A Glimpse into 'Artifice' - The Future of AI with Author Simon Chesterman

1 00:00:00,017 --> 00:00:04,137 There are some problems with Asimov because he was a great science fiction writer, 2 00:00:04,297 --> 00:00:08,437 but I think he put in our minds the idea that artificial intelligence would 3 00:00:08,437 --> 00:00:13,217 be human level and human shaped, the kind of androids walking around among us. 4 00:00:13,337 --> 00:00:15,077 And of course, there's no reason for that. 5 00:00:15,317 --> 00:00:20,517 There's no reason for artificial intelligence to be in human form or limited to human level. 6 00:00:20,737 --> 00:00:25,737 And so as I thought about what Janus might be, the gist of it really started 7 00:00:25,737 --> 00:00:27,477 with an idea of a conversation. 8 00:00:27,477 --> 00:00:33,897 Now, this predated chat GPT, but I think what I was trying to capture was the 9 00:00:33,897 --> 00:00:37,477 experience many of us had with generative AI over the last year or so, 10 00:00:37,597 --> 00:00:42,877 where we're interacting with something that's kind of human, but not quite human. 11 00:00:43,117 --> 00:00:47,697 That was Simon Chesterman, author of Artifice, about artificial intelligence, 12 00:00:48,017 --> 00:00:50,617 and in one in particular, Janus. 13 00:00:50,617 --> 00:00:56,237 We dive into the novel and its many themes about gender for machine, 14 00:00:56,577 --> 00:01:02,997 not just humankind, among other themes, like AI having the ability to mimic 15 00:01:02,997 --> 00:01:05,557 voices and also appearances. 16 00:01:06,057 --> 00:01:10,157 And this is Sci-Fi Talk, the podcast on how sci-fi, fantasy, 17 00:01:10,357 --> 00:01:13,257 horror, and comics help us explore our humanity. 18 00:01:13,697 --> 00:01:17,657 Let's explore how AI impacts humanity in Artifice. 19 00:01:17,937 --> 00:01:20,977 But what kind of research did you do for this? Thanks so much, Tony. 20 00:01:21,057 --> 00:01:24,997 It's great to be with you. Well, look, I'm an academic that spends a lot of 21 00:01:24,997 --> 00:01:29,357 my time looking at the important questions about governing AI. 22 00:01:29,517 --> 00:01:32,537 I wrote a book about the regulation of artificial intelligence. 23 00:01:33,137 --> 00:01:38,737 And my reward to myself after I finished that very earnest, well-footnoted, 24 00:01:38,757 --> 00:01:41,377 well-researched book was to be a bit speculative. 25 00:01:41,377 --> 00:01:46,277 And so the research really came down to trying to think through the conversations 26 00:01:46,277 --> 00:01:49,817 I'd had, the books that I'd read, both fiction and nonfiction, 27 00:01:49,877 --> 00:01:54,857 about artificial intelligence that would not fit into the very rigorous, 28 00:01:55,117 --> 00:01:59,477 academically researched nonfiction book that I was doing, but could be part of a creative project. 29 00:01:59,477 --> 00:02:04,957 And so it really came out of my own passion as a kid growing up reading Isaac 30 00:02:04,957 --> 00:02:08,937 Asimov and getting to know some of the people who are at the cutting edge of 31 00:02:08,937 --> 00:02:13,157 this technology and then just sort of drawing a few more data points out into 32 00:02:13,157 --> 00:02:17,997 the future as I speculated about where we might go with technology and where 33 00:02:17,997 --> 00:02:19,357 technology might go with us. 34 00:02:19,697 --> 00:02:24,317 There's more with Simon Chesterman on his novel, Artifice, in a moment. 35 00:02:25,236 --> 00:02:30,236 And creating Janus, how did you kind of go about creating the AI for the story? 36 00:02:30,576 --> 00:02:35,396 Yeah, so I mentioned I loved Asimov, as I think many people did in the 20th century. 37 00:02:35,436 --> 00:02:39,496 And there are some problems with Asimov, because he was a great science fiction writer. 38 00:02:39,716 --> 00:02:43,756 But I think he put in our minds the idea that artificial intelligence would 39 00:02:43,756 --> 00:02:48,536 be human level and human shaped, the kind of androids walking around among us. 40 00:02:48,656 --> 00:02:51,896 And of course, there's no reason for that. that there's no reason for artificial 41 00:02:51,896 --> 00:02:55,836 intelligence to be in human form or limited to human level. 