The Human Element: Exploring the Digital Afterlife with Richard K. Morgan

Welcome to Synthetic Minds, where we move from science fiction to science reality. I'm your host, Dr. Marc Van Rysmanem, accompanied by my digital twin. In this podcast, we bridge the realms of imaginative fiction and tangible futures. Join us as we dissect the narratives of science fiction writers and unravel how their visionary ideas might shape our real world tomorrow. Each episode, we dive into the fascinating worlds of futuristic technologies and societal shifts portrayed in science fiction. We'll examine how these narratives can inform and inspire real world advancements in business, technology and personal life. From AI to space exploration, from virtual realities to breakthrough biotechnologies, we explore the myriad possibilities on the horizon. If you're captivated by the potential of tomorrow and eager to understand how fiction can inform reality, this is the podcast for you. Subscribe and leave a review to join us on this enlightening journey. In this second episode, we're joined by Richard Morgan, renowned for his groundbreaking novel Altered Carbon and a thought leader in the realm of cyberpunk. Today, Richard will delve into the intricate dance between technology and humanity, sharing his unique insights on AI technology, societal transformations, and the ethical landscapes that define our future. Together, we'll explore how Richard's visionary work offers critical reflections on our world and guides us toward thoughtful future making. Now let's embark on this adventure to the future where the lines between science fiction and science reality blur. Enjoy.

Hello, Richard. Very welcome to be on Synthetic Minds. I'm glad to have you on the show.

Yeah, it's nice to be here. It's great. How you doing?

Perfect.

So, yeah, before we dive into to all the different questions that I have, can we start with you just giving a bit of your background, you know, the one or two books that you're most proud of, that you've written. And who is Richard?

Yeah, okay. I mean, I think like a lot of authors, I came late to the profession.

I spent a long time trying to get published and, you know, failing dismally, in fact.

And then it all happened at once for me.

I was in my mid-30s. I got a book deal for Altered Carbon. I got a movie deal on the.

Back of that huge publicity. Everything, everything took off. Yeah, Altered Carbon, my first novel, probably.

Still my most successful novel, quite annoyingly.

And not the one I'm most proud of. I think the one I'm most proud.

Of is a book I wrote quite a few years later called Thirteen, which is about genetic manipulation and sort of refining characteristics in humans to make them more apt for certain tasks. But yes, Altered Carbon is the thing I'm known for. Obviously there's the Netflix show. It was under movie option with Warner Brothers for many years and big names like Joel Silver who took the option in the first place.

So that's what's made me, and I guess I qualify as a cyberpunk writer.

In the sense that what inspired me more than anything was, you know, William Gibson, Blade Runner, the whole, the whole cyberpunk ethos as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s.

And yeah, I've, I, I think of.

Cyberpunk as the future futurist iteration of the noir genre. And I feel that noir has a very useful place within literature, well within fiction if you like. And the cyberpunk therefore likewise does.

And I think the backbeat of what I write and the backbeat of what.

Most of the cyberpunk writers also attack in the users grist to the mill.

Is the idea that technology is not.

Going to solve our problems. Technology is a potential, it's an opportunity, it's all sorts of things but in.

The end it always comes back to us.

It's always back to the human element. And it's how human, humans use the technology that is really going to count.

And I think, you know, the, the, the key tenet of noir and probably.

Also of cyberpunk is look in the mirror, you know, there's your problem.

And, and, and at the same time look in the mirror because that's the.

Reality, you know, that's what you're facing, you know. And yeah, my characters look in mirrors quite a lot actually thinking about it.

And so everything that I've written really is about how it won't matter what marvelous technology you have.

It won't, what will matter is how it's regulated, who has it, who doesn't, what purposes it's seen as fulfilling and by whom.

And these socio political elements are always.

Going to be there.

I think there was a time when in the golden age of SF and.

Later on with some of the hard science fiction writers who were reacting against the new wave in the 70s, there.

Was this idea of technology as just.

A pure good technology will save us. Technology is the thing that will, you know, bring us into this brave new world and fantastic, you know, future.

And cyberpunk really was a rebellion against that because it was, it was saying, well, hang on, you know, why is the future going to be any different.

Than the present or the past?

Technology has been with us for a while. You know, we've been technological for centuries.

Now and you know, especially in the last century, the Victorian era and then the 20th century. You know, all through this we've been technological. I don't see any utopias emerging.

So why is it that we think.

That sometime in the 21st century that's going to be a thing?

And that's. Yeah, it's key for me. It's key because no matter what story you're writing, no matter what your milieu, what you're setting and what your subject.

Matter, you're writing about humans. And it's about the human use of the future. That's where the real game is at as far as narrative is concerned.

Yeah, I like that. The human use of the future, because rightly so, as you say, we always think that technology will bring the nirvana, but more often, technology is neutral. It always depends on how we use it as humans. And we can be used for good and for bad.

Sorry to interrupt you. And also another thing. And again, William Gibson got there first.

Because there's this quote attributed to him, although I'm not sure if he actually said it, but is attributed to him.

The, the future is already here.

It's just not evenly distributed.

Right.

And that's, that's the point.

It is this idea, the realization that, whoa.

Actually, yes, this is the future, you know.

Yeah.

But not everyone has it, you know.

And you can go to place.

Sorry, yeah, no, I want to say. Yeah, I, I, I, I agree. Because I, I've noticed that myself, you know. Yeah. Being a futurist, I live at the cutting edge of technologies and I see what's happening, but like, 99% of the people have no clue what's, what's happening. And then that's because they're just busy living their own lives. And, and so it's, yeah, from, from that perspective, it's also not evenly distributed. Only a few people see what's happening, and the vast majority are just living their lives.

Yeah, absolutely. And there's always where it's been, I think. And they're saying now you, you, you can go to somewhere like Dubai, you.

Know, go up the Burj Khalifa or.

