Introduction

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

An ale got her phd. in english and american studies from berkley, but then she became a writer specializing in science and technology. In her recent novel called autonomists, anile deals with the biochemistry of farmasuticals,. The ethics of robotics and artificial intelligence, and my favorite, the economics of what it means to have a right to work. This is the kind of speculative scenario that science ce fiction is perfectly made for.

The job of science fiction isn't to predict the future; it's to tell interesting stories in an imaginative setting, exploring the implications of different ways the world could be different from our actual one. Annalee Newitz has carved out a unique career as a writer and thinker, founding the visionary blog io9 and publishing nonfiction in a number of formats, and is now putting her imagination to work in the realm of fiction. Her recent novel, Autonomous, examines a future in which the right to work is not automatic, rogue drug pirates synthesize compounds to undercut Big Pharma, and sentient robots discover their sexuality. We talk about how science fiction needs more economics, how much of human behavior comes down to dealing with our neuroses, and what it's like to make the transition from writing non-fiction to fiction. Annalee Newitz is currently an Editor at Large at Ars Technica. She received her Ph.D. in English and American Studies from UC Berkeley. She founded and edited io9, which later merged with Gizmodo, where she also served as editor. She and Charlie Jane Anders host the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, a bi-weekly exploration of the meaning of science fiction. Home page Wikipedia page Amazon author page Articles at io9/Gizmodo Articles at Ars Technica Our Opinions Are Correct podcast See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.