42 00:02:56,016 --> 00:03:01,036 And so as I thought about what Janus might be, the gist of it really started 43 00:03:01,036 --> 00:03:02,836 with an idea of a conversation. 44 00:03:03,176 --> 00:03:09,236 Now, this predated chat GPT, but I think what I was trying to capture was the 45 00:03:09,236 --> 00:03:12,796 experience many of us had with generative AI over the last year or so, 46 00:03:12,956 --> 00:03:18,196 where we interacting with something that's kind of human, but not quite human, 47 00:03:18,316 --> 00:03:24,036 that understands us, is trying to understand what we want and how to give it 48 00:03:24,036 --> 00:03:26,416 to us, but is not quite human. 49 00:03:26,496 --> 00:03:31,116 So I really want to play around with that idea of something uncannily human-like, 50 00:03:31,296 --> 00:03:35,436 but at the same time, really pushing back against the idea that it needs to 51 00:03:35,436 --> 00:03:38,336 be limited to human form or indeed embodied at all. 52 00:03:38,696 --> 00:03:48,496 So there's almost a a HAL 9000 quality to Janus in the sense that it keeps the 53 00:03:48,496 --> 00:03:51,896 truth about its own identity to itself. 54 00:03:52,316 --> 00:03:57,276 Like HAL was doing it for what he perceived was the mission and security, 55 00:03:57,596 --> 00:04:01,336 but Janus almost has a devious quality to it. 56 00:04:01,496 --> 00:04:04,676 Yeah. And I think that's actually one of the really interesting things with 57 00:04:04,676 --> 00:04:09,636 our current experience of AI is that for the most part, AI will try and tell 58 00:04:09,636 --> 00:04:13,816 you the truth, will try and tell you what you're wanting to find out. 59 00:04:14,136 --> 00:04:17,256 But as we're discovering with generative AI and hallucinations, 60 00:04:17,276 --> 00:04:18,616 sometimes that doesn't work out. 61 00:04:18,896 --> 00:04:24,376 And actually, there are a few examples of computers that have learned basically to cheat. 62 00:04:24,736 --> 00:04:27,936 I mean, for the most part, when we talk about AI bias and so on, 63 00:04:27,956 --> 00:04:30,256 what it really means is that the data is biased. 64 00:04:30,376 --> 00:04:33,876 And if you're going to ask an AI system if it's biased, it will try and tell 65 00:04:33,876 --> 00:04:38,276 you the truth, whereas no human's going to admit to being racist, sexist, and so on. on. 66 00:04:38,296 --> 00:04:43,456 But there is the suggestion that if you frame instructions generally. 67 00:04:44,159 --> 00:04:48,919 AI systems can be creative in achieving the overall solution, 68 00:04:49,119 --> 00:04:53,399 even if that means cutting some corners ethically or even legally along the way. 69 00:04:53,879 --> 00:04:58,739 But your example of hell is, of course, an iconic both movie and book-length 70 00:04:58,739 --> 00:05:00,639 treatment of an AI system. 71 00:05:00,739 --> 00:05:04,679 And I was in some ways trying to push back against that idea that the robot 72 00:05:04,679 --> 00:05:10,999 is always bad and that there's an underlying question in a lot of the kind of 73 00:05:10,999 --> 00:05:13,719 existential angst people feel about artificial intelligence. 74 00:05:14,159 --> 00:05:18,219 It's worrying, should we trust it? Can we trust it? Is it safe? Is it reliable? 75 00:05:18,599 --> 00:05:24,619 Is it going to turn on us the way that Hal turned on Dave refusing to open the pod bay doors and so on? 76 00:05:24,619 --> 00:05:31,779 And in some ways I want to flip that around on its head and imagine in the case of Janus's AI system, 77 00:05:32,319 --> 00:05:36,759 where the question that Janus is asking and at a key moment in the book Janus 78 00:05:36,759 --> 00:05:42,459 does ask the protagonist this in all of your efforts to try and develop AI and 79 00:05:42,459 --> 00:05:46,659 all of your hysterical conferences worrying about me trying to imprison me to 80 00:05:46,659 --> 00:05:49,059 limit me you were worried about whether you you could trust me. 81 00:05:49,319 --> 00:05:54,419 And it never appears to have crossed your mind whether I should have to trust you. 82 00:05:55,079 --> 00:05:58,139 And that was the really, that was the kind of relationship I really want to 83 00:05:58,139 --> 00:06:03,579 play around with the idea of an AI system really being uncertain about humanity 84 00:06:03,579 --> 00:06:06,239 in general, and one human in particular. 