You know, or you can go and.

Have a look at where they're breaking ground on the linear city, also in, in Saudi, obviously.

And, you know, you can look at these things. You go, oh, my God.

That literally is the future taking shape there.

But then, you know, you don't have to fly very far to get to.

The slums of Doha or somewhere. Somewhere like that.

And to be honest, even in the.

Middle east, there are, you know, there's a huge amount of imported labor that is living in squalid conditions.

And so, yeah, I think that was what was. Got missed all through the golden age.

Of sf, all through the sort of the optimistic years and, and still with the optimist mindset of the hard SF guys, there's this idea of it's a.

Wave that will roll over the whole world and it's like. Well, not really.

Yeah, no, true. So if you look at your books, what are sort of common themes in your books from a technology perspective? Altitude, carbon discussed AGI as well as immortality and uploading of consciousness. You said your other book was more on genetics. Is there a common theme or is this any technology in the broader sense that you would like to explore?

I think what, you know, the common.

Theme is probably a technology run amok. You know, a technology that is in the wrong hands. And when I say in the wrong hands, what I mean is it's in human hands. And so, yes, in altered carbon, this idea of body swapping and being able to download your consciousness and so forth, it's become the currency of society.

But at the same time, yes, the.

Same as it always is. The rich benefit from this, the poor don't really get a look in. There's a Scrabble to access it, and.

A sense that nothing really changes in.

Terms of stratification of society.

And with 13 the same thing, except.

Where it's genetic engineering there. And again, what you find is the protagonist is a guy who's been engineered to be a kind of super soldier, problem solver. He comes from slum root in the.

Sense that the genetic material that made.

Him was sold by some starving woman trying to feed her other kids. She allows herself to be harvested and then those harvested eggs, that genetic material is then taken away and, you know, a corporate body then do what they will with it.

And that follows on the last novel.

I wrote, published back in 2018, Thin Air. It's the same universe as the black man universe. And there again you've got another guy who's, who's a kind of onboard security system.

And again, he's there.

He's not harvested at the egg stage, but he's, he is indentured at third trimester in the womb. And again, a woman who is, comes from a, you know, appalling background, poverty and deprivation, and is therefore buys into this corporate program that will say, yeah.

We'Ll set you up.

We give you a, you know, a.

Home to live in. Your child will be, will have the.

Best medical care, be brought up in this way, and we'll start installing our little tweaks and things from the moment you sign these papers. And, and although the mother, the, the mothers of these children are allowed to hang around, there's a provision for them.

To be with, you know, in contact more or less with their offspring.

It's not really, you know, it's really just a parking thing. You know, the offspring are taken, they're operated on, they're given all their tweaked genetically, they're given all sorts of things and then they're sent off to do.

Their job and yeah, again, harvested from the poor. So the same thing applies. Thin air is also about settling Mars.

It's about what a colony on Mars might look like a few centuries on. And again, it's the idea that, okay, we've gone to Mars, so what, we've brought all our problems with us. You know, I don't have a lot.

Of time for this sort of Elon.

Musk shiny tech bro dream of colonizing.

Mars because it's like, well, I, okay, good, let's go to Mars, which is incredibly inhospitable and let's try and live there.

Why is a mystery to me that.

What, how is that going to be.

Any different than what you've got on Earth if the people who are going are humans?

You know, you're just going to duplicate.

The same, the same issues that you have back on Earth, except you'll be swapped background.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's, and don't get me wrong, I mean I, you know, space exploration.

Is an amazing thing and we're going to get a lot of benefit from it.

But I think anyone who's paying attention.

Has to have realized by now it's.

Not really for us. You know, we are already building machines.

Smart enough to go do that stuff for us.

Yeah.

And so no one wants to make.

That bridge between nascent space exploration technology and ict.

And the point is that it's far smarter to build intelligent machines that can then go to Mars, sample the soil, build ultimately maybe even terraform so that in, you know, a thousand years or.

However long it takes, you could maybe then ship people out there once it's hospitable.

But the idea that humans are going.

To go into these places in large.

Numbers, it's, it's insane. It doesn't make any sense, you know, but, but it's a fantasy. It's, it's that. And again, this is where I'm a.

Little cautionary about the letting science fiction writers into the real world as policymakers.

Because it's so much of the space.

Exploration dream has been based upon really crude, stereotypical ideas of the empires of old like Rome and Persia and places like that. That was one vision that you saw in a lot of golden age science.

Fiction and the other one has been like the Napoleonic Wars.

So the idea of sort of know, space pirates and you know, when you look at how bloody inhospitable space and our surrounding available planets are, you're like.

What are you talking about? This makes no sense at all. And I say, I wish I'd thought of it myself, but it's not.

It's Bruce Sterling who is quoted as.

Saying, look, Mars is about a million.

Times less hospitable than the Gobi Desert.

And I don't see anybody colonizing the Gobi Desert. Why is it so important that we colonize Mars? It makes no sense. Go to Mars by all means. Yes, absolutely. And you can maybe have small outposts.

Like in Antarctica now where you'll have a small number of researchers and scientists going out there to ride herd on whatever's being done out there.

You can, I can see that as a model. But I mean, not a million people. No, but not, not a city because who the fuck will live there? You know, it's. You're gonna. The calcium will leach from your bones.

For the lack of gravity.

You've got, you're exposed to cosmic rays.

A massive amount because of the, because of the lack of atmosphere and very thin atmosphere.

You're gonna have to live underground most of the time.

And I know people do that, places like Montreal as well. But.

It makes no sense if you can send machines.

And I think that's what we will end up doing. So yes, we'll have outposts, I'm sure in the same way we'll have outposts on the moon.

But those outposts are going to be minimal things because we won't need to.

We will have machines smart enough to actually just go through all that porous mine the minerals, do the research, bring back what we need.

And that's fine. That's absolutely fine. You know, population growth is slowing. I'm told it'll you give it another.

