When Deni Ellis B茅chard started writing his new novel five years ago, the concept seemed far-fetched 鈥� even fanciful.
These days, he said, the society he created for 鈥淲e Are Dreams in the Eternal Machine鈥� 鈥� one that turns to artificial intelligence for salvation following a second U.S. civil war 鈥� doesn鈥檛 feel quite so preposterous.
鈥淚t鈥檚 mildly nerve-racking to release it in a moment where American politics and technology seem really a hair鈥檚 breadth away from some of the things happening in the book,鈥� said the British Columbia-born author.
鈥淚t鈥檚 something I thought was going to seem a lot more speculative that doesn鈥檛 feel nearly as speculative as I expected.鈥�
He came up with the idea while researching an article for Stanford University鈥檚 alumni magazine that focused on how China used artificial intelligence to censor journalists.
At the time, AI was far less sophisticated than it is today, but the experts he spoke to explained where the technology was heading.
鈥淚 was being told: This is a long ways off; we鈥檙e not going to really see any real advancement any time soon,鈥� B茅chard said.
Those predictions inspired the technology at the centre of his novel, known only as 鈥渢he machine.鈥�
The machine is mandated to protect humans and does so forcefully by separating people into individual AI-fuelled rooms, resulting in lives spent entirely in hyperrealistic virtual reality, albeit ones where each person can author their own digital fate. They can use the technology to relive moments from their lives with facsimiles of their loved ones or create altogether new worlds 鈥� but ultimately, they have to do it alone.
B茅chard鈥檚 premise comes from a sort of thought experiment, based on Isaac Asimov鈥檚 first law of robotics: 鈥淎 robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.鈥�
The only way that is possible, B茅chard contends, is to keep people apart.
鈥淵ou can鈥檛 really put humans together and expect no one ever to get harmed,鈥� he said.
But how would people respond when thrown into such a situation? What life would they choose, if they could have anything at all? Those are the questions he sought to explore.
The sort of technology that would make that possible is still a long way off 鈥� but it was even more distant when B茅chard wrote the bulk of his book.
Then, in March 2023, OpenAI released GPT-4, the fourth generation of its flagship large language model and basis for the company鈥檚 famous chatbot.
Generative AI 鈥� the kind that creates content rather than just interpreting it 鈥� became the topic du jour, and thanks to ChatGPT and a litany of competitors, far more accessible.
And the tech just keeps getting better, B茅chard said, pointing to AI video generators such as Google鈥檚 Veo 2 and OpenAI鈥檚 Sora.
鈥淢ore than anything, that gave me a sense of urgency. It sort of just lit a fire under me,鈥� B茅chard said.
He also felt like he had to engage with generative AI in some way. With the book already mostly written, he decided to use it both to fact-check what was already in the story and to source quotes from real-life authors he could sprinkle throughout the book.
That process, he said, confirmed one of the central themes in his book: that artificial intelligence is more concerned with doing what it鈥檚 told than it is with the truth.
鈥淕PT has a tendency to tell us what we want to hear,鈥� B茅chard said.
鈥淚f you really want a quotation from somebody鈥nd it can鈥檛 find it, it may just make it up.鈥�
Many authors 鈥� including some of the biggest in the business 鈥� have come out against generative AI, accusing its creators of essentially stealing their copyrighted materials to feed the large language models it鈥檚 based on.
Some have also expressed concerns about a future in which AI-written books flood the market, though B茅chard isn鈥檛 too worried about that 鈥� in part because there鈥檚 not very much money to be made in literature.
Further, he said, AI is 鈥渢rained on too much bad prose.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 also the lowest common denominator in the sense that it defaults to the most likely syntactical structures based on statistics, which gives you a bland sort of writing in general,鈥� he said.
But he said AI can be very good at quickly combing through piles of data to find a piece of information 鈥� just so long as you fact-check what it produces.
鈥淲ith any technology, we kind of have to embrace the good and try to steer it away from the bad and try to encourage people, let鈥檚 not use it to put artists out of work.鈥�
