This month I had the pleasure of chatting to Stephen Oram, the author of short story collection 'Extracting Humanity' (Orchid's Lantern Press, July 2023). On this week's Kenyon Author Services Blog Tour, readers have been both uplifted and horrified by what may be the future of AI - how it could both help and hinder humanity.
Let's explore the collection... In this remarkably perceptive collection, Stephen Oram blends cutting-edge science and tech with everyday emotions and values to create 20 thought experiments with heart.
Extracting Humanity is a skilful exploration of smart currencies, memorials, medical care, treatment of refugees, social networks, data monitoring, and justice systems. Always without prescription or reprimand, these stories are simply the beginning of the conversation.
From an eerie haptic suit that Tommy must call Father, to a protective, nutritious bubble that allows Feng Mian to survive on a colonised Moon; from tattoos that will earn their wearers a mini-break in a sensory chamber, to Harrie anxiously awaiting AI feedback on her unborn child… These startling, diverse narratives map all-too-real possibilities for our future and the things that might ultimately divide or unite us.
The Interview
Many of your stories seem influenced by your work with scientists and technologists on near-future fiction projects. Can you tell me more about those projects and how they impact your writing?
First of all, a huge thanks for inviting me on to your blog – I really appreciate the time and effort involved and welcome the opportunity to answer what I know will be fascinating questions.
Onto the projects… I have a lot of fun and learn a lot in them. They vary, depending on who they are with, but essentially, they are about bringing specific expertise into the process of creating a story and in the telling of it. Usually, through workshops and interviews, I iterate ideas with experts about the near-future until I have written a story or two. Generally, the experts are researchers, developers or those who are implementing cutting edge technology and the expertise is scientific, technological or societal.
Once the stories are written, the experts will either join me on stage or on the page - in public events and / or in a book. All of the projects have been absolutely fascinating and, in a way, I’m being paid to do the research for my wider writing. This kind of collaboration is often referred to as Applied Science Fiction or Creative Futurism.
One of my current projects is with King’s College London where I’m working with the research project’s clinical psychologists and AI developers. They are looking at whether an ‘AI’ can be trained to analyse a mother’s speech to predict the future mental health of their child. The stories from this project - A Mother’s Nightmare and Standard Deviations - are in Extracting Humanity.
Other people I’ve been in projects with include the UK Defence Science and Technology Lab, the Bristol Robotics Lab and the digital futures think-tank, Cybersalon. Having this amount of close contact with those who really are developing our future gives me the opportunity to test my ideas and often helps me ground my writing in plausible realities. However, sometimes I veer away from the plausible and have some fun with ‘strangeness’.
Do you have a favourite story in this collection? What about it makes it your favourite?
“Adtatter Love” is my favourite, although there are many that come a close second. I had great fun writing it, especially trying to get the right balance of tone between the parts that are about the tedium of everyday life and the parts that are about the trippy breaks from boredom. But… what tends to happen is that whenever I revisit a story, to read it at an event or to comment on it, I remember why I liked that particular story enough to put it in the collection, so my answer might well be different depending on when the question is asked.
And, I’m really pleased to say that a couple of days ago it was announced that “Adtatter Love” and "Extracting Humanity" are both on the longlist for the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) awards.
Several of your stories explore the integration of technology into the human body, like brain implants or DNA manipulation. What interests you about this theme? Where do you see this technology going in the near future?
I think my main interest with this theme is the fact that we don’t really know where it’s going. There are lots of possibilities, and a lot of misdirection. Whatever the technology turns out to be, it will need acceptance by the public to be adopted widely. Ask yourself, would you have something implanted into your body or brain that might malfunction or wear out and decay? That said, where it might be most accepted is in medical uses, especially when the alternative is worse. After all, we accept chemotherapy despite its horrendous side-effects. Also, humans seem pretty good at integrating technology into their world, such as contact lenses or replacement hips and knees. So, I like to consider what might become possible, such as DNA manipulation, implants and so on, and then think about what that would be like in normal everyday life, rather than in some sort of super-human context. As for my prediction of where it might go… who knows?
I imagine that: people will resist having stuff implanted into their brain unless it’s essential; that other parts of the body will be more acceptable, for example a nanobot that monitors gut health; and that DNA manipulation will remain a health treatment and a fringe activity until it becomes a replacement for something standard that’s already in existence, such as cancer treatment.
Your stories seem to walk a line between utopian and dystopian visions of the future. Do you consciously try to present a balanced perspective? Or does that balance emerge naturally from your collaborative process?
I think it is both conscious and unconscious. When I was younger, I used to be very frustrated, and a little embarrassed, that I could see both sides of an argument. Now, I view that as a very positive capability. So, I naturally habit the space between utopia and dystopia, where I believe real life takes place. I want to play in the grey, so to speak. I also want to raise questions much more than provide answers, so that also lands me in a place which explores the complexity of life.