Century and it's actually starting to drop off and we, our populations will start to decline.

There's going to be plenty of space. Rewilding is already happening across parts of the western world.

And I think you know that that's a process that's going to increase as the population that starts to slow and decline. We're not.

No, no, I hope not. But from A perspective of the different technologies that you describe and the different visions that you have, such as AGI in Altered Carbon, such as going to Mars. How do you think that these. How realistic do you think that the technology that you describe we. That we will see them in our lives and how will they. And how will they affect our. You know, what will be the societal implications of those technologies, such as ag?

Yeah, I mean, that's where I'm a.

Little bit off the map, to be honest, because, I mean, the technology in Altered Carbon is fanciful. I mean, we aren't anywhere close to being able to do anything like the things that are happening in Altered Carbon.

It's not to say it can't happen.

I mean, I read a few years ago that they'd successfully digitized a mouse brain, and they can run it on a mainframe computer, apparently. I don't know how true that is. That's just. That was one of those apocryphal stories.

But the idea of being able to.

Digitize a human mind such that you could have a working replica, you know, and then put that into. And then the whole problem of, you know, transferring into another body, how would that work?

I think, you know, that's if that ever happens.

And I have my doubts because we're still. We're still struggling for a model of what consciousness actually is. Yeah, we don't understand it. So, you know, the idea that it's digital or digitizable is still very much in question. I'm not.

It's a hard problem, as David Chalmers says.

Exactly.

And so that technology, the technology in.

Autocarbon, it is, at best, centuries in the future.

And what about the AGI, the po, the hotel?

Yeah, Well, I mean, I threw in.

AI because it's a sort of staple of the future. You know, we all know. We all knew it would back then. We all knew it was coming.

The AI in the book is a.

Little bit different than in the show. It doesn't have the emotive range that the POE has in the show.

The show was very big on sort.

Of making you feel for the AI characters, and so therefore they needed to be humanized.

That's not so much the case in my books.

There is a hotel consciousness. AI consciousness in the book, in Altered Carbon. But it's a lot less. It has a lot less character, if you like.

Yeah.

And it's a lot less human. It's a lot less interested in.

It's interested in human behavior because it was designed to run a hotel.

Right. So it has to understand humans in order for that to work.

And then of course, the problem is.

As you see that in the show as well, no one wants to stay in the AI hotels because they feel that they're creepy.

So the AIs have got this desire.

To have guests, but they can't get them. And that serves as a.

That's the drive behind what the AI.

In the book and also in the show does. But with the book, that's where it stops. It doesn't then become this thing of forming relationships with different characters and so forth.

Because again, my feeling is that AI is going to be, you know, the sort of overarching general AI that we're talking about is not going to be anything human. I mean, we can put human interfaces on top of it, but yeah, it.

Isn'T going to be anything human or anything close. And we need to realize that.

As far as more specific, I like.

The sort of the future Alexas or whatever you want to call them.

There's one of those in my book.

Thin Air, where this guy has got a hardwired Alexa in his inside. His body basically is wired in.

Yeah.

And it's a sort of. Basically a personal system in his head. It's also a battle computer. So it's quite. It's quite psychopathic in its. In its attitudes and behaviors.

But the point about it is it.

Is slaved to certain functions. You know, its job is to keep him alive and to advise him on how to do his job. To do his job.

And I had quite a lot of.

Fun with the parameters and what happens at the edges of those parameters, the edge cases and how it behaves then. And it behaves like a personality.

And to some extent it is, but.

It'S not a human. It's not.

And I mean, the way he, the.

Character in Thin Air is constantly saying to it, shut the fuck up, you.

Know, in a way that you would.

Never do to an actual human.

But he can, because it's not a human. And I think it's a computer. Yes. And where I think this is one.

Of the stumbling blocks with science fiction, especially popular science fiction, is we constantly scrabble to make AI to anthropomorphize it, basically.

And that's a huge mistake because that's.

Not what AI ever is going to be. It's not going to be human.

We can shape it so that it.

Does human like, things, things for us.

And we can already see this with.

These, you know, chatbots that, that people form relationships with. And the AI girlfriends are coming you know, they, they, that's already a thing.

You know, but, but we have to understand that what's going on behind that.

Interface is not human in any, if.

We actually understand it. And I think that's sort of interesting thing else as what we see happening in today's, today's world with, with all this generative AI technology, we generally don't have a clue what's going on whatsoever. So what is your perspective from having sort of seen the future of AI as a science fiction writer, of how things can go terribly wrong? What is sort of the, what kind of truth do we have in this existential threat that all governments and all big tech are currently paying attention to, for better or for worse? What's your idea around that?

Well, I do think that, I mean, I think the point is that AI.

Will and in fact already is finding its way out into the human world.

But it's finding its way out in bits and pieces.

So like Alexa, it is, you know, increasingly sophisticated algorithms that work as assistants that sort of help you with your life in one way or another.

We have, you know, robots for elderly care.

That's a thing in Japan now and I think increasingly in the west we have AI girlfriends that you can chat to on your phone and pretend that you've got a girlfriend.

So these things are all making their way out into the human world.

They're already here. That's not the future, that's absolutely now general AI. So the idea of an intelligence, an artificial intelligence that isn't really for anything, hasn't been shaped to do certain things. It's, it's just sitting there existing.

I think there's something of a chimera there because, you know, I mean, again, it's failed anthropomorphizing because we're thinking, oh, it'll be like, you know, like, like a person. But the truth is we are not general intelligences either.

We are very much purpose built machines. So you know, my purpose is fight. And basically, I mean it is, I.

Need to stay alive long enough to.

To a female to pass on your genes.

That's the whole idea.

And then ideally maybe provide a certain.

Amount of sustenance and sucker to that offspring such that it then goes on.

To do the same thing, you know, and if you're a female, well, your.

