as the surrounding countryside. How long has he gone? 59 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:37,910 And asked. Grad consulted Shaun's notes. Seven hours and 13 minutes. 60 00:06:37,910 --> 00:06:41,000 They get notes on everything so that eventually some nerd in the Pentagon would 61 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:47,010 use that to extrapolate where Jeffrey had gone and what he'd done while gone. He's been rolling around in mud. 62 00:06:47,010 --> 00:06:51,840 It looks like Grand said. Then he zoomed him some more. No, that's not mud. 63 00:06:51,840 --> 00:06:56,450 It's got a mild Hitzig, very mild. But it's their blood. 64 00:06:56,450 --> 00:07:01,760 Arthur. Anna. Yeah. Grant. Huh? Said ANSTO. 65 00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:05,880 There was Jeffrey Psyco furiously up to his hole, up to his home, skidding to a stop nose, 66 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:13,170 falling off at his front door unlocked and shoved the bike inside and drove in after the door slamming shut so hard grabbed could almost hear it. 67 00:07:13,170 --> 00:07:20,380 Well, that's not [INAUDIBLE] suspicious at all, said Anna. The analyst Gatford Bitzer had been to it of data grow connective tissue. 68 00:07:20,380 --> 00:07:27,840 Did David and the boys weren't back yet. That meant they hadn't found Miriam dried blood and no one else had seen Geoffrey indite himself. 69 00:07:27,840 --> 00:07:31,770 No one on the ground, at least not Meems father. Probably not a mother. 70 00:07:31,770 --> 00:07:36,450 None of a sibling is not even any of the neighbours. It was almost sunset in Pakistan. 71 00:07:36,450 --> 00:07:42,420 The dull visibility was why they were on thermal imaging and had seen the mild heat emanating from the splat on his clothes. 72 00:07:42,420 --> 00:07:47,670 The timing meant that anyone who was indoors was bringing the dummy. The darling would usually be at the mosque at this time. 73 00:07:47,670 --> 00:07:53,820 But even he hadn't left his home, likely afraid of soiling himself and frustrating to allow guns switched to the side, 74 00:07:53,820 --> 00:08:01,980 cameras searching the periphery in the distance, he picked up the fitting signature glos of David and his two sons heading back to Ft. 75 00:08:01,980 --> 00:08:08,620 Rich in their posture. He was then returned home. David pausing to look back out over the desert before entering. 76 00:08:08,620 --> 00:08:14,290 Too dark to keep searching. Granted, then, you know, reapers do for refuelling in two hours. 77 00:08:14,290 --> 00:08:20,650 We can take a roundabout way home, see if we pick up anything, unless you consider this as commanding officer on deck. 78 00:08:20,650 --> 00:08:28,330 It was within his purview to okay it. But he'd also have to explain any deviations in the flight plan higher up Granton to look up at him. 79 00:08:28,330 --> 00:08:34,810 It's Miriam Grant said she's just a lucky girl. We watched her for months and spot her in a crowd if need be. 80 00:08:34,810 --> 00:08:38,920 There's no crowd, said ANSTO. If she's out there, she's likely dead. 81 00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:42,190 Which means she isn't giving off any heat. And so you do find her. 82 00:08:42,190 --> 00:08:49,270 What then? Vanessa was right. There was no way of notifying anyone on the ground in that small village in rural Pakistan. 83 00:08:49,270 --> 00:08:57,440 They didn't even know they were being watched from above. Grant was about to concede the point when one of the analysts said, what's that? 84 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:02,900 Grad turn to the back to the screens in the distance, the same direction the children went to school in. 85 00:09:02,900 --> 00:09:07,730 David and the boys went searching for Miriam and Jeffrey had come back in panic from a single 86 00:09:07,730 --> 00:09:13,820 flare of brilliant white glowed brightly like a blade of light slicing its way across the desert. 87 00:09:13,820 --> 00:09:18,590 How far out is it and the analyst said Grant did some quick maths. 88 00:09:18,590 --> 00:09:23,420 About four clicks heading towards a village. It's far. Stewart should make contact 90 minutes. 89 00:09:23,420 --> 00:09:28,640 What is it? Nesto. His main screen was filled with the same visual display you'd get in a jet. 90 00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:32,690 Hard. Except his views was it was oriented directly below the draw. 91 00:09:32,690 --> 00:09:38,480 He kept glancing on a grand screen. The light allowed into an ivory pillar, still moving steadily. 92 00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:42,890 I can't tell. Too bright to be vehicular. Not even if it had a gold furnace. 93 00:09:42,890 --> 00:09:48,920 That much heat can only, I don't know. And at the end it was leaning over him. 94 00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:54,110 Close the aperture. I think I see something she said. Grant, I've done a series of commands. 