News & Press from The Future Fire: AI

Showing posts with label AI. Show all posts

Tuesday, 30 June 2026

Microinterview with Crystal Koo

Crystal Koo, author of “Titanium Chef” in The Future Fire #76, joins us for this week’s microinterview, and for a chat about her story, artificial personalities and writing.

TFF: What does “Titanium Chef” mean to you?

Crystal Koo: I wanted to write a story about what it would be like finding closure in a duplicate ex-partner sans the inconvenient parts that caused the end of the relationship. It wouldn’t necessarily be the healthiest thing given how contrived it might be, and then have that take over the protagonist’s life.

TFF: Do you think an artificial personality is possible that is not a copy of a living person (or simulated from predictive text)?

CK: Not sure in terms of likelihood, but it would certainly be fascinating to imagine one—and how different it might be from what we recognize as human personalities, if it’s something that’s emerged from code. It might be completely alien from what we’re used to!

TFF: What are you working on next?

CK: I’m at the editing stage of a short story about app-based prostitution. Bigger picture, I’m also slowly working on a novel.

Extract

Sometimes you catch the show’s copydroids roaming the city before the season starts, testing their programming against the vagaries of the real world. They’re wide-eyed and tentative, like exotic animals reintroduced to the wild. I find photos of these titanium pseudo-humans online, lost in a pet shop or on a bicycle in the park, experiencing things in their memory for the first time, afraid it might be their last. A Titanium Chef that loses a round is deactivated, its borrowed consciousness wiped in front of thousands of real-time viewers. The last one standing returns to its lab and fights again next season.

They look at the camera warily, as if it might take their soul.

Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2026/05/new-issue-202676.html.

Tuesday, 19 December 2023

Micro-interview with Juliet Kemp

Very pleased to invite Juliet Kemp, author of “Just as You Are” in The Future Fire #67, over for a wee chat.

TFF: What does “Just as You Are” mean to you?

Juliet Kemp: I was thinking about parenting and acceptance when I wrote it. Beyond that I'm not sure I can say it better than I said it in the story…

TFF: Given what we know about the failings of even the most advanced AI today, how long do you think it will be before we create anything that could be considered alive?

JK: I think this depends on how we define ‘alive’ which is of course hugely complex. Our current definitions revolve around a form of organic bodily life which doesn't necessarily carry over to other potential forms of life. I think something mechanical that can perform appropriate functions to grow, maintain, and reproduce itself, and respond to external stimuli, might not be that far off. Something that's ‘conscious’ or ‘intelligent’ or similar is a more complicated question—and far harder to judge, especially given the human tendency to try to define humans as ‘special’ and therefore exclude other beings (such as ones we already share the planet with) from intelligence or consciousness.

TFF: What is your favourite example of hopeful or fun speculative fiction (in any medium)?

JK: I really enjoyed Ruthanna Emrys’s A Half-Built Garden—I found it complicated but hopeful and fascinating. (I have many other favourites too!)

Extract:

Jin’s wearing the expression which means they’re desperate to look at my code fork, though it’s probably not conscious. Jin’s lab is the preeminent AI research lab; all those half-dozen person-level AIs are in some way based on the code that we developed here. After the court case that gave the first, Aisha, human rights, we open-sourced the main code branch, figuring it was the only ethical decision. Aisha took control of her own code fork, and the cluster she runs on.

Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2023/10/new-issue-202367.html.

Tuesday, 5 December 2023

Micro-interview with Jonathan Olfert

Jonathan Olfert, author of “Collective Bargaining” in The Future Fire #67, came by for a short chat about the story, equity, AI and the future of education.

TFF: What does “Collective Bargaining” mean to you?

Jonathan Olfert: It's just a little story about how underresourced one-size-fits-all accommodations can be useless or worse. I first thought of it during the emergency remote delivery/remote proctoring debacle, at the same time as massive government cuts were forcing support staff layoffs. I came back to the idea several times during some of my own struggles with disability. I wondered what accommodations a hive mind would need, or would be forced to need by a system designed for boring old one-bodies like us.

TFF: Is gen-AI going to make examining fairly and equitably harder or easier?

JO: Anyone who says they can reliably and consistently tell the difference between mildly edited gen-AI and a second-year undergrad's authentic paper (or online quiz response, or cover letter, or scholarship application) is dreaming. So a student's uncertainty about a fair assessment is only going to rise, and uncertainty comes with unevenly distributed hazards. Just as one example, I think of many international students I've known who've learned an extra-formal style that can have that gen-AI 'feel.' And since instructors often have the academic freedom to decide standards for gen-AI use in their classes, students may be juggling five different risk profiles a semester whether they've even used gen-AI or not. On a side note, want to hear something unsettling? I ran a survey on textbooks a couple of months ago at work, and out of almost 1100 undergrads, 4%—over forty of them—had explicitly used ChatGPT instead of buying a textbook. Which doesn't just speak to the quality of the information they and other gen-AI users are receiving, it can inform their writing style, so they may join the ranks of people more likely to get flagged even if they write all their own papers from scratch.