MALE SPEAKER: I'll read
a quick bio about Daniel.
He's the author of The New
York Times bestseller "Demon,"
as well as "Freedom," "Kill
Decision," and his newest
book, "Influx."
Former systems analyst to
Fortune 1000 companies,
Daniel has designed
and developed
software for the
defense, finance,
and entertainment industries.
He is a past speaker at
TEDGlobal, MIT Media Lab, NASA
Ames, The Long Now
Foundation, Microsoft, Amazon,
and he was at South By
Southwest earlier this week.
He lives in L.A.
Welcome, Daniel.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Thank you.
It's always good
to visit Google.
Always love this.
Yeah, so the new book.
What I'll do before we start
is just briefly describe
the new book.
I don't know how many of you
have had a chance to read it.
This book, "Influx,"
is a bit more sci-fi
than my previous books.
For those familiar
with my work, I
tend to do tech
thrillers that are just
over the horizon,
very near-term.
And in this
particular book I was
trying to capture something
that was, to me, a larger trend,
and I wanted to write it
on a really epic stage.
So I was using more
sci-fi elements--
anti-gravity fusion,
artificial intelligence,
immortality-- my god.
Yeah, a whole bunch of things.
So "Influx" is the story of a
very talented, young physicist
who conceives of
a gravity mirror.
A technology that can reflect
gravity in various directions.
And rather than
get a Nobel Prize,
he's grabbed by a
secretive group that
is trying to prevent disruptive
technologies from rapidly
altering society.
They're fearful of the
social ramifications of it.
That's really what I was
trying to get out in the story,
was this impulse to preserve
the status quo that humans have.
And we've seen shades of it.
If we go back through
history, we see in the 1600s
the efforts by the
Church at the time
to stop the spread of
the printing press.
Or the telescope, for instance,
would be a good example.
But we can fast
forward to today.
We were just talking
about Tesla and efforts
to stop that car company from
doing business in various areas
without franchise operations.
Also let's see, the Time--
the Comcast Time Warner deal.
That's another example
of preserving status quo.
So a little less violent
than the third Inquisition,
but similar impulse.
So that's really why
I wrote this book,
was to study that particular
impulse of human nature,
and to do it in a
very exciting story.
That was the goal.
So here I am.
MALE SPEAKER: Nice.
Thanks a lot for coming.
So can you talk a little
bit about the difference
about writing a book that's sort
of about near-term technology
versus something more sci-fi?
Some of the differences from
your experience of writing it?
DANIEL SUAREZ: Sure.
What I would do is typically
when I'm writing a book,
I will do an immense
amount of research
on the topic I'm interested in.
And for those who remember
"Kill Decision," my last book
on drones, for instance,
autonomous drones.
I read lots of books on
swarming intelligence.
I examined lots of
technologies for how
to get drones to work
together, all of that stuff.
And that's very realistic stuff.
For this book, the
elephant in the room for me
was anti-gravity.
In other words, I foolishly
created this brand
where I have very, very
authentic technologies
in my book, and then I set about
writing an anti-gravity story.
That makes it tough.
And so I did a lot of research
on theoretical physics.
And then I finally sat
down with some physicists
and tried to pester them
into finding some gray area
in knowledge of
gravitation, where
I could put this
technology for my story.
Basically, I sat
down with two people,
one in particular--
what I wanted to do
was to make it so that
a physicist, or somebody
who is at least
knowledgeable about science,
could read this
book and enjoy it.
That they could see that it
is often a theoretical area
we're not sure of just yet.
And generally the
way I did this was,
I would keep on
making suggestions
by talking with this
physicist friend at JPL,
and whenever he'd say,
that's highly improbable,
I would say, ah, but
there's a chance.
And then we would go from there.
So I absolved him
of all my crimes
against physics in
the acknowledgements,
just so that he's not
embarrassed to go to work.
It's like, I had
nothing to do with that.
But that's, for instance,
how I would try to do that.
I really try to go that
extra mile, so that
even if you have a
pretty good grasp of how
the world, the
universe, functions,
how gravitation functions,
that you can go with it.
Now some folks have
brought up to me
that the beginning
of the book, there's
parts that are a little
dense on the science.
It's like a little
fence around the story
that once you step into it,
it's much more accessible,
but I wanted to get that
out of the way early on.
I wanted to establish
to my bonafides
that I had done this research,
that the story is grounded
to the degree that
it can be in reality.
So that when we then go off into
the more fantastical elements,
you feel that you're
in capable hands.
So, that would be one example.
And artificial intelligence,
same process essentially.
I bother experts
until I finally find
an area where I can hide where
I'm going to begin my story.
MALE SPEAKER: Sure.
Now some of the
technologies that
are in "Influx" like quantum
computing, and nanotechnology.