95 00:09:54,110 --> 00:09:56,660 The screen darkened visibility dropping away. 96 00:09:56,660 --> 00:10:02,120 The spectral starlight given off by wildlife scarring across the desert floor faded into uniform blackness. 97 00:10:02,120 --> 00:10:06,650 Even the blades from the object of attention diminished until it was little more than low flame. 98 00:10:06,650 --> 00:10:14,690 At its base was a child. It was still too far for Gran to be sure it was the same size as Miriam and have the same scrawny bill. 99 00:10:14,690 --> 00:10:19,720 At first he thought she was crawling on her hands and knees. Then he realised that was an inaccurate description. 100 00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:27,270 She was propelling herself only with her hands, legs stretched limp behind her, slithering from side to side as she looked forward. 101 00:10:27,270 --> 00:10:30,870 It's worth it to the analyst, right? Yes, ma'am. See, Grant? 102 00:10:30,870 --> 00:10:36,000 It is. I'm pretty sure how she's moving so fast. ANSTO said Grant spanning the cameras, 103 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:41,940 keep pace with her as they watch the girls better with rocks and across a narrow gully moving so far, she's almost leaping. 104 00:10:41,940 --> 00:10:48,210 The heat emanated from within her. Emanating from within her was fierce. Even with visibility reduced to almost nil. 105 00:10:48,210 --> 00:10:51,240 As she grew closer to home, they were able to discern details. 106 00:10:51,240 --> 00:10:59,020 Her clothes were torn, ragged patches hanging on her frame and her legs were streaked with blood, the feet twisted almost entirely around. 107 00:10:59,020 --> 00:11:04,320 Grant zoomed in on her face and from next to him, ANSTO said, Oh, Jesus. 108 00:11:04,320 --> 00:11:10,980 It was definitely Miriam. Despite the distorted mouth, lips were pulled back in a green so wide it would split her cheeks. 109 00:11:10,980 --> 00:11:19,080 Long teeth glowed inside. Her eyes were dark holes in her face. She was almost at her front door now snake picking up the dirt path to her home. 110 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:27,570 She stopped their legs, still stretched uselessly behind her. Then, as Grant and the others in the container watched, she turned her body sideways. 111 00:11:27,570 --> 00:11:35,190 Did her head back up and stared straight at them. Pinpricks of light flared in the hollow gashes in her face with her eyes should have been white. 112 00:11:35,190 --> 00:11:43,020 Bettles climbed out of each hollow and on the floor rolled across her face. Its fire grabbed heard himself say she [INAUDIBLE] looking at us. 113 00:11:43,020 --> 00:11:47,790 And Esther was saying, Then the feed from Reep got out. 114 00:11:47,790 --> 00:11:52,470 So that's it. That's great. Lovely. Thank you so much. 115 00:11:52,470 --> 00:11:57,120 My pleasure. Yeah. Well, I don't know if it makes sense because I've got to dropped you into the middle of the story, 116 00:11:57,120 --> 00:12:01,770 but Reep is the Reaper drone that surveys the village and. 117 00:12:01,770 --> 00:12:10,230 Yeah. And what happens next? You'd have to you'd find out the world that you build in and read. 118 00:12:10,230 --> 00:12:14,770 And and boy, fire and earth is is the world that we know. 119 00:12:14,770 --> 00:12:24,420 But with this with this element of the mythical. Do you want to talk us through a little about why why you've chosen to write these stories this way? 120 00:12:24,420 --> 00:12:28,320 Well, for me, it's it's because that's the kind of world I grew up in. 121 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:35,610 So I grew up in Pakistan, in Karachi and and being a Muslim country and being a South Asian Muslim country, 122 00:12:35,610 --> 00:12:40,770 which has not just kind of Muslim mythology like Djinns and all of that involved in it, 123 00:12:40,770 --> 00:12:45,750 but also more local flavour, like creatures like the picture Parian and the trail. 124 00:12:45,750 --> 00:12:53,430 And so these are the boogie men, the boogie creatures. They get a bump go bump in the night that we grew up with, we knew we were told off. 125 00:12:53,430 --> 00:12:58,170 But what happens in a Western country is when you grow up, you stop believing in those things, right? 126 00:12:58,170 --> 00:13:01,050 You believe in rational world, the world you can see and touch. 127 00:13:01,050 --> 00:13:07,740 But religion is so deeply wound into our lives that that that stuff is about religion is part of religious belief. 128 00:13:07,740 --> 00:13:12,030 You know, if you are Muslim, you have to believe in the Koran, in in Allar, 129 00:13:12,030 --> 00:13:19,000 in the Prophet Muhammad and also in the reality that gin's exist and interact with humans regularly. 130 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:26,220 Engines are, according to Islam, a creature made a fire that existed dimensioned parallel to ours that can enter damage. 