I believe that if stories are too dystopian, they destroy hope, and if they are too utopian then they aren’t believable. There are exceptions of course, such as 1984, which can serve as warnings and give us a shared language for shortcuts to complex themes - ‘Big Brother is watching you’ as a lead into surveillance capitalism quickly gets us to ask the questions, ‘who is big brother’, ‘how is he watching you’, and ‘why is he watching you’.
You ask about collaboration - this really does affect and constrain any extreme utopian or dystopian stories in the projects because in reality the people working in research and development are clever, and generally ethical people. Sometimes, they are blinkered by their own research or funding targets as well as the problems to solve that are directly in front of them. But that said, they relish being given the chance to step back and consider the bigger picture. And, really importantly, I get insights into how advanced, or not, the technology and the science actually is, which also helps ground the work.
The collection has a wide tonal range, from dark dystopias to more light-hearted stories. Do you find it creatively freeing to explore different tones in your writing? How do you know what tone fits a particular story?
I hadn’t particularly thought about this until you asked. But, yes, on reflection I do find it very freeing. Often, I’ll walk and let the story settle in my mind - the technology, the characters, and the actual narrative. I think that’s probably when the tone comes to me. In some stories, I know I need to be more considered in my thinking because they are commissioned or for a particular anthology, but generally I think the tone comes as the mood takes me; it seems to flow naturally. I am quite a visual person, so often I’ll picture the setting and the people in my mind and that also produces a certain ‘feel’ for a story. Of course, the tone can just be set by how I’m feeling that day!
Some of the stories leave the endings very open to interpretation. As a writer, do you consciously craft ambiguous endings? What effect do you think these open endings have on readers?
Given that I want to raise questions and create conversations, often it is deliberate. I want to allow the reader the freedom to take the story where they want, and I most certainly don’t want to ‘preach’ by using an ending that ties them into one world-view. That said, it’s a fine line between good ambiguity and a poor ending, so, with fingers crossed, I hope I manage to find the sweet spot. An essential part of the writing process are my beta readers who are good at letting me know when they feel the ending is too ‘up in the air’ or happens too quickly or simply doesn’t make sense. I also get to know where the story took them, and left them, which is a handy litmus test, not least because they are not naturally sci-fi readers. There are stories where I have purposefully refrained from gendering my protagonist and from what readers tell me they attribute their own sexuality and perspective, which I think is great.
Personally, I think it’s a good thing for a reader to be left with some ambiguity, something to fill in for themselves. More with short stories and flash fiction than with novels though; I like a novel to conclude properly (and not leave me hanging on for a sequel).
Several stories explore environmental destruction and its consequences. What message or warning, if any, did you want readers to take away about humanity's relationship with nature?
First and foremost, that you are nature. It’s not something separate to be dominated and destroyed.
As background reading for a novel I’ve been working on, I read: “This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World” by Yancey Strickler, in which he suggests that when making decisions we should consider the ‘you now’, the ’you future’, the ‘us now’ and the ‘us future’. I think that’s a good rule of thumb when thinking about nature and how we relate within it. We should also be wary of buying into the tech solutions to ‘fix’ nature that are being hawked around. In my view, we need to rethink some of our attitudes and the way we measure success rather than wasting energy (literally) on developing more technology that may or may not have a positive impact, and even if it does then not for everyone. That said, I do believe that tech can be great – we just need to be more nuanced and savvier in our acceptance of it. I also think that we should be talking far more about the potential consequences of bio-engineering whether that’s of humans or other living matter.
I’m just in the final throws of editing an anthology of stories with subject expert commentary and there are ideas in that about how our future might develop in relationship with the rest of nature. One such idea is to train AI from the perspective of an animal – this kind of thing is well worth exploring.
Finally, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say this here, but I guess the single sentence that captures what I think overall about humanity’s attitude to nature is, “Stop fucking about.”
What do you hope readers will reflect on or take away after reading your collection? Did you have particular themes or ideas you wanted to explore across this group of stories?
The underlying theme across most of what I write is about what happens when the messy humans meet the imperfect tech. These stories were written over a period of four years, so pulling them together into Extracting Humanity was very interesting. When I first read them as this collection, what struck me most was that in essence they are a bunch of love stories, depending on your definition of love of course. Given that they are set in the future, they contain technology and, in some cases, societal changes. While I think both of those are worth thinking about and want all of us to grab as much agency as we can about how they develop, I guess I would want people to ask, “who is directing the future, if anyone?” and “what’s my role in that?”
What else? Well, I’d love it if they made readers laugh and chuckle and gasp and cry. And, then use those reactions to discuss the ideas with their friends. This all sounds very ‘worthy’ so it’s also worth saying that I absolutely want readers to be entertained for entertainment’s sake.
Coming back to the point about having agency, I often remind people that, ‘the future is ours, and it's up for grabs.’ So, please use the stories to reflect on how you’d like the world to be and who you want to be in it. Let’s ‘Nudge the Future’ together.
It was great to chat with Stephen Oram! You can grab a copy of 'Extracting Humanity' from Orchid's Lantern or Amazon now, and do check out the rest of the tour.