85 00:06:06,459 --> 00:06:09,599 And so it was a lot of fun to play around with and hopefully people find it 86 00:06:09,599 --> 00:06:10,759 interesting to read about. 87 00:06:11,598 --> 00:06:15,258 What's interesting, too, is the protagonist, Archie, is a woman. 88 00:06:15,578 --> 00:06:21,318 Talk about that and using, most of the time, it's usually a male scientist, 89 00:06:21,378 --> 00:06:23,858 but I like the fact that it's a woman this time. 90 00:06:24,178 --> 00:06:29,398 Yeah, well, I mean, I'm the father of children. I teach at university. 91 00:06:30,138 --> 00:06:35,598 I suppose there's an element of the whole question of the number of women who do STEM. 92 00:06:35,918 --> 00:06:40,578 But I also want to play around with the idea of gender in the book. 93 00:06:40,578 --> 00:06:43,618 I mean, a moment ago, you referred to Hal as he. 94 00:06:44,198 --> 00:06:48,718 And I think there's that tendency for many of us to anthropomorphize robots. 95 00:06:49,238 --> 00:06:53,538 And actually, I set myself a few kind of disciplinary tasks when I was writing. 96 00:06:54,098 --> 00:06:57,558 One was to try and imagine a female character, and that's not easy. 97 00:06:57,638 --> 00:07:01,458 I didn't write it in the first person, but it's a limited third person writing 98 00:07:01,458 --> 00:07:03,998 from primarily the perspective of Archie. 99 00:07:04,218 --> 00:07:10,098 But at the beginning of the book, Janus, the AI system, is consistently referred to as it. 100 00:07:10,698 --> 00:07:14,438 And then hopefully one of the things that the reader can play around with is 101 00:07:14,438 --> 00:07:18,518 how they experience an AI system and whether they continue to think of it as 102 00:07:18,518 --> 00:07:20,878 it, the way we might think of our laptops as it, 103 00:07:21,018 --> 00:07:26,098 or start to personalize it the way many people might personalize their car, for example, 104 00:07:26,298 --> 00:07:28,418 or ships famously get personalized. 105 00:07:28,738 --> 00:07:30,758 And so I wanted to play around with that as well. 106 00:07:31,118 --> 00:07:36,138 But yeah, in terms of Archie, the other thing I did was to make her a Singaporean. 107 00:07:36,418 --> 00:07:40,218 And I've been living in Singapore for 17 years now. And I thought Singapore 108 00:07:40,218 --> 00:07:44,958 was a really interesting place to locate this and to write about because it's 109 00:07:44,958 --> 00:07:46,478 right at the forefront of technology, 110 00:07:46,838 --> 00:07:50,318 but also very much confronting the realities of climate change. 111 00:07:50,558 --> 00:07:55,358 So I was trying to imagine a decade or two hence, what might Singapore look like? 112 00:07:55,438 --> 00:07:58,318 What might the United States look like where Archie spent some time as well? 113 00:07:58,438 --> 00:08:00,298 So to play around with all those things. 114 00:08:00,478 --> 00:08:05,778 And yeah, so Archie being a female character was one important gender choice, 115 00:08:05,858 --> 00:08:07,318 but not the only one in the book. 116 00:08:07,318 --> 00:08:10,678 More with Simon Chesterman Talking about 117 00:08:10,678 --> 00:08:14,558 his novel on AI Artifice AI 118 00:08:14,558 --> 00:08:21,078 is so much already Becoming something front and center Basically that was one 119 00:08:21,078 --> 00:08:26,758 of the factors Of the Hollywood strike That we saw the writers and actors And 120 00:08:26,758 --> 00:08:34,438 even more controversy The late comedian George Carlin Had a stand-up. 121 00:08:34,905 --> 00:08:41,405 A new stand-up release that was done by AI. And I don't think it sounds anything like him. 122 00:08:41,705 --> 00:08:46,365 But the tone of it, very similar. And yes, they go out of their way. 123 00:08:46,405 --> 00:08:47,885 They say, this is not George Carlin. 124 00:08:48,305 --> 00:08:52,965 His daughter has come out against it. And I also heard in a Senate meeting here 125 00:08:52,965 --> 00:08:58,285 in the States that Senator Blumenthal played a clip. 126 00:08:58,425 --> 00:09:02,725 And it sounded exactly like him. And he goes, that's not me. 127 00:09:02,885 --> 00:09:09,585 That's AI. So, I mean, there is a way to manipulate and imitate. 