Purpose is, you know, somewhat different, but the fundamentals remain.

Your purpose is stay alive, mate, reproduce.

That's it, you know, but, but I.

Mean, you know, I, I'm, I'm making light of it and I'm you know, it sounds very crude as a purpose, but the point is it is, it is. It forms every, every cell of us.

It is everything that we are.

So we are not general AIs in any way.

We are actually purposed intelligence, very much so. And everything in us, all of our, all of our, you know, intelligence of mind, ultimately is built on the foundation of those, those salience right now.

So when you talk about building a general AI, and you're like, well, yeah, but what is that even a thing? You know, you build this thing, it's smart, but what is it for? You know, what does it. And if it just exists.

That'S not.

Very useful really, is it?

Well, AI needs to have some kind of purpose, some kind of objective or.

The other thing I can see coming.

Is maybe the idea that it will become a kind of art form.

So it will literally just be an artistic endeavor. Look, we've created an intelligence, and you put it, I don't know, in a.

Museum or something, you know, people can.

Go and talk to it and interact with it and whatever, and. But again, if it's a general AI, if it hasn't been shaped with protocols to interact with people, that could be weird. I mean, in the novel I wrote.

13, the first one, about the, you know, the genetically engineered humans, there is.

AI there, but it hasn't done, it.

Hasn'T gone very well. It's sort of fallen at the hurdle of, well, what are these things exactly?

And the carrot, the protagonist goes to.

Talk to an AI, a shipboard AI, to sort of try and find some stuff out.

And it's like talking to a deranged poet because it's, you know, its parameters.

Are so not human that it's really hard to get it to.

Whoa, whoa, listen, please come back.

Can you answer these questions, please?

And it's just off with the fairies, you know. Yeah, and that's the point, isn't it? It's that, that's. I mean, I can't claim that that's.

A wholly original take because I think you see in the Gibson novels, you know, in Neuromancer and the two follow up novels, that they set this AI free. And all. Spoilers, hang on. Spoilers? Yeah, they set free this AI in Neuromancer in the first novel, and then.

It just sort of goes off and does it its own thing and, you know, it doesn't really affect, you know, it doesn't take over, it doesn't stop.

You know, manipulating humans.

There are some fringe effects that they.

Start to pick up on with, with like, sort of, you know, there's this kind of weird voodoo analog going on in the, in the, in the, in the, the Internet, where these, these, you assume that they're subroutines that have sort of gone off to do their own.

Thing, but the AI itself isn't interested. And in fact, what it does is it sweeps the skies and finds this.

Signal from a similar intelligence, you know, orbiting Alpha Centauri. So it's like, oh, I found something that's like me. And that is interesting.

And the implication is that it's going.

To go there somehow and, you know, and interact with it.

Although, again, even that assumes a level.

Of purpose in that it, you know, it's lonely, it wants company.

But that's a human. That's a human thing.

Why would.

Then we end we. Anthropomorphizing again, because.

Exactly, exactly.

There's no reason that the AI is lonely so that it needs, it needs, it needs company. But then they are.

Exactly. That would apply in the case of a purposed AI. So if you had an AI say.

That is purposed on. Yeah. Caring for people with dementia or, you know. Yes. Helping psychopathic space marshals to handle whatever they're dealing with, like in my book.

In Thin Air, then yeah, it would feel the need to do the things that it's been designed to do. And you could make a case for.

It getting neurotic or upset or whatever if it can't function in the way it's supposed to, like the AI Hotel in autocarbon, you know, that they would.

They're failing in what they were designed for. But yeah, again, sort of General, you come back to this thing. General, AI, yes, but. General, but what is it for? You know, and if we don't know what it's for, then what are the parameters? What are you actually building here and that, you know, I think as much as anything, you know, if someone were to, you know, suppose somebody paid me.

An unfeasible amount of money to go to the Pentagon or to the, you know, to Congress and to advise them on the future of AI I'd be.

Saying to them.

Caution, you know, be.

Careful because most of your assumptions are wrong. You know, you are.

We are.

We are. It's one thing to build something like.

A nuclear bomb where you have a very clear sense of what this is and what it does and what it could be, what the problems could be.

But with, with, with this project of General AI, we don't even know what.

It is we want.

So what should policymakers Do? What should organizations do to keep the big tech sort of in control? Because they are just plowing ahead.

Yeah, I mean, what worries me is. And again, it's not really about AI specifically, it's a general worry, is that we. I say we, but I mean, it is a specific subsection of people of our policymakers have spent the last 40 years dismantling regulatory frameworks almost everywhere. You know, the neoliberal cant has become. It's become a creed, it's become almost a religion. Government is the problem. Small government stripped by government. So you've seen this with space exploration, where NASA has budgets cut and cut and cut and cut again, and then.

Suddenly everyone's going, why aren't we going.

To the moon again? So we're not going to the moon.

For any fucking money. And then you get guys like Elon Musk come along and they're like, oh.

I'd quite like to go to the moon.

And you know what? I've got this big sack of money here.

So, you know, I think we're going.

And then organizations like NASA have to come with their sort of begging bowl to the private sector and say, oh, please, could you fly this to the moon for us? And they go, sure, we'll do that. The private sector's got your back. And then they fucking fly. And it.

Does it work?

No, it fail. You know that. I thought it was hilarious. You know, there was this big thing with. I can't even remember what the launch was called now.

But you remember this. They sent this NASA probe to the moon in this private launch vehicle. And it was a private. So it was a private company providing haulage services to NASA and everyone.

That was a couple of months ago, isn't it? I think.

Yes, a few months ago. Oh, it's a. It's the partnership of. This is the new way forward. This is the engine that will drive space exploration. And then halfway there, whoops, yeah, somebody properly. Now that's. You know, I think that's symptomatic. I think that's indicative of what the problem is, that if you don't have.