131 00:13:26,220 --> 00:13:33,690 And it will sometimes they're good, sometimes they're malicious. And Muslims believe that the devil is Ajin, not a fallen angel, for example. 132 00:13:33,690 --> 00:13:37,830 So that's you know, that's the kind of things that that they will part of my life. 133 00:13:37,830 --> 00:13:42,150 Like when I was growing up, we had stories and not even when I was growing up and I was an adult, you know, 134 00:13:42,150 --> 00:13:48,390 we had stories that we believed that there's a sweet shop that has a the tree of deserts out every night, 135 00:13:48,390 --> 00:13:53,880 which has gone by morning because the Jinnah's coming eat it. And because of the, you know, the gift to the gin's, the sweet shop does. 136 00:13:53,880 --> 00:13:57,960 Well, there's you know, there there was stories about your dad, 137 00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:02,220 so-and-so religious daughter got possessed by Ajin and that's why no one can marry her or so. 138 00:14:02,220 --> 00:14:05,910 And so Unglue can speak to Gin's and see Gin's. 139 00:14:05,910 --> 00:14:10,950 And he would you know, when we were around, he would sometimes say, you know, there's a gene in that corner of the room. 140 00:14:10,950 --> 00:14:13,380 You can't see him, but he's there. But he's a good Gynt. 141 00:14:13,380 --> 00:14:26,640 So that intersection of modernity and everyday mundane life and the supernatural is so common and so almost mundane in its own way. 142 00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:34,730 If you're in those places of the world that I just felt like the stories I want to tell a stories which aren't, 143 00:14:34,730 --> 00:14:40,050 you know, in a in any other kind, they might be gone magical realist, but or fantasy, but they're not. 144 00:14:40,050 --> 00:14:44,930 When you're growing up there, the reality. Yeah, I think that's really that's really important. 145 00:14:44,930 --> 00:14:57,500 The intersection of these worlds, I suppose. And the reality is that these are realities for people rather than rather than fantasies. 146 00:14:57,500 --> 00:15:02,750 So when I when I'm thinking about you or your urban fantasy novel boire far enough. 147 00:15:02,750 --> 00:15:09,830 One of the reviews notes that you are doing for Karachi, what Gaiman did for London in Neverwhere. 148 00:15:09,830 --> 00:15:17,840 So and then previously you'd written I Migrante, about your experience being an immigrant and working as a journalist and now as a Stand-Up comic. 149 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:26,470 So you're quite genre fluid and you work across a lot of different kind of narrative strategies, I suppose. 150 00:15:26,470 --> 00:15:32,660 Well, part of it is if you look at the buffone and I Migrante, they both have something going to secretly hidden it, 151 00:15:32,660 --> 00:15:37,900 which is what your buffo or not is actually a story of Karachi. 152 00:15:37,900 --> 00:15:44,810 It's got a bit of history of Karachi, but it's got it's about the city that I grew up in, a city that I still have a deep and abiding love for. 153 00:15:44,810 --> 00:15:50,660 And I Migrante is an autobiography, but it's actually the social political history of Pakistan. 154 00:15:50,660 --> 00:15:56,420 I like telling stories about geography, about police and then situating people in that place. 155 00:15:56,420 --> 00:16:02,480 And so there is that common theme running through the work. But yeah, the same time I like writing. 156 00:16:02,480 --> 00:16:07,850 And for me, I'm also a Stand-Up comedian. So I write Stand-Up comedy and I perform it regularly. 157 00:16:07,850 --> 00:16:14,270 And the script I'm working on these days is a crime noir kind of story for someone. 158 00:16:14,270 --> 00:16:22,610 And the next book I'm halfway through is a book about media in Australia and how it affects people's lives. 159 00:16:22,610 --> 00:16:28,940 So I think what I like doing is and I know it's a problem because it might actually end up meaning that I am spread so 160 00:16:28,940 --> 00:16:36,770 thin that no one ever actually ends up being let me become a success because I have too many to disparage a body work. 161 00:16:36,770 --> 00:16:41,690 But I just like going with the story goes. And if a story wants to be told, 162 00:16:41,690 --> 00:16:49,270 the story that wants to be told is a serious story or a genre fiction story or a science fiction story or a horror story or a crime noir story, 163 00:16:49,270 --> 00:16:51,260 then that's a story I will tell. 164 00:16:51,260 --> 00:17:00,420 I don't want to be limited in the stories I can do because the stories I read are the stories I enjoy aren't limited to one genre either. 165 00:17:00,420 --> 00:17:05,000 You know, I read comics, I read science fiction, fantasy crime, autobiography history. 