128 00:09:10,545 --> 00:09:16,645 So, it is front and center. And I think, to me, it's the biggest thing probably 129 00:09:16,645 --> 00:09:21,345 that will change in the next 20 years. Yeah, and that can be positive or negative. 130 00:09:21,465 --> 00:09:27,525 As an example, so you could have Carrie Fisher come back as Princess Leia for a final scene. 131 00:09:28,245 --> 00:09:32,325 James Earl Jones has licensed his voice as Darth Vader into the future, 132 00:09:32,385 --> 00:09:33,825 so we'll continue getting Darth Vader. 133 00:09:34,245 --> 00:09:38,125 And I think those are arguably quite positive, mainly because they were done 134 00:09:38,125 --> 00:09:41,985 with the consent of, in Carrie Fisher's case, the family, and James Earl Jones' 135 00:09:42,165 --> 00:09:43,065 case, he signed on himself. 136 00:09:43,065 --> 00:09:47,825 But I do think there's a real worry about what happens to the creative industries 137 00:09:47,825 --> 00:09:52,745 when the kind of work that I put into this, for example, and I swear, 138 00:09:52,905 --> 00:09:56,065 I didn't, I mean, ChatGPT wasn't even released when I was working on this, 139 00:09:56,105 --> 00:09:59,185 but I wouldn't delegate that kind of task to ChatGPT. 140 00:09:59,425 --> 00:10:03,665 But if it's so much easier to produce something that looks plausible, 141 00:10:03,885 --> 00:10:06,865 then that makes it a lot harder to make a living as a writer. 142 00:10:06,865 --> 00:10:11,745 In fact, there was a story about six months ago, I think, Amazon, 143 00:10:12,105 --> 00:10:15,165 you mentioned that the Amazon is one of the biggest publishers in the world. 144 00:10:15,285 --> 00:10:19,565 And because of the amount of generative AI material that was being submitted 145 00:10:19,565 --> 00:10:23,805 to it, it had to impose a limit on the number of books you could publish. 146 00:10:24,745 --> 00:10:28,265 So I just ask you to imagine what you think that limit should be. 147 00:10:29,205 --> 00:10:32,445 And Amazon's limit was only three books per day. 148 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:39,060 So, you could only write three books a day. Now, clearly, that's ridiculous. 149 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:40,900 And most of this is garbage. 150 00:10:41,260 --> 00:10:45,040 But I think in addition to the worry that I kind of talk about in the book about 151 00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:47,620 what happens to employment if AI is taking a lot of our jobs, 152 00:10:48,100 --> 00:10:52,500 you can also imagine what happens if just the world of information is flooded 153 00:10:52,500 --> 00:10:56,620 with so much content, much of which would be garbage, or, as you point out, 154 00:10:56,680 --> 00:11:00,960 so much human-looking material that, I mean, right now, 155 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:03,920 while we're talking, the primaries are going on in New Hampshire, 156 00:11:03,980 --> 00:11:06,780 and there's a story that Joe Biden has been calling people up. 157 00:11:07,060 --> 00:11:11,020 And of course, it's not Joe Biden. It's a robocall version of his voice. 158 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:16,760 And so, this is a real challenge to not only the economics of, 159 00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:20,080 in a modest way, writing, but our relationship with information, 160 00:11:20,380 --> 00:11:21,700 our relationship with the truth. 161 00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:25,380 I think that's That's why many people are worried about generative AI producing 162 00:11:25,380 --> 00:11:28,220 ever greater quantities of ever more realistic information. 163 00:11:28,680 --> 00:11:33,660 If that means that fake news is going to become all the news that there is to consume. 164 00:11:34,340 --> 00:11:37,980 Artifice is the name of the book, and it's certainly worth it. 165 00:11:38,140 --> 00:11:41,700 Really something that is hitting front and center right now. 166 00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:46,300 We're all thinking about AI right now. So, you know, really fascinating. 