Absolutely rigid regulatory frameworks, if you don't.

Have guys checking and checking and checking and checking again how things are done.

Are we then doomed with AI? Because with AI, you know, there's no global regulatory framework which we should need from an AI perspective, because AI doesn't know any borders. So are we then doomed from an AI perspective?

I don't know. I mean, my feeling is that we're.

Heading for a crash, not Specifically with AI, but generally where all the assumptions of the post war order are going to sort of take a very hard knock. And we're already seeing this now. I mean, you see with Russia invading Ukraine, you can see it with the behavior of China in the South China Seas. The concept of a global world order, the concept of a well ordered world in which the rule of law governs us all, that's fallen out of favor. I think there were always powers in the world that it was never in favor with them.

But just the belief that that's the.

Way forward has started to falter. The United nations, it's clearly not fit for purpose anymore. It's a mess. You can see how partial and corrupt it is in the way it behaves. It has no teeth. Obviously that's the other problem with the.

UN And I think what we're heading for is a situation in which something.

Is going to break. And I'm not sure what it will.

Be, but I think the results of it will be medium catastrophic. There's going to be a lot of, at best there'll be a lot of discomfort.

It could be much worse than that, but I think at best it's going to be discomfort. There's going to be a slowdown in trade. There'll be all sorts of issues with global supply chains. There's going to be a turning away from internationalism. There's going to be trade barriers going up again, tariffs, things like countries seeing each other once more as enemies rather than trading partners. I don't know how far that will go before enough people go, whoa, you know, put the brakes on.

But, and I think out of that.

Will probably come a sort of, you know, 1945 mark 2. So there'll be another reset in which we go, whoa. Okay, so we need regulatory bodies, we need to start thinking about how we manage the globe.

Yeah.

You know, but it's a bit, it reminds me a bit of, of Ray Dalio's book, you know, the Principles of the Changing World Order where, you know, he describes of the six phases that empires go through. And then we now sort of. The United States is now sort of in the fifth of the six phase and it can go wrong. And once in the six phase, then sort of, you know, you have global trouble. And so, so, so then, but then, yeah, if that's the case, and I agree with you that we are, you know, living in highly uncertainty, you know, time. So as a science extra rider, you live, sort of live in the future. What kind of, you know, how can individuals and how can organizations navigate this uncertainty and, and to, to arrive in a sort of a, you know, future that's, that's beneficial for us?

Well, I think, I think we have to stop. I mean there is a general problem.

Here as well, which is that late stage capitalism is the problem. And I say that as a fan of capitalism. I'm not a, I'm not an anti capitalist. More or less everything good that we've got has been given to us by capital systems. You know, capitalism has driven us forward from a world in which starvation was a standard issue thing and you know, children, millions of children died all over the world unnecessarily driven us forward to where the indices for poverty, starvation, lack of education, all those things are falling. You know, there's a book called Factfulness which I'm sure you've probably read by a Swedish guy, he's dead now, but the foundation he set up has been carried forward by his son and daughter in law, or daughter and son in law, I don't remember which.

And he's basically talking about all the.

Amazingly good things that have happened in the last hundred years.

And so there's not a council of despair.

But what I think has happened, unfortunately with late stage capitalism is that having satisfied basic needs, we're now on to satisfying whims.

And it's become a case of, I mean I, I often joke that on.

The gravestone of the human species, you know, the epitaph will be just eat. Because I, you know, those adverts are everywhere, just eat.

You know, and it's like, well, yeah, it sounds lovely and convenient, just eat. But you can't just eat, you have to be productive. You know, there are frameworks within which.

Humans need to exist in order to, in order function well.

And you, this idea that you'll just.

Sit on the sofa, press a button and your food comes through the door and you don't have to even stop, take the headphones off from your game.

You know, this is a problem. But that is where late stage capitalism is taking us. It takes us in the direction of saying you should never feel discomfort, you should never have to make an effort, you should never have to worry, you shouldn't have stress, you shouldn't, you know, but these are the things we were purposed for.

I mean we're designed to survive stress, we're designed to live under stressful conditions, we're designed to strive.

And if you have a system in.

Place, a very successful system, I have to add, that is constantly telling you.

No, don't strive, you don't have to.

Strive, you know, just buy, buy this thing or this other thing or, you.

Know, that sets up a society in.

Which people have a colossal level of entitlement and expectation.

And what I find scary with the.

Political conversations I see going on these.

Days is that I saw this when.

You know, there was a sort of loving with Jeremy Corbyn in the British Isles a few years ago, but you see it on the right wing with the Trump supporters as well. You've got this infantile idea that, you know, oh, we'll just do the right things, you know, it was hilarious.

I mean, I still find with the Corbyn faction, this idea that, oh, all you've got to do is get elected and then just do the right thing.

It doesn't work like that.

There are no right things. You know, you as the leader of a nation, you will be called upon every day to make thousands of decisions that are choosing the least worst bad thing, you know, and that failure to accept, to understand that, to understand that, you know, life is full of problems and strain and stress and, you know, that we have all of that and that needs to be regulated. I think we take for granted the.

World we live in. We've taken for granted the post war order.

Absolutely.

The idea peace is a standard and.

It'S simply very spoiled from that regard. Yes, the European continent you have not having had a war for about 80 years is very, very unique. But if we have this sort of entitlement of driven by late stage capitalism, what can organizations do? What can the Fortune 500 companies do to prepare for this changing world order, this highly uncertain world where technology would play a big role?

Well, what I would be asking them to do, and the problem is it's.

Not in the DNA of the corporate world to do this. Unfortunately, I think you have to look at most of the achievements of, of modern society.

And what you see, what you tend to see, although capitalism and, you know, finance, commerce, whatever, although that is the.

Engine that drives it. What you tend to see also is very dedicated cadres of people who live by codes, for want of a better.

Word, you know, and that was very much the case, I think, in NASA.