Those are a little
bit closer to-- like,
there's no gravity
mirrors out there
being created,
probably, right now.
But there are people working
on quantum computing,
and nanotech, and,
to some extent,
different types of biologies.
So I guess for any of those,
how did you think about those,
and how did you research those,
which were sort of closer
to where we are now?
DANIEL SUAREZ: Well
those to me, again,
the antagonists of
the story, the BTC,
the Bureau of
Technology Control,
has supposedly been
around since the '60s.
So, whereas we'd
say, well, we're
working on quantum
computers now, they'd say,
well, we are doing
that in the '70s.
It's kind of the ongoing joke
that cancer had been cured back
in '85, so these guys
are sort of looking back
at a past we didn't live.
And that's the dramatic, or
the sci-fi, conceit of it.
So researching that, a
lot of what I was doing
was using things that
we're experiencing now
as if they're in the ancient,
well, the distant, past
for these folks.
For instance, the fusion
parts, the tokamak designs,
the magnetic containment
vessels, all of that stuff.
We're still working on that
with ITER, very similar design,
we just simply make it so that
they have solved those problems
and then shrunk them down by
several orders of magnitude.
But also part of that
research involved
going up to the National
Ignition Facility
and touring that.
And I don't know if
anybody's ever gone to that?
Man, amazing.
First of all, it looks
like Doctor No's layer.
It just does.
You go around-- complete with
the guys with the overalls,
and the hard hats,
and all they're
missing are little machine guns,
and they look like the drones.
But really amazing facility, and
I'll describe it very briefly.
National Ignition Facility
is a very different fusion
experiment that is being done at
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
It's 192 of the most
powerful lasers ever created,
all focused onto a
little pea-sized target.
Now bear in mind, each
one of these lasers
is the biggest ever built.
So they built one, and then
they said, let's build 191 more.
And they focused them
all on this spot.
And for that, about a
billionth of a second,
they would use the equivalent
of all of the electricity being
used, at that moment,
in the United States,
focus it right on this target.
To achieve, the goal is, fusion
for a billionth of a second.
And they want to do that ten
times a second, like an engine.
To create, not a sustainable
fusion reaction, but one
that burst produces more energy
briefly than is put into it,
and that energy is fed
back into the lasers,
and then it just keeps
on running a turbine.
They just, about a month ago,
got more energy out of it
than they put into it.
So that was a real
watershed moment.
It made the news briefly.
I think it might have
been a little too
complex for a lot of people to
notice the importance of it,
but I was like, yeah, all right.
And people were
looking at me strange.
It's like, that is
really big to be
able to run the city
of San Francisco
on two gallons of
sea water for a year.
That would be a big deal.
Now, pointedly for
this story, what
I found so interesting
in that is the goal--
they have patents
on all of this--
but the goal is that they want
to make these patents freely
available to the world, to
mankind, to solve our energy
problem once and for all.
And this is really
the exact opposite
of what the BTC would be doing.
So I was very,
very, well, proud,
as a taxpayer to say that was
the goal of that facility.
To say, if we solve the energy
problem once and for all,
for all of history, we're going
to give it to mankind for free.
So it's an amazing
facility, if you ever
get a chance to go
see it, go see it.
It's really cool.
MALE SPEAKER:
Sounds really cool.
So if there is no
real BTC out there
that's trying to block
good technologies, what
do you think could be slowing
down the pace of innovation,
or not, I guess, making
really hard problems
take so long to solve?
DANIEL SUAREZ: Yeah.
Well just to be clear, I'm not
one of the tin foil hat people.
I don't believe there
is a BTC out there
trying to stop technology,
and hiding immortality
and all of these other things.
That was really a
metaphor for that impulse.
If, for instance, I
described it in this story
as I think it's
happening, which is
a lot of boring meetings
in boardrooms where people
are trying to protect
vested interests,
economic investments.
That's not a very exciting book.
So I wanted to make
it a bit more sci-fi.
But, I think a lot
of the time it is.
It's preservation
and this is, I think,
a completely natural impulse.
When there is a substantial
investment in an existing
market, I think there's a lot
of reluctance to disrupt it.
And I think this has been going
on throughout history, not just
economic, but also
political power,
preserving the status quo
is a very strong impulse.
But I don't know.
I would say that change,
as disruptive as it
is, the ability to ride
change, and to adapt to it,
is the only thing that's
going to sustain civilization.
We've seen this-- the efforts to
preserve our fossil-based fuel
systems are, in many
ways, killing us.
Now we have to make
that change, it's
going to be a very
disruptive change.
How many industries are going
to disappear and change?
How many careers are
going to go away?
How many various
classes of society
are going to see
that disruption?
