A Look at the Future with Science Fiction Author Daniel H. Wilson

with Sid, I would like to welcome a new author to the show, Daniel H. Wilson. Daniel, how are you? I'm doing great, Sydney. Hey. So you are the bestselling author of science fiction and a couple of different novels. And I feel like it's the perfect time to kind of dive into some of these, especially with possible UFOs and AI. But before we kind of take a look at your work, tell us a little bit about who you are and what really sparked your interest into becoming an author. Yeah, I'm Daniel H. Wilson. I grew up on the Cherokee Reservation in Northeastern Oklahoma as a big science fiction fan, basically. As a kid, I was a bookworm, and I always wanted to write science fiction, and that didn't work out for me right away. So I had to study science as a consolation prize. So I did a whole PhD in robotics and then immediately took a left turn into writing science fiction, and that's what I've been doing ever since. So, you know, robots and native people, that's that's pretty much my area that I like to write about. Yeah. And now they're like two dynamic duos. I feel like you'll always have something to write about in those two areas. And so I want to talk about one of your books, which is Robo Apocalypse. And it's I feel like it's very what's going on now, because, you know, like we talk about how AI is advancing. You even have like these big techs that are kind of like telling the government, like, whoa, you kind of need to figure out a way to pump the brakes because it's advancing too quick and you know they have like the robot like the walking dog robots and the other robots that's walking around and kind of taking people's jobs when it comes to fast food and everything else and so tell us a little bit about what is um like a little synopsis of your book and kind of what was a big lesson you learned while writing this yeah so Robopocalypse uh is exactly what it sounds like um and i don't want to say i told you so but i told you so so it's about a future where ai gets out of control um it's not terminator it's not trying to kill us all it's something more complicated but it's a world where all of the technology that we're used to you know autonomous vehicles our phones um just you know everything has been automated all the little mobile robots everything that's in our environment all of it stops working and turns against us um And, you know, I kind of wrote it meaning for it to be kind of hopeful because it's about people coming together to protect each other and to save the world. All different types of people, everybody with their back against the wall, you know, kind of that's when heroes are made. And so, you know, looking at it now, though, watching it happen for real, I think, you know, the number one thing I see is just we've got to have some kind of regulation. And you cannot just allow corporations to dictate how this technology is going to come into our lives and sort of the future that we're going to live in. You know, we should have some say in what that's going to be. It shouldn't just be like, you know, seven billionaires making these decisions. And so, you know, I think regulation is is key to avoiding the robo apocalypse. But, you know, we'll see what happens. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the movie I, Robot. I'm like, oh, God, we're all doomed. and so with this kind of book how long did you know like writing it and like because i'm pretty sure you had to do like extensive research research when it came to telling this story yeah i mean this was a really weird situation so robopocalypse uh i had just finished my degree at carnegie mellon i was in pittsburgh for years and years building robots and so i wrote this a hundred pages of this thing and then it the pages leaked uh and it got bought as a book and it got bought as a movie and so i three days later i was in a room with steven spielberg and drew goddard and they were like okay so uh we love the hundred pages what's going on with the rest of the book uh and so it was my first novel that i've written i've written seven total now and uh including a sequel to robopocalypse but i was in a situation where i was sending my chapters to production designers and things like that now look the movie never came together but it was still a really amazing um kind of way to write a book you know because i would write a chapter and then i'd have a production designer call me and be like you weren't specific enough i'm trying to build this for real you know we've got pre-vis guys that are that are making these robots you know uh inside the computer so uh it was a crazy tight you know tight rope that i was walking for that but you know it came together and i think it's an awesome book yeah and then one of your latest releases is a Hole in the Sky which came out last year and another topic that has been going on especially for like the past couple of months where you know the the government is unleashing you know these classified UFO finding you know documents and everything and so tell us a little bit about what's in this book and what would you say how does it compare to everything that's going on now? Yeah. I mean, so the genesis of Hole in the Sky was because I write hard science fiction and I do have kind of a technical background, I occasionally get opportunities to do really cool stuff. And so I had been working as a threat forecaster for the United States Air Force, where they'll hire a science fiction author and pair them with an analyst. And you get briefed on technologies that they're worried about. And then you write a science fiction scenario so that people can just really understand how it could be a threat instead of just