You know, there are all sorts of issues with funding and waste of funds and so forth in NASA.

But the point was that was an organization dedicated to a very specific goal.

You know, get into space.

And there were no concerns about, well, you know, what's the bottom line? You know, have we made a profit this quarter?

This kind of stuff goes out the Window because you, you dedicate yourself.

And you know, the one that everyone, one of the few, I think, that.

Is still intact is, you know, the American military. They have this very powerful ethos, this idea of what being a member of the American military is about, that this is a service job, that you are serving your country.

And I think you need that kind of mentality. Obviously it'll vary depending on what you're.

Doing, what the organization is.

But you need that sort of mentality much more commonly, so that people, when they make decisions, are not making the.

Decision based on what will the boss say? Or will I get a promotion or, you know, how much profit share is there in this? They're making the decision on what, according to the codes that I live by, is the right thing to do here.

Now that's a difficult thing to do for a corporation. I think you saw it in the Japanese zaibatsu initially during the sort of boom years. This idea that, you know, and I think it was very interesting.

I mean, if you read Francis Fukuyama about this, he's, he's always talking about how the Americans tried to import Japanese working practices into the American workplace. But the point was, what they either failed to understand or didn't care about.

Was that in the Japanese workplace, if you worked for a corporation, you had.

A job for life. And if your job evaporated for one circumstance or another, then that corporation was.

Honor bound to find you something else to do. It would have been a great shame for them to have to give you that.

Never happened in the Western world.

The Americans then say, oh, well, let's do this, let's have quality circles, let's have this, let's involve the workforce. But yeah, and loyalty to the workforce, where's that? Oh, fuck off. Zero. So you're asking people who have absolutely nothing coming back to them from the.

Corporate upper echelons, you're asking them to.

Act as if this is their family.

As if this is, you know, this.

Is the be all and end all. Now I'm not saying that the Japanese.

Corporate model is necessarily perfect or anything.

Like that, but what I think is that that culture of saying I'm doing.

Something worthwhile, it's important. There is a moral code to this as well. There is a way of behaving that's important and that's more important than my material comfort right now.

You need to inculcate that at all.

Levels of society and obviously you're swimming.

Against the current, because late stage capitalist.

Systems are telling everybody the exact opposite of that.

So if I were Google or Apple.

Or you know, any one of these.

Major corporations, I would be inculcating. So I would be inculcating a culture of always asking is this the correct thing to do? I will be inco. I mean I would make it, you.

Know, instead of putting whistleblowers under all sorts of pressures and difficulties, I would make it an honor.

You know, if you genuinely believe something.

Is, is, is going on, that is, that is morally unacceptable in the workplace.

You should get, you should gain instantaneous.

Cover from the, from the state. The government should automatically come in and say, okay, this is a Q47 whistleblower situation.

We have a whole set of circumflex things that engage with this. That person is brought in, protected, we examine their evidence. You know, if it turns out they're correct, this will not be covered up. The people who have caused this will be hum, drawn and quartered and publicly and the, you know, and the whistleblowers will be praised, you know, heaven. But it's really hard to, you know, see this happening because everything in the.

Way we live at the moment, it.

Goes in the opposite direction. We are being atomized. We're being told, you know, just eat.

So that's. But then we have a bit of a challenge as a species because that's, that's highly, highly difficult to change. And especially in this uncertain world where we live in, where you know, understanding the signals of change and understanding what is how the world is changing in the next five years, 10 years. You know, as a, as a futurist, I had an easy job. But nowadays with the world changing so fast, it's becoming increasingly difficult to understand what's going to happen 5, 10, 20 years from now. And I think it's actually really important to have a more long term perspective so that you can change for that. So what kind of tips do you have for organizations to, to, you know, find the signals to, to, to, to change and to ensure this, this changing behavior.

Okay, I'll tell you, I'll tell you.

I think the general malaise that we suffer from at the moment in the western world is we no longer, we no longer know what we stand for.

You know, if you go on social.

Media, you'll see an enormous amount of political heat and light going on around various topics and subjects. But what you find when you dig down into what people are saying is.

It'S all what they're against.

You know, so I'm against racism, I'm against homophobia, I'm against, you know, slave labor, whatever.

Well, yes, obviously, you know, it's like, yeah, these should, you know, it's not. It's like, okay, that's great. Yeah, slavery, it's bad. We all know that. What are you for? And I think we need to grab hold of what, as a culture, we stand for.

So in, you know, I would argue that what we stand for in the.

Western world, you know, imperfectly, because no.

You know, no society is anywhere close to perfect.

But what we stand for is the.

Rule of law, democratic accountability, prosperity, distributed as effectively as we can to. So that every member of society can benefit, that there is a, There is a benefit to being a member of society.

These are the kind of things that.

We stand for, I think.

And an egalitarianism as well that isn't.

Popular else elsewhere in the world.

I think we, what we need is some, some kind of, you know, purpose. You know, talk this morning, which was sort of about, you know, mastery and finding purpose and, and, you know, what is the direction that you're going to. And I think as a, that you need it as an individual, you need it as an organization, but you also need it in society.

The point is that, well, there are.

Two problems with this. The first one is that postmodernists have really fucked us here because this, this idea of everything's relative and, oh, you.

Know, fundamentalist Islamic societies are no better.

Or worse than Western societies.

Fuck off. You know, there are some obvious objective.

Truths that, those that are being ignored there, and that is down to pomo. The POMOS really have screwed things up for us.

But the other thing is also, yeah.

You cannot expect, if you are a captain of industry or a politician or.

Whatever, you cannot expect that individuals at the street level are going to just get with the program unless you make.

Them feel that they're a part of it.

You know, so it's no good having an, having employment practices where you can.

Hire and fire like that.

You know, expecting people to give their life's blood to a job without any.

Guarantee that that job will last for more than a year, you know, doesn't work.