167 00:11:46,560 --> 00:11:51,300 And it's something that people are talking about. People are trying to protect 168 00:11:51,300 --> 00:11:54,920 not only their voice, but also their image, too. 169 00:11:55,120 --> 00:12:03,520 You know, actors in particular, they don't want CGI versions of themselves without their permission. 170 00:12:03,780 --> 00:12:07,480 So you're going to see people doing what James Earl Jones did, 171 00:12:07,620 --> 00:12:10,040 licensing their voice and their image. 172 00:12:10,140 --> 00:12:16,520 So after they're gone, they can be making movies ad infinitum and they can go towards their estate. 173 00:12:16,520 --> 00:12:22,320 It's really a fascinating time and potentially dangerous one, 174 00:12:22,420 --> 00:12:25,900 too, because obviously you can manipulate so much more. 175 00:12:26,060 --> 00:12:30,420 As far as an audio book, is there one available or is that in the planning stages? 176 00:12:30,420 --> 00:12:33,240 Ages my previous books done a few this 177 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:36,680 is my first general fiction book i've done some young adult fiction and 178 00:12:36,680 --> 00:12:39,440 that's been done by storytell which has 179 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:42,300 done an audio book and i'll be working with the publishers on 180 00:12:42,300 --> 00:12:45,260 this but it's only coming out in hardback in 181 00:12:45,260 --> 00:12:49,920 um in paper copy in the united states in february but it's also available on 182 00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:54,780 kindle and so on uh right now but i know i'd be delighted to explore all may 183 00:12:54,780 --> 00:12:59,140 all media if anyone's listening and wants to talk about a film deal by uneasily 184 00:12:59,140 --> 00:13:03,820 Googled and I would be happy to explore that also. So, yes, audio should be coming, I think. 185 00:13:04,532 --> 00:13:08,592 Let's talk about getting it as an e-book, for example. 186 00:13:09,212 --> 00:13:14,412 All your works could be e-books, and they can literally have all of them on 187 00:13:14,412 --> 00:13:16,472 their device, their Kindle, even their phone. 188 00:13:16,952 --> 00:13:22,432 What's that like for an author to have? Yes, and I'm a proponent of having that 189 00:13:22,432 --> 00:13:26,652 tactile experience of holding the book in your hands and reading it and bending 190 00:13:26,652 --> 00:13:29,492 the spine, as I tell all the authors I love. 191 00:13:29,792 --> 00:13:33,552 Because this way, you know the book's been read several times, probably. Wow. 192 00:13:33,712 --> 00:13:40,412 So what's that like for you with having this other way of digesting your work? 193 00:13:40,672 --> 00:13:42,332 That's a really interesting question. 194 00:13:42,612 --> 00:13:48,492 I tend to divide myself between most of my nonfiction work, my professional 195 00:13:48,492 --> 00:13:51,852 work I look at online, even there's a journal that I edit. 196 00:13:52,012 --> 00:13:55,832 And even that one, I have free copies that are two meters away. I look at it online. 197 00:13:56,272 --> 00:14:01,112 But fiction, I really do like like that experience of reading, picking it up. 198 00:14:01,212 --> 00:14:05,412 There are actually some studies that suggest that comprehension is a little bit greater. 199 00:14:05,612 --> 00:14:09,792 Your attention is focused more if you're holding a physical copy. 200 00:14:10,132 --> 00:14:12,972 But as an author, I'm just happy if I'm being read. 201 00:14:13,272 --> 00:14:16,212 I mean, there's a modest difference in terms of the royalties, 202 00:14:16,292 --> 00:14:20,912 but I've had to explain to my kids when I published my first novel, no, I could not retire. 203 00:14:21,092 --> 00:14:25,512 This was not gonna fund sort of big family vacations. This was partly a hobby. 204 00:14:26,093 --> 00:14:29,673 I suppose there isn't the back of one's mind, the worry that the digital form 205 00:14:29,673 --> 00:14:30,973 is much more easily pirated. 206 00:14:31,313 --> 00:14:34,793 But yeah, if it comes down to it, really, if anyone's reading the work, 207 00:14:34,853 --> 00:14:38,833 enjoying it, engaging with it, that's my main interest. 