reading a white paper, you know, that's just got a bunch of specifications. And so as a result of doing threat forecasting work, I was interacting with the Air Force and it hit me, they're serious about all of these UFOs and, you know, what they call UAPs. They've got people whose job it is out there tracking this stuff down. And when I realized that, you know, they had got out of their lane into my science fiction lane, I realized maybe it was time for me to write about that. And so I wrote Hole in the Sky. It's basically an alien invasion story, but it takes place in an Indian country, you know, where I'm from. It takes place in northeastern Oklahoma, near the ruins of the mound builder civilization in Spiro. And so I really got a chance to kind of combine some of the technical work I was doing with some of the cultural stuff that's important to me now when you had the opportunity to work you know with the government words and writing these books did you have to get anything like put through for clearance especially since you had like a little bit of experience i know sometimes they're very tricky in particular with that yeah they can be but um you know for this since i was you know writing a story for them it's not classified or anything like that i mean i went and presented it at the Aspen Security conference. And that was actually where I met General Glenn Van Hurk, who at the time was in charge of NORAD and NORTHCOM. And he joked around. He was like, you know, my job's pretty important. I'm in charge of tracking Santa Claus. But in reality, his job is to push the button. He's in charge of tracking everything in near-Earth orbit and in charge of nuclear weapons. And so just seeing that face-to-face, it was very serious. But I realized I'm writing science fiction i'm at this conference it's like it's like congress people and you know green berets and astronauts and stuff like that nobody's taking me serious okay like they they all have very serious jobs but nobody's trying to wrap me up in red tape or anything yeah they're like no he's classified bug his phone you know keep an eye on him i wish i was that important that'd be pretty fun they'd ask me what i do and i'd be like i write science fiction and they'd already be walking off you know like come with us and so out of all of your books you know you say you've written seven and you've touched on a lot of different topics especially with it being science fiction you can kind of see the direction that everything is going in nowadays what is one or a couple lessons that you would like readers to hopefully take away from your work sure well i mean look like on a on a light note um i wrote a book called how to survive a robot uprising and if you are in to fight with a robot, I would suggest going for the sensors first because the cameras and stuff like that, that's going to be the most sensitive. On a more serious note, you know, I've been thinking a lot about the difference between sort of like Western technology, all the stuff that we're surrounded by and the stuff that we're really afraid of and, you know, might kill us based on the headlines and sort of indigenous technology that is the kind of technology that, you know indigenous people collect over over thousands of years and you know indigenous technology and knowledge is all about sustainability it's about keeping people alive for a long period of time and western science is all about feeding exponential growth right we got to make more money we got more people and you know one of those two approaches is killing us and so if you're a scientist you know if you're if you're out there building technology i would say don't make the assumption that you have to be following that Western model. You know, there are other reasons to do science. There's other ways to think about knowledge and technology. And I'd urge people to look past their blind spots and see, you know, why are you really doing this? Because, you know, humanity is not going to last forever if we keep on trying to feed exponential growth in that way. And so what's next for you in this literary journey? Like hopefully more books. yeah more books um you know i i've written two books in the Robopocalypse series and i'm really hoping to finish that trilogy and write the third one um we are in the process you know that it's not dead yet uh we're in the process of still trying to get it um on the screen and so i'm gonna find out about that this year and i'm hopefully be diving right in but you know in the meantime um Hole in the Sky is up for it's shortlisted for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awards. And I'm excited about it. And I'm excited to keep writing short stories and just, you know, keep putting creativity out into the world as long as I can do it. Before I let you go, is there anything else that you would like to say to fellow book lovers right now, especially since reading, you know, is making such a huge comeback? Yeah, I would just say, you know, don't forget to read. Don't forget to come out. I mean, it's amazing how accessible authors really are. I mean, if you email me, I'll respond, you know sooner or later but uh it's it's really like we're all connected you know we're all part of the same thing if we have if we have that bond where we love to read authors love to read readers love to read so reach out you know don't be shy um you know we're not a computer algorithm we're not a giant book studio it's just it's usually just a person and their laptop and so um you know we're right here awesome well daniel thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with me and fellow book lovers and for all of your knowledge we greatly appreciate it thank you thanks for having me on