166 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:09,680 I read all those things. And so I want to be able to tell all those things as well. 167 00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:16,580 Absolutely. I think it's the mark of a good reader and a good writer to be well versed in a variety of of genres. 168 00:17:16,580 --> 00:17:21,400 And obviously like concepts of genre can be quite problematic, as you say, 169 00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:24,980 if they're being spread too thin, because that's kind of what the market demands. 170 00:17:24,980 --> 00:17:29,540 Right. Writers who are slightly pigeonholed so that there's no. 171 00:17:29,540 --> 00:17:38,730 That's what I'm getting when I read Sami Shah. But when you read Sami Shah, you get lots of different narratives when you think about the future. 172 00:17:38,730 --> 00:17:47,360 So, I mean, you it was announced late last year that you would be leaving ABC Melbourne and to write more. 173 00:17:47,360 --> 00:17:53,490 So, yeah, you've mentioned that you're working on a Bernau crime novel. 174 00:17:53,490 --> 00:18:01,050 Well, when you think about writing narratives for the future, what kind of narratives are you hoping to either write all read? 175 00:18:01,050 --> 00:18:06,150 Well, when it comes as well, I guess they be futuristic fiction, science fiction and that kind of a thing, 176 00:18:06,150 --> 00:18:11,610 and it's I'm actually in a strange place right now where I'm not enjoying that genre much 177 00:18:11,610 --> 00:18:18,030 anymore because I feel like I already thought there's some still some books in it that I enjoy. 178 00:18:18,030 --> 00:18:24,540 But the ones that are more recently that I've encountered just feel as if the future we were 179 00:18:24,540 --> 00:18:32,040 predicting has been so wildly different from the future that we that we've result ended up with. 180 00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:37,830 If you look at the books I read as a kid, which was set in the year 2020 and so on and so forth, none of them predicted cell phones. 181 00:18:37,830 --> 00:18:41,960 None of them predicted coronavirus outbreaks. None of them predicted the Internet. 182 00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:47,730 Humans were so in so many ways know other than maybe William Gibson here or there or bit Neal Stephenson. 183 00:18:47,730 --> 00:18:51,660 So I like reading far flung stories. 184 00:18:51,660 --> 00:18:54,750 Now, we just said thousands and thousands of years in the future. 185 00:18:54,750 --> 00:19:03,430 You know something by and lucky, for example, of someone like that with her Imperial RATCH trilogy, because it's practically fantasy at that point. 186 00:19:03,430 --> 00:19:07,800 It's so far flung that even I don't have to worry about the plausibility of it, 187 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:11,760 but the one I want to read, which I can't read because I haven't found it yet. 188 00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:21,630 Which then makes me want to write it is something about. It's about the lives of people like me, Bruno, South Asians, the brown people. 189 00:19:21,630 --> 00:19:25,160 They like it. You know, we we are there in these science fiction story. 190 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:28,710 And I started thinking about that a lot more recently, which is, you know, 191 00:19:28,710 --> 00:19:33,780 if you look at the history of the world, you look at the current state of the world. 192 00:19:33,780 --> 00:19:36,330 You know, it's built on the backs of brown people. 193 00:19:36,330 --> 00:19:45,480 It's you know, it's basically if you go to from Saudi Arabia to London, every building is built by someone who is a brown immigrant. 194 00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:49,800 Every finger food is delivered by a brown guy. You're you're in working the kitchens around the world. 195 00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:54,240 If you speak Punjabi, if you're in America, you eat and you don't speak Hispanic, 196 00:19:54,240 --> 00:20:04,350 you're not going to be able to work in a kitchen if you're in London or in Melbourne or in jail in Riyad and you don't speak or do or Hindi, 197 00:20:04,350 --> 00:20:08,090 you're not going to be able to work in a kitchen. It's a completely changed world that way. 198 00:20:08,090 --> 00:20:14,340 And then there's a demographic representation which is so sorely lacking. So I, I want to be able to tell that story. 199 00:20:14,340 --> 00:20:21,960 I want to be able to tell the story of a. What happens with artificial intelligence, because I feel like we haven't fully understood where it goes, 200 00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:28,350 what it does, how it could impact our lives, and we kind of blindly and blindly going forward with it. 201 00:20:28,350 --> 00:20:35,970 But, you know, men better minds. And I've kind of touched on that. But I feel like the element that I can bring to it is the representational story. 