You're seeing that, you know, the way in which we strip back everything, you know, tenure disappears at universities. You know, job security is nowhere even. I mean, I've seen, you know, suggestions.

That there's going to be even the case where even secondary school teachers will, you know, they won't be paid for the summer holiday. They will just have to go away and do something themselves with that three months or two months or whatever, and then come back and reapply for their job.

You know, it's, it's. Well, because that's ridiculous. Yeah, it is that, but it is the way we're going. It's this idea that nothing is secure. Nothing. And, and there is an argument.

I mean, you know, you, I'm sure you could find some asshole who would come and argue on the other side of what I'm saying and would say, oh, yes, but people get complacent and you have to, you, you, you know, there must be that. You know, if people don't fear losing their job, they won't do their job well and all, you know, there is an argument for that.

But I think again, I always say when I, you know, when I'm consulting.

And I consult on projects in the games industry and I've always said to the people I work with that if.

You'Re worried about your staff, then you have failed.

Yeah, you've done something wrong. You need to create an environment where your staff wants to come to work.

You should trust your staff. And if you can't trust them, it's your fault. You fucked up here. So, yeah, so the issue becomes, right, we need to find a way in which you people who are part of.

Whatever these, these larger things are, whether it's a corporation or an army or a civil service as well, this is obviously something you need.

Those people have to be invested. And to do that, you've got to believe in something. So you have to be. You have to start telling people once more. Now, look, guys, you know, the Western.

World'S got its problems, but hell, it's.

A pretty good social structure. We've not done badly here.

You know, it could have gone worse.

And the things we've done badly are getting addressed, you know, so that belief that. Because I think unless you have that, then you're just going to go, well.

Why not let Russia roll across Europe? You know, why not let the Chinese take Southeast Asia?

Because who are we to say, you know, and again, this is the pomo thing, isn't it? Oh, colonialists. Oh, who are we to dictate how things should happen in the South China Sea? Well, as a discrete civilization, no, but as believers in, you know, all the, all the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

The idea of egalitarianism at human level, the rule of law.

Yeah, fuck.

Yes, we have a right to say no. That's not on. We are not going back to the age of empires. We're not going back to great power diplomacy.

And, you know, that's over.

You know, we have to.

We can't. Every single challenge that we face as.

A planet, you know, as a planetary species, is something that's going to require cooperation. It's going to require organizations and countries to work together.

So this idea that one country suddenly goes, oh, I'm having that because, you.

Know, they like it, you know, or because. Because I want it.

We have to be. But you've got to have ground to stand on. So we, for corporations, it is about.

You know, understand that you've got to build social relations, that you've got to have a workforce who are invested, and.

They won't be invested if they're scrabbling.

To afford to pay rent. You know, I mean, we're seeing this in the UK at the moment. Huge numbers of people living at home up to the age of 30.

And I'll tell you something very interesting about that. When I move, I lived in Spain.

For four years, and in Spain, it's very common for kids not to leave home until they. They marry, basically, until they decide to former home of their own.

So what you found was an enormous.

Number of Spaniards in their 20s, late 20s, in many cases, still living at home with their parents.

And that system worked. The parents liked having them around, they got fed, they didn't have to worry. It was, you know, in many ways.

It'S very warm and cuddly.

But what you also saw and what.

I found lacking in Spain, by comparison to my own country, to the uk.

Was there was no dynamism. You know, when you asked young people.

About what they were aiming to do.

With their lives, they were very. Yeah.

Almost comatose, happy.

Yeah, whatever.

Yeah.

And I think the, the rite of passage that you have in the Anglosphere.

For one of a better suggestion, I guess, although it's other countries as well.

Where at 18, you leave home either.

To go to uni in another place.

Right.

You go to uni. You don't go to uni in your hometown, which is a common thing in Spain.

Um, you leave and it's a rite of passage. It's the point at which you sort.

Of jump into the water and you go, right, I gotta swim on my own now.

Um, by, by forcing us back into.

This model of where kids can't afford to get out of the parental nest because they can't afford to buy or rent, you know, a sane level, you are killing that dynamism.

Yeah.

Because of course, if you're living at.

Home at 27 years old, and that has become.

There is no comfort in there.

Yeah. You're not why you're not going to be the kind of person who's thinking.

I got to get out and make a, make a go of this. I've got to start a company, I want to make money, I want to, I want my own home, I want.

To, you know, you, you are, you're.

Sort of stunting the emotional growth of these generations. And we are going to end up in a situation where I say because one of the things you see in Spain with the Spanish economy is yeah.

It'S very rudimentary, it's very, it doesn't.

Have the sort of, the innovation, the.

Thinking and in fact what you find.

Is that innovative Spaniards tend to leave, they tend to go abroad, you know.

And so we're nearing the end of this episode but I'm curious to sort of send your perspective of. Yeah, if we live in this fast changing times, you know, how important is it for business leaders to read science fiction and to involve the science fiction writers, to learn from the thinking of science fiction writers. How support is that?

They should definitely all buy my books.

Read them as long as they buy them.

I think it's important to have an eye. I mean, look, if you are a guy running a medium sized company that.

Maybe employs three people and your outreach is maybe a couple of hundred miles in either direction from where you're based or something like that, I don't think.

Those kind of people should be told.

You'Ve got to think about the future. You know, I don't think that's realistic. You know, God, those poor guys, I mean they're at the stage of their business at that point is just taking off. It's, they got, they got enough to worry about.

But I think if you're running, you know, if you're being paid insane amounts.

Of money plus stock options to run Google, Microsoft, Apple or whatever. Yeah. At that level you must accept that you're a global player now. You know, I mean, I can't remember what Apple's war chest is, but it's the, you know, it's the budget of a medium sized country that they've got in cash somewhere.

So if you're running Apple, you have to accept you're a global player.

You have no choice in that matter.

