Hi, I'm Rihanna Dillon and welcome to another bonus episode of the Penguin podcast.

A little while ago, I was joined in our gorgeous book-filled studio in the heart of the penguin offices by the brilliant author Jeanette Winterson.

Jeanette popped in to discuss perfect winter reads and told me all about her latest work,

Nightside of the River. It was an incredible conversation with the writer whose career spans

40 years, but there were some amazing bits that we just didn't have time for in that episode,

so we thought we'd bring you a little bit more now. Jeanette's new book is a collection of ghost stories,

and there are many elements of the modern and technological world discussed amongst the supernatural,

from apps and avatars to AI. So with that in mind, I asked Jeanette how she thinks our relationship

with artificial intelligence will look in the near future.

Well, you know, there's two ways, aren't there?

There are people who are saying, look, this AI, all AI, let me be clear, at present, all

AI is a tool and humans are tool using animals.

That's what it is.

It's all in the same line from the Industrial Revolution that we make something, you know,

if we're too puny, we make a machine that can do the strength work for us. You know, if we're

too slow, we get something that'll take us faster in aeroplane. We've always been really good at

managing our limitations with our devious, devilish cleverness. With AI, it could end up being

something very different

because anything that you can talk to, you start to form a relationship with, you can't help

it. Anybody you had a teddy bear, you know this, it doesn't need to be alive. Some people talk to

they goofish. I mean, they are alive, but they're not sentient in the way that you think

might matter. The point is, the moment what looks like a conversation begins,

...