202 00:20:35,970 --> 00:20:45,050 Absolutely. Yeah. There's some interesting work being done at the Centre for the Future of Intelligence in Cambridge by Cancer Hall and Stephen Cave, 203 00:20:45,050 --> 00:20:51,940 and they presented at a conference that I ran in October twenty nineteen about the whiteness of A.I. 204 00:20:51,940 --> 00:20:57,330 That's right. And a lot of people have explored some of those elements in different researchers, which I've enjoyed. 205 00:20:57,330 --> 00:21:03,390 For example, one of the things that I keep thinking about and I've spent a lot time actually thinking about this is, you know, 206 00:21:03,390 --> 00:21:10,680 one of the areas where we don't see an implementation of A.I. and no one seems to be talking about the possibility of implementation. 207 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:15,890 To me, it seems so obvious is government terms of replacing government politicians, 208 00:21:15,890 --> 00:21:19,590 et cetera, with A.I., because in the end, what do you need the government for? 209 00:21:19,590 --> 00:21:23,080 You need a government to make sure the trains run on time to make sure the traffic lights work. 210 00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:31,260 It's resource management. At its heart, a politician's job is resource management, making sure food gets here, money goes there, things like that. 211 00:21:31,260 --> 00:21:39,510 All the policy decisions, that's stuff that can be done with an equation, that stuff that with within intuitive enough algorithm, 212 00:21:39,510 --> 00:21:45,330 you could actually have all of those things done on a global level without ever worrying about the 213 00:21:45,330 --> 00:21:52,470 the corruption and the ego and the politics and ideologies that human politics bring into it. 214 00:21:52,470 --> 00:22:01,830 If the United Nations gets replaced by an A.I. that has an algorithms that its main purpose is resource management and it sees not enough food here, 215 00:22:01,830 --> 00:22:06,300 too much food there, move food from here to there. Not enough roads are bad here. 216 00:22:06,300 --> 00:22:11,370 Money over there. Move money from here that things like that. You know, employment, etc., etc. 217 00:22:11,370 --> 00:22:16,710 These are all equations. Economists use them and mathematicians use them to study the world all the time. 218 00:22:16,710 --> 00:22:19,920 But we have not taken to that next level of implementation. 219 00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:24,600 And because we think that if we give hand it over to A.I., we're going to end up with the Terminator. 220 00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,720 But I don't think the Terminator would be interested in getting us at all. 221 00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:33,210 I think that would be too far below and too easy a problem to solve for the Terminator to bother with. 222 00:22:33,210 --> 00:22:39,540 I really like the idea of. Yeah, of of a a beneficent global organising structure. 223 00:22:39,540 --> 00:22:48,090 Yeah. What we presume in that right of course is that the algorithm is unbiased and that it will move food from here to there, whereas necessary. 224 00:22:48,090 --> 00:22:49,740 But as is highlighted now, 225 00:22:49,740 --> 00:22:58,200 the worlds both on the backs of brown people and yet those people are widely disenfranchised and impoverished by by these structures. 226 00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:03,910 Right. So it becomes a question of who writes. The algorithms and how and why. 227 00:23:03,910 --> 00:23:13,620 And what do we what do we feed into the algorithm? Right. Because our current systems are perhaps not the best data. 228 00:23:13,620 --> 00:23:18,770 Yeah, absolutely, because I think look, I think with coronavirus, we've kind of seen, 229 00:23:18,770 --> 00:23:24,140 even though we're not acknowledging the importance of an organisation like the World Health Organisation or the United Nations, 230 00:23:24,140 --> 00:23:28,370 because it turns out that America are having a terrible healthcare system, 231 00:23:28,370 --> 00:23:35,420 impacts the rest of the world, that New Zealand having a good healthcare system, saves places as well. 232 00:23:35,420 --> 00:23:47,210 So obviously, at this point, the health of someone in a rural village in in in England has a direct connexion to the health of someone in Zaire, 233 00:23:47,210 --> 00:23:55,280 to the health of someone in Perth. You know, around the world, we've got that thing because of globalisation, which means whether we like it or not, 234 00:23:55,280 --> 00:24:04,130 a universal body that oversees, you know, basic human rights and and basic care is something that's more important now than ever before. 235 00:24:04,130 --> 00:24:10,340 But, yes, you're right, Bill. How do you then go from there to implementing something that actually does function? 