But that-- I think
embracing that is really
the only course
for the human race.
And it seems obvious, but
then when you go do it,
that's when the problem happens.
And that's the reason why I
think we have this inertia,
all of this invested
energy and science
into what we were doing.
And sometimes it's very
difficult to unplug that.
I'll give you a great example.
Again, up at the National
Ignition Facility,
after you see this terrific
tour and you feel very confident
about it, they sit you
down and they say, now,
let's say it works
perfectly right now.
Let's say we can have
fusion right this second.
They proceed to show you how
it will be immensely difficult
in the next 25 to 30 years to
roll that out around the world,
to change the existing system,
even if it were available
right now.
And what that means to
all the particulate matter
in the atmosphere now.
So pretty much it
is already going
to be a tremendous challenge.
So, again, embracing change
at a very basic level.
How we get energy is number
one, and we're having difficulty
doing that even in the
face of tremendous evidence
we should be.
So that's how I think
it manifests itself, is
a bit of fear, and then also an
immense practicality that has
been probably evolved into us
over many millions of years.
That once you have
a good thing, try
to keep it going as
long as possible.
And in a world where technology
can rapidly change the world,
we almost have to rewire
ourselves to embrace change
a bit more.
MALE SPEAKER: Sure.
Cool.
Now, you began writing "Influx"
before all the Snowden stuff
came out.
And obviously the topic of
surveillance and privacy
has gotten pretty big over
the last couple of years.
I'm curious to hear your
thoughts on that and how
it might apply to
Google as well.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Sure.
I go to DEF CON and
Black Hat a lot,
and I think for a lot
of IT security people,
the revelations about the
NSA were not such a surprise.
I think that a lot of data
exists out there-- well,
let's face it, a lot of
the products being used,
a lot of the way
consumer information
moves through society, that's
really the, not the profit
incentive, but that's the
economic model, increasingly.
And I think that to the
extent that we're all
carrying these devices
we love, we sort of
have a love-hate
relationship with them.
Man, I love my smartphone.
At the same time I'm conflicted
about the fact how many times
I'll be hovering over
this EULA agreement going,
ugh, they need that, really?
Ugh, really?
And I really sit down
and think, how far am I
willing to agree to this?
And I think we've reached the
point that now as a society,
we sort of have to establish
what that baseline is.
Again, these technologies
have rolled out
so quickly that society didn't
really get a chance to decide.
Instead these applications
and the networks
arose, people find
tremendous utility with them,
and now we as a
society have to come
to an agreement about
what that baseline is.
I think that there's no
doubt that we like them.
I think everybody wants to
have a more informed decision
about how they could use
them, and I will fess up
that I read very few
EULAs all the way through.
Wasn't there an end-user
license agreement--
I can't remember the company,
they had an award of, I think,
$5,000?
Like, if you get all the
way down to paragraph 95
and you read this, it's
like, just email here
and we'll give you $5,000,
the first person who--
and one person claimed it.
Nobody reads EULAs,
but they're essentially
these social contracts.
And that's why I'm saying
if we read one, basically,
as something that we establish
as a civilization what we're
willing to put up with, and
then I think a lot of it
can follow that.
But I don't know.
Privacy-- when you design a
network that is inherently
sharing information, all
that rich information,
it doesn't surprise
me when people use it.
Has anyone here seen the MIT's
Reality Mining application?
Nobody?
Anybody?
This is a research
project that was
done for about
1,000 cell phones.
And what they would do is
they would get respondents
to agree to have their
geolocation tracked
over the course of about,
I think, two months.
And from that, they were
able to quickly build
an algorithm that could predict
what every single person was
going to do next, like 93.4%
percent chance, analyzing just
a month of geolocation data--
where people were going to go,
what they were going to do next,
with 93.4% percent accuracy.
And that kind of
shows the power of it.
So there's a tremendous
incentive to use it.
Drag it all into the light
and have everybody discuss it,
and as a society decide where
we're comfortable putting it.
In the past, technologies
like the camera
have freaked people out, and
it takes decades for society
to catch up with it.
And this amazed me.
I think the book was called-- I
can't remember the name of it.
Tim Wu, I think his
name-- the book was?
But it was talking about how
when the portable camera first
came out, people were outraged.
The idea that you could get
your photo taken in the street.
It's a tremendous
privacy violation
and there were angry
editorials, and it
took 20 or 30 years for
people start to realize,
oh, well, OK, we
can manage this.
So I think it'll follow
very much like that.
There will be litigation,
there will be debate,
there will be op-eds,
and legislation,
and eventually
we'll settle down,
and we will have these
20, 30, 50 years from now.
MALE SPEAKER: Makes sense.