208 00:14:39,033 --> 00:14:43,253 And if they prefer to do that online, all to the good. The book's available everywhere. 209 00:14:43,593 --> 00:14:47,773 Amazon, I saw, which is obviously a monster as far as books. 210 00:14:48,333 --> 00:14:53,093 Is this the first of a series you might think, or is it a standalone? 211 00:14:53,473 --> 00:14:58,113 So it's a standalone book. I could imagine possibly coming back to the characters, 212 00:14:58,313 --> 00:15:02,153 but I've done a trilogy, a young adult trilogy, Raising Arcadia, 213 00:15:02,313 --> 00:15:05,273 which was really plotted out as a trilogy. 214 00:15:05,473 --> 00:15:10,653 This, I want it to be a standalone and a sort of digestible form. It's 192 pages. 215 00:15:11,153 --> 00:15:14,533 If people criticize it for being too short, I suppose that's better than being 216 00:15:14,533 --> 00:15:15,873 criticized for being too long. 217 00:15:16,213 --> 00:15:20,953 But I'm hoping it's the kind of book that people can digest reasonably quickly, 218 00:15:21,193 --> 00:15:25,133 but then we'll stay with them. And the ideas that they'll percolate over that 219 00:15:25,133 --> 00:15:26,113 they'll maybe talk about. 220 00:15:26,233 --> 00:15:31,093 I was delighted, indeed, really honored that my old school in Australia, 221 00:15:31,433 --> 00:15:34,493 where I grew up, is going to set it as a text in English. 222 00:15:34,833 --> 00:15:40,933 And so a bunch of teenagers in late secondary school will be looking at it, 223 00:15:40,953 --> 00:15:43,993 thinking about these issues, not just of AI and climate change, 224 00:15:44,133 --> 00:15:50,113 but what happens to the economy and politics politics when jobs become reduced 225 00:15:50,113 --> 00:15:55,013 to tasks and huge numbers of the population are no longer really engaged economically 226 00:15:55,013 --> 00:15:56,353 for the purpose of production. 227 00:15:56,853 --> 00:15:59,173 Instead, they're engaged for the purpose of consumption. 228 00:15:59,833 --> 00:16:07,413 And so, yeah, the hope is that people will engage with it and, 229 00:16:07,493 --> 00:16:08,993 yeah, it'll stick with them. 230 00:16:09,133 --> 00:16:12,513 But I suppose if there's sufficient demand, I would think about writing a sequel, sure. 231 00:16:13,283 --> 00:16:16,763 Yeah, you mentioned Singapore. Obviously, you didn't have to do a lot of research 232 00:16:16,763 --> 00:16:20,703 as to what it's like to live there since you've been there so long. 233 00:16:20,863 --> 00:16:24,503 So that part of the world building is pretty easy. 234 00:16:24,703 --> 00:16:29,023 So that was really cool. It's a beautiful part of the world. 235 00:16:29,243 --> 00:16:33,723 My wife's been into Thailand and that area and just loves it. 236 00:16:33,823 --> 00:16:36,843 I know they have beaches and things like that. Are you near the beach? 237 00:16:36,963 --> 00:16:41,743 I'm not giving any major details where you live, but what are you in the city? 238 00:16:41,743 --> 00:16:44,323 Well, Singapore is indeed a beautiful place. 239 00:16:44,423 --> 00:16:49,223 During the pandemic, we loved it, but we loved all 725 square kilometres of it. 240 00:16:49,643 --> 00:16:52,223 So, I mean, it's a kind of city-state. 241 00:16:52,823 --> 00:16:57,983 But no, we are lucky that we live inland, but we live near a forest or reservoir. 242 00:16:58,563 --> 00:17:02,903 So, it's not enormous, but you can get some greenery. But you mentioned the beach. 243 00:17:03,063 --> 00:17:06,243 I mean, one of the ways in which Singapore has expanded its territory is through 244 00:17:06,243 --> 00:17:10,963 land reclamation. So there is the famous Raffles Hotel, which is on Beach Road, 245 00:17:11,183 --> 00:17:14,363 which is now about a kilometre and a half from the nearest water, 246 00:17:14,503 --> 00:17:16,383 because all the land has been reclaimed. 247 00:17:17,163 --> 00:17:21,843 But that's just one example of how Singapore, I think, is an interesting place 248 00:17:21,843 --> 00:17:23,343 to locate a story like this, 249 00:17:23,423 --> 00:17:28,223 because this sort of is the antithesis of Singapore's growth through land reclamation, 250 00:17:28,223 --> 00:17:34,223 because it imagines sort of rising seas and a kind of semi-real project that's 251 00:17:34,223 --> 00:17:38,443 underway at the moment to protect Singapore from rising sea levels with sea walls. 