236 00:24:10,340 --> 00:24:16,310 Because you've been Dotcom's through Silicon Valley. It'll be the same kind of things, everything as a Silicon Valley is being, which is, you know, 237 00:24:16,310 --> 00:24:19,640 you go if you're a black man and you go in the bathroom and you try washing your hands, 238 00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:24,020 the sensor doesn't read your hands because it only reads white hands. Yeah, Boyle. 239 00:24:24,020 --> 00:24:31,010 I mean, he has done some really important work on how facial recognition is so racist and how it can't read. 240 00:24:31,010 --> 00:24:38,810 I can't read Women of Colour. Yeah. There's there's some really important research being done on the ethics of A.I. But the way that we know, 241 00:24:38,810 --> 00:24:46,970 the way that the corporates work with with A.I. tends to be this push towards the singularity, which is decades away, if not, you know, not centuries. 242 00:24:46,970 --> 00:24:51,290 So, yeah, there is a big jump there. 243 00:24:51,290 --> 00:24:55,490 It is that it's the it's the way for progress no matter what. 244 00:24:55,490 --> 00:25:03,740 And there's that TV show on HBO called Silicon Valley. And, you know, it's it's a comedy and it's a comedy at that. 245 00:25:03,740 --> 00:25:08,270 But there was an interesting interview I saw with Gruman Nanjiani, who is one of the actors on that, 246 00:25:08,270 --> 00:25:12,710 because they are they got to hang out with a lot of Silicon Valley bigwigs and and 247 00:25:12,710 --> 00:25:15,890 those big rigs of excitedly showing them all the projects that they're working on, 248 00:25:15,890 --> 00:25:18,950 all the new up and coming stuff, which, you know, the Condra view of the world yet. 249 00:25:18,950 --> 00:25:25,370 And and he said you'd be frightened of your mind if you knew what they're working on because they are not responsible. 250 00:25:25,370 --> 00:25:32,300 They're entirely like children and very, very dangerous. And the ideas that they're doing around with it just aren't considering the repercussions of. 251 00:25:32,300 --> 00:25:40,670 So, yeah, the advancements are happening because there's no regulation or the regulation is so easily to to skirt round. 252 00:25:40,670 --> 00:25:43,010 These advancements are happening at a frightening pace. 253 00:25:43,010 --> 00:25:48,920 But I also feel that they're just not happening in areas that are of interest because someone in Silicon 254 00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:59,240 Valley won't think of how I can impact and improve the lives of a of the Democratic Republic of Congo, 255 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:03,410 you know, of the DRC, because that's just not something to give a damn about. 256 00:26:03,410 --> 00:26:11,420 However, something like that could be a place that could benefit from certain tools, you know, just drones delivering food, 257 00:26:11,420 --> 00:26:17,610 food supplements or food alternatives that don't require anything other than just add water and clean water. 258 00:26:17,610 --> 00:26:22,040 And I think that all can be done using 3D printing, et cetera. 259 00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:29,540 Absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree. I think, as you say, resource management is such an important potential outcome of this. 260 00:26:29,540 --> 00:26:34,640 And yet what we're looking at is increases in global inequalities. 261 00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:39,000 Right. So things have changed so much in the last few months. 262 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:48,410 So I can't talk about narratives of the present and how you think the narratives that we have at the moment might shape whatever comes next. 263 00:26:48,410 --> 00:26:54,590 I think one of the things you're going to see is a lot of writers coming out with books set out in the future or 264 00:26:54,590 --> 00:27:01,640 in the past because the present has become so chaotic that it's actually affected the books that we're working on. 265 00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:10,040 I mean, I'm halfway through a novel that I've had to put on pause because coronavirus in isolation was not something I disappeared. 266 00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:16,640 It was a novel set in present times. I have no incorporate that into the story. I just don't know how because I'm still experiencing it. 267 00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:19,550 So I can't even look back on it and make any analysis. 268 00:27:19,550 --> 00:27:26,390 I'm sure there are wonderful writers and extremely talented writers who are going to tell escalating stories about what's happening right now. 269 00:27:26,390 --> 00:27:29,570 And they're writing those stories right now. But I think for a lot of us, 270 00:27:29,570 --> 00:27:39,140 it's it's kind of taken us by surprise in that I know a few writers who I've spoken to said I've actually written less during this isolation period, 271 00:27:39,140 --> 00:27:42,350 which you think would be a boon for us than I thought I would, 272 00:27:42,350 --> 00:27:50,240 because it's just it's just confusing about how to fold this into a story, how to fall this into reality. 