And I think you need that. With that needs to come a certain amount of humility. And I think there's a lot of fake humility on display but I don't know how deep that actually goes. And I think there needs to be far more thinking about how do we.

Get our Society to cohere. How do we form the necessary building blocks that will allow society to stabilize where people won't feel that it's hand to mouth. I might be unemployed in three months time, I can't afford my rent because.

Only then are you going to be able to progress. Because people under those levels of stress don't produce good work. They don't. You know, you need oases of innovation, you need universities where people are paid to think, you know, and the access and the acceptance.

Because again, this is something that capital systems often, or, you know, capital capitalist thinkers often miss. You need a pool of thinkers in.

Which probably, you know, good 30, 40% of what's the thinking that's being done will end up useless. Yeah, you won't make any money. You won't make any money from that. It's the. Again, one of the things you see.

In my business, you know, the entertainment.

Industry is once upon a time the, you know, movie studios had this attitude of, you put out a certain number of movies, probably, you know, as many as 70% of them will actually lose money, but it won't matter because the 30% that you make will make it big. And that money then flows back into your, into your.

That's the same thing still in the venture capital scene, you know, one in 20 will succeed and 90 will fail.

Yeah, exactly. And I think there has to be an understanding of that. And you have to. When we look, for example, at our.

Universities and our research unit, we've got.

To see them in that mode rather than this idea of, yeah, well, we're not making much money here, are we? You know, it's got to be, there's got to be more vision than that. There's got to be an understanding. You know, I don't know if you've.

Been watching this show on Apple for all mankind.

No, I haven't. It's a bit, I'm not a huge.

Fan of it because it's very didactic and a bit schlocky.

But it's an interesting thing. The premise is that the Russians get.

To the moon first in 1968 or.

Whatever, and as a result of that.

There'S a huge panic in America.

And so they drive the space program forward at high speed to compete and they have to start modernizing. So for example, the Russians send up female cosmonauts. So then they're like, oh, we've got.

To find some female astronauts.

And so that competition drives a dynamic.

America that then goes into space all full speed ahead because it has to compete with the Russians.

We need that kind of dynamism, you know, at a state level as well as at a.

At a. At a corporal level.

But unfortunately, it seems that the only thing that allows it that to us.

Is an enemy, you know, as soon.

As we're competing, common enemy, which is. Which is a bit frustrating because that's where we get into the troubles again, because warfare brings money and brings innovation. There should be different ways about that. But, yeah, look, Richard, I think this is absolutely fascinating conversation, and I think we can talk a lot longer of all this topic, but we're having reached the end of our show. One final question that I want to ask you is what are you working on at the moment? What kind of book are you working on? And what kind of new stories can we expect?

I was working on a sequel to.

Thin Air, the last book.

But I had this moment of clarity.

About a year ago where I suddenly realized, despite the months and months that I put into it, I had no real clue what I was writing.

And that sounds a bit strange if.

You'Re not a writer.

I think the first book, Thin Air.

I had a very clear target in my mind. I was critiquing this. This, like I said, the shiny tech bro dream of. Of colonizing Mars.

Second book. It's the same context, it's the same protagonist. And I thought, you know, I was writing it, and I get to got to sort of, you know, 17 chapters in. And I'm like, yeah, but what is this actually about?

What am I trying to say here?

And I had no clue, so. So I stopped dead. And I'd got this other thing going on in the back of my head.

Like almost a dream image that I had that I went off and explored.

And this is something slightly more fantastical.

It's not identifiably futurist, but what it.

Is, I think, is it's something that's interested in the stuff we've been discussing.

What happens when a culture loses faith in itself, when it's unable to make sense of the universe and to make sense of its purpose in the universe.

And I'm going back to examine a.

Previous era of history, in fact, albeit in a. It's a.

Like I said, it's a fantastic.

It's a fantasy. It's a fantastical thing. It's not. It's not. It's not a historical novel or anything.

But it's drawing on this previous point at which society sort of felt that.

It had failed, felt that all the old certainties had died and, oh, shit, what do we do now?

And it's examining that and looking at why the answer is not to just.

Dive into atavism and, you know, the, the crazy dark stuff that, that animates us at a gut level, because I.

Think that's what's happening at the moment.

I think we've.

We've abandoned our belief in things like.

The Declaration of Human Rights and the.

Rule of law and democracy, and in its place, we seem to be just putting, you know, that makes us feel.

Good at a basic visceral level and hence Trump and hence Islamic fundamentalism and, And. And hence the.

The sort of.

Of. Of influencers like Andrew Tate.

And, you know, this. It's all visceral. It all goes. It all short circuits the brain and goes straight and.

And all dopamine hits all. All to.

Yeah, yeah. And the story, the. So the novel, although the novel is.

Cloaked in historical clothing, as it were.

What it's really about is that it's.

The failure of Siddall's design and restraint in the face of catastrophe. And what happens if you give in to the atavism.

Seems like a must read for everyone.

Oh, I hope so. I hope so.

Well, Richard, thank you very much for your conversation and fascinating talk, and I think there's a lot that we can take away from this, a lot to ponder about of how we want to build our society in the next hundreds or whatsoever years. So thank you very much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Yeah, likewise. Likewise.

Really enjoyed it. Mark, thanks for talking to me.

Cheers.

What an insightful journey into the future we've experienced with Richard Morgan. Thank you for joining us on Synthetic Minds for an enlightening conversation with Richard Morgan. His profound reflections have illuminated the nuanced interplay between human nature and technological evolution, providing us with a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. I encourage you to check out his books and be inspired and entertained as we continue to navigate the shifting boundaries of science fiction and reality. Let Richard's insights inspire us to think critically and act wisely in shaping a future where technology amplifies our humanity. And remember to subscribe for more illuminating discussions at the crossroads of science fiction and science reality. Until next time, embrace the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and courage.