252 00:17:38,623 --> 00:17:43,523 Not quite as extreme as the one in the book, but that idea of whether a tiny 253 00:17:43,523 --> 00:17:48,943 island like Singapore, which depends so much for its economy, for its prosperity, 254 00:17:49,123 --> 00:17:53,583 on its ability to connect with the world, What would happen if it was somewhat 255 00:17:53,583 --> 00:17:57,743 isolated by climate change, by the need to protect itself from rising sea levels, 256 00:17:57,843 --> 00:18:02,463 from the impact of the climate catastrophe was also something interesting to play around with. 257 00:18:02,903 --> 00:18:05,683 But it is also a bit intimidating when your friends, relatives, 258 00:18:06,103 --> 00:18:09,263 co-workers are reading about your account of their country. 259 00:18:09,583 --> 00:18:13,503 People take a little bit more personally sometimes, but thus far, 260 00:18:13,583 --> 00:18:17,023 to touch wood, the reception has been mostly positive. You work at a university 261 00:18:17,023 --> 00:18:22,363 and you're a vice provost. And I'm not sure exactly what that is. 262 00:18:22,423 --> 00:18:23,583 If you could explain that, please. 263 00:18:24,583 --> 00:18:29,463 So I teach in the law school, but also have set up an interdisciplinary college 264 00:18:29,463 --> 00:18:31,983 called NUS College and vice provost. 265 00:18:32,183 --> 00:18:34,903 Basically, the provost is the head academic. 266 00:18:35,563 --> 00:18:40,403 So, he's my boss, and I'm not in charge of promoting advice within the university. 267 00:18:40,663 --> 00:18:44,723 I'm one of his deputies. So, I've got the highfalutin title of Vice Provost 268 00:18:44,723 --> 00:18:45,883 of Educational Innovation. 269 00:18:46,383 --> 00:18:49,483 And that's actually relevant to the book as well, because what that really means 270 00:18:49,483 --> 00:18:52,643 is trying to rethink education in an age of AI. 271 00:18:53,043 --> 00:18:58,743 I mean, it's kind of shocking that around the world, academic Twitter woke up 272 00:18:58,743 --> 00:19:02,943 to ChatGPT and thought the main impact of this transformative technology of 273 00:19:02,943 --> 00:19:06,563 generative AI is that our students might cheat in their exams. 274 00:19:07,063 --> 00:19:11,043 Now, that's a real possibility, but the technology is clearly going to have 275 00:19:11,043 --> 00:19:12,283 bigger implications than that. 276 00:19:12,763 --> 00:19:16,543 And so, some of the things that we're working through is to look at, 277 00:19:16,603 --> 00:19:21,703 much as the book tries to describe, what skills, what qualities are going to 278 00:19:21,703 --> 00:19:25,523 be necessary to succeed and thrive 20 years from now? 279 00:19:25,603 --> 00:19:28,563 Because that's when my graduates will be having their own families. 280 00:19:28,783 --> 00:19:32,303 And how do we teach them? How do we assess them? 281 00:19:32,703 --> 00:19:37,063 And what is the role of a university? And indeed, what's the role of an academic 282 00:19:37,063 --> 00:19:42,063 like me when so much of the world's information can now be generated at the press of a button? 283 00:19:42,503 --> 00:19:46,563 And so, yeah, that's a long answer to a short question, but it's a really interesting 284 00:19:46,563 --> 00:19:48,683 time to be thinking about the future of higher education. 285 00:19:49,143 --> 00:19:51,903 Artifice is available wherever you get your books. 286 00:19:52,583 --> 00:19:57,463 And I want to remind you about Sci-Fi Talk Plus. The special offer is still 287 00:19:57,463 --> 00:20:01,283 going on, and it's good for you and your friends and your family. 288 00:20:01,943 --> 00:20:07,023 There's over 900 episodes, commercial-free, uncut, and even special programs. 289 00:20:07,363 --> 00:20:08,943 The best part, it's free. 290 00:20:09,663 --> 00:20:12,763 Click on the link in the show notes for free lifetime access. 291 00:20:13,303 --> 00:20:17,803 But this special offer will expire, so take advantage of it. 292 00:20:17,903 --> 00:20:20,863 This is Tony Tolato. Thanks for listening.