273 00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:58,100 I mean, we don't know when such a time of flux suddenly that to make any predictions would be dangerous. 274 00:27:58,100 --> 00:28:04,880 Absolutely. And there's there's also the element of this being a time of of inside this and inward looking. 275 00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:14,750 Right. Huge amount of introspection about what kind of societies we are, which is actually a very typical quality of plague fiction. 276 00:28:14,750 --> 00:28:22,850 If we think about Geovani but Cochairs Decameron, 10 people seclude themselves to talk about their society. 277 00:28:22,850 --> 00:28:26,510 I mean, also to avoid the plague. Black death. But they. But. 278 00:28:26,510 --> 00:28:29,660 But they're what they're doing is they're telling stories about the early 279 00:28:29,660 --> 00:28:34,580 renaissance in Italy and what the society is like and kind of how to navigate it. 280 00:28:34,580 --> 00:28:35,870 But it's quite hard, I think, 281 00:28:35,870 --> 00:28:45,890 for people to mesh the two mesh stories about the kind of come from the past into the present because we have no idea what's going to happen next. 282 00:28:45,890 --> 00:28:49,100 People might actually start seeking out more historical fiction, 283 00:28:49,100 --> 00:28:57,410 historical novels and just books on general history and things overall, because it's and it's not to learn from the past either. 284 00:28:57,410 --> 00:29:04,040 I think it's because that would become something that we can find comfort in is a time when, you know, Trump wasn't the president, 285 00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,690 Boris Johnson was the prime minister, and there wasn't, you know, 286 00:29:07,690 --> 00:29:13,550 a massive global pandemic locking us in our houses with Netflix and Stan and those things. 287 00:29:13,550 --> 00:29:22,640 So I think at this point where we're going to see changes in appetite for what people want to watch, what people enjoy is the rise of Tick-Tock. 288 00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:27,410 For example, I've been fascinating to me because this this is short format, you know, 289 00:29:27,410 --> 00:29:33,530 sketch comedy video app, which people have shown incredible ingenuity with. 290 00:29:33,530 --> 00:29:38,360 And they're doing it all from the living room. And they and they've got production facilities on an app that, you know. 291 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:44,270 That are remarkable given how easy they are to implement. And they're doing it all at home while locked down. 292 00:29:44,270 --> 00:29:49,190 And how will that change the world we live in? When will we ever go back to cinema? 293 00:29:49,190 --> 00:29:57,160 Even when it comes back, will we just want to stay at home and watch it off any way with, you know, what will we watch when we watch things? 294 00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:01,130 Now, why the hell was Tiger being so addictive to everyone? 295 00:30:01,130 --> 00:30:08,810 I think it's because for a lot of people, it was someone whose life was even more bananas than their lives were right now. 296 00:30:08,810 --> 00:30:14,510 Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There's a really interesting kind of shift towards thinking about, you know, 297 00:30:14,510 --> 00:30:20,480 we used to consume reality TV thinking about the 2000s and the boom of Big Brother, 298 00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:28,160 and that was a scene that was so culturally relevant and referential. 299 00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:38,540 And now we have kind of a return to two alternatives, which I think is really funny, given the sort of boom of dystopia in the last. 300 00:30:38,540 --> 00:30:44,820 Or dystopian novels and TV shows and media in the last 20 years. 301 00:30:44,820 --> 00:30:53,360 And I yeah, I do wonder about what will it look like and what will the media and publishing landscape look like in the next five years, 302 00:30:53,360 --> 00:31:02,240 given that we're currently living through what feels like sort of futuristic world? 303 00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:09,240 I think the apple might have kind, you know, put the finger on the pulse of things with the unrest we saw recently, 304 00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:16,190 they announced that he is a trailer for foundation, the Asimov, the series that adapting into a TV show. 305 00:31:16,190 --> 00:31:23,580 And and it's very much a TV show about the end of one civilisation and the rising of another one through its ashes. 