Best Of: Why Sci-Fi Legend Ted Chiang Fears Capitalism, Not A.I.

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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, originally released in March 2021, 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 months later, 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 Dillard Control (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 [email protected]. “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Alison Bruzek.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, this is Ezra Klein. I am still on paternity leave, but today I'm thrilled to share with you a great episode we did
0:07.2	with the science fiction writer, just one of my favorite writers, period Ted Chang.
0:11.8	This is one of those mind-bending episodes I still think about months and months later.
0:16.8	So lots of heady fun stuff here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I'll be back with new episodes in January.
0:22.5	I'm Ezra Klein and this is the Ezra Klein Show.
0:38.3	Four years I have kept a list of dream guests for the show and as long as that list has been around,
0:44.6	Ted Chang has been on top of it. He's a science fiction writer, but that's underselling him. He writes
0:51.4	perfect short stories, perfect. And he writes them slowly. He's published only two collections,
0:57.5	the stories of your life and others in 2002 and then exhalation more recently in 2019.
1:03.5	And this story is in these books. They've won every major science fiction word you can win multiple
1:08.0	times over. Four hugos, four nebulas, four locus awards. If you've seen the film Arrival, which is
1:13.7	great and if you haven't, what is wrong with you? That is based on a Chang story from the
1:18.7	two collection, the story of your life. I've just I've always wondered about what kind of mind would
1:24.0	create Chang stories. They have this crazy economy in them, like not a word out of place, perfect
1:29.6	precision. They're built around really complicated scientific ideas, really heady religious ideas.
1:35.6	I actually think in a way that is not often recognized. Chang is one of the great living writers
1:39.7	of religious fiction, even though he's an atheist in a sci-fi legend. But somehow the stories,
1:45.4	at least in my opinion, they're never difficult. They're very humane and propulsive. They keep moving
1:51.5	their cerebral, their gentle, but man, the economy of them is severe. That's not always the case for
1:57.4	science fiction, which I find anyway can be wordy, like spilling over with explanation and exposition.
2:03.4	Not these. So I was thrilled. I was thrilled when Chang agreed to join on the show. But one of the
2:09.1	joys of doing these conversations is I get to listen to people's minds working in real time. You can
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from New York Times Opinion, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of New York Times Opinion and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.