306 00:31:23,580 --> 00:31:23,840 You know, 307 00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:32,550 a ASMOF inspired by the fall of the Roman Republic and how the Roman Empire or the Western Roman Empire and how in other things came out from that. 308 00:31:32,550 --> 00:31:42,040 And and I think everyone is very clearly, very obviously feeling the reality of an end of one era right now. 309 00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:47,960 You know, we're living through that moment when Rome kind of fell or when when the Assyrian 310 00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:52,290 empire collapsed and did the fall of Minawi or or something along those lines, 311 00:31:52,290 --> 00:31:56,600 although the British Empire had suddenly discovered that they weren't empire anymore. 312 00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:02,750 And we're going to go through that with America now and where we don't know what comes next. 313 00:32:02,750 --> 00:32:11,120 And I think dystopian fiction right now might actually be a little too close to home and you might end up seeing the birth of utopian fiction instead. 314 00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:15,170 Yeah, a return to the, you know, the feminist sci fi as of the 1970s. 315 00:32:15,170 --> 00:32:27,580 This might be the time that Ursula Killigrew in her books will finally get the full global appreciation. 316 00:32:27,580 --> 00:32:33,490 Narrative futures for those writers and speculators listening. 317 00:32:33,490 --> 00:32:34,150 Stay with us. 318 00:32:34,150 --> 00:32:44,050 Now for writing prompts and exercises designed to encourage putting pen to paper or hands to keyboard, as well as reflection on the writing process. 319 00:32:44,050 --> 00:32:53,430 This section is designed and presented by Louis Greenberg. 320 00:32:53,430 --> 00:33:00,510 In this interview, Sami Shah raises the intriguing possibility of a benign A.I. taking over the work of global government. 321 00:33:00,510 --> 00:33:07,860 Although my unimaginative leaning is towards knee jerk, paranoid Luddite ism when it comes to take short makes a compelling case that government 322 00:33:07,860 --> 00:33:13,230 by a I would be efficient and free of corruption and ego would need to set some rules. 323 00:33:13,230 --> 00:33:21,290 Surely. For your first exercise, I'd like you to help save the world by making five rules for an A.I. government. 324 00:33:21,290 --> 00:33:26,190 Think of it as a specific update of Asimov's three laws of robotics. 325 00:33:26,190 --> 00:33:30,990 This is your chance to shape the world in your image. Last gasp for human ego. 326 00:33:30,990 --> 00:33:35,150 What would your priorities be? Please share your results with that. 327 00:33:35,150 --> 00:33:48,760 Compare them with other writers responses. Is your focus on specific problems and industries or is it more global in reach? 328 00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:54,790 Shots gone off near future science fiction. He says futuristic predictions have failed. 329 00:33:54,790 --> 00:33:59,420 Unlike some other writers in the series, he's enduring far flung science fiction. 330 00:33:59,420 --> 00:34:06,080 Alfred based as the stars, my destination was a very influential example of far future science fiction, are so struck by it. 331 00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:10,020 I went to the 21st birthday party dressed as Gallie Foyle. 332 00:34:10,020 --> 00:34:14,390 That novel showed me the extent to which we could imagine humanity changing in thousands of years. 333 00:34:14,390 --> 00:34:20,280 Time will evolve physically and psychologically as well as technologically. 334 00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,150 For a second exercise, instead of a broad think piece, 335 00:34:23,150 --> 00:34:32,220 I'd like you specifically to imagine waking up in a human settlement in 10000 years time suddenly shunted forward from here and now, 336 00:34:32,220 --> 00:34:36,870 this time focus on the descriptive specifics of your experience, not the ideas. 337 00:34:36,870 --> 00:34:42,780 Write a few paragraphs of pages showing us how it feels. Smells, tastes, sounds. 338 00:34:42,780 --> 00:34:47,010 Is gravity different? Who is around you? Where are you? 339 00:34:47,010 --> 00:34:53,500 You know nothing about the world you in and it can only start to piece it together with his immediate sensory stimuli. 340 00:34:53,500 --> 00:34:58,930 Have fun and please share compare your responses to any others that have been shared. 341 00:34:58,930 --> 00:35:10,110 How does your vision match and differ from other visions? What do you think that says about your creative imagination? 342 00:35:10,110 --> 00:35:20,010 Thanks for listening to this episode of Narrative Futures. Next week, Mahvish Murad joins me from Kuala Lumpur to discuss the art of the short story, 343 00:35:20,010 --> 00:35:34,517 discovering tabletop games and whether Tick-Tock is an effective platform for narrative engagement.