Now Google is working on
a lot of new technologies,
a lot of things that
are, sort of a little far
out, and some near
more near-term,
some that have come out already,
that are probably pushing,
a little bit, what
society is OK with,
and definitely
changing behavior.
There's a number of them
we could talk about.
I'm curious which
of those-- which
of the projects that
we're working on here
are you excited about,
are you cautious about?
DANIEL SUAREZ: Sure.
Wow.
I'll try to be very
politic as I say this
but-- automated cars
I think are cool.
Those were in "Demon."
Not the same way,
they don't kill people
when you guys make them.
But there was a really
magical moment when
I was up in Mountain View and
they put me in the automated
car, I was driving
down the highway.
That was pretty freaky because
I'd received a lot of emails
from people saying,
well, that's really
cool in your book
and all, but that's
30 or 40 or 50 years from now.
And I was like, yeah, selfie.
But that's very cool.
I think-- also, I
spent many years
working in logistics software.
I could immediately see
the utility of that.
I think automated vehicles,
in terms of logistics,
it's just a no brainer.
It's going to be
tremendously useful.
And then the idea of having cars
that are part time autonomous
and part times not.
When you get down into
a city core, having cars
communicate with each other.
It's like, you want to get
here, we'll work it out.
We'll do the every other
merge, you guys screw it up.
And that will make things
more-- it'll probably
be cars that are algorithmically
written up to be jerks, right?
They'll cut in.
That's right, it'll be a
particular brand of car.
But, no.
Basically, that is
interesting to me.
We see things
like-- Google Glass,
I think is a perfect example of
it making people uncomfortable.
And again, I think
that bright line
will be written by how
people react to it.
And we see that already, you
occasionally see news items
where people get
very angry about it.
That is exactly
that type of debate.
What will happen is it'll
move back and forth, maybe
the camera goes off,
maybe it stays on,
maybe it looks a different data
as opposed to just visual data,
but that technology
interests me tremendously.
Because of course I had the
heads-up glasses in "Demon."
It was for a different purpose.
It was to disrupt
all of civilization.
I don't think that's the purpose
of what you guys do, clearly,
but I think Google
Glass interests me.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
DANIEL SUAREZ: Yeah, I
know, I really wanted
to hear a, well, hell no, man.
But that interests
me, again, I could
see it being tremendously useful
because it frees the hands.
Just that there's that component
that people will weigh in on I
think, over the next few years.
MALE SPEAKER: Exactly.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Oh,
also, one more thing.
Google Earth Street View, just
hands down the best writer
research tool ever.
I mean it just is.
I spend so much
time-- it's like if I
want to travel to
someplace, even if I'm
going to go to a foreign
location to do research,
I can find out precisely
where I want to go using it.
I discovered a certain location
at the end of this book
using Google Earth, which was
a very improbable location,
and yet I can get all
of this-- so yeah.
So whoever here who
works on that, thank you.
MALE SPEAKER: Nice.
Thank you, no, the Google
Earth and Maps are awesome.
In terms of "Influx," do you
have any lessons or themes
that you hope readers
will take out of it?
DANIEL SUAREZ: Well, yeah.
Again, this is probably not the
audience I need to say it to.
You guys would tell me this,
and that is embracing change.
Constant incremental
change to me--
the idea of creating a society
that naturally embraces
that and doesn't
constantly tried to set up
the perfect order,
because there's
no such thing as
the perfect system.
And in the same way that
nature doesn't just say, well,
that deer is perfect, we're done
with deer now, deer are solved.
And I think that having
an inherently open society
naturally leads to this.
It's, again, when I look at
societies like North Korea,
for instance, I think even
North Korean government
said that they have
perfected society,
so they were like,
done with that.
And that's a very
worrisome thing
because again, everybody
debating, arguing,
freely exchanging ideas, even
if they don't agree, especially
if they don't agree, that to
me is a vibrant civilization.
One where people
say what they think,
try things, try new
things and make mistakes.
There was a sociological study--
there was a sociologist who
got a bunch of people
together to solve a problem,
and what he was looking
at was group dynamics.
And the problem
with this, they had
a pile of straws
and a couple clips,
and the goal was
to try to see how
quickly a small group of people
could stack these the highest,
make the tallest sculpture.
And they had MBAs, and
they had military people,
and they had physicians, and
all these people try to do it.
And the winner, hands
down, was five-year-olds,
because they weren't
afraid to fail.
They would just immediately
try a whole bunch of stuff,
rather than trying to
reason it out like, well,
if we do-- they
would you just do it.
And try it and fail, and
fail, and every time they
failed they would learn a bit,
and they time and time again
would win.
So that's the sort
of civilization
I'd love to be part of,
sort of a bunch of people
trying and failing--
five-year-old, basically.
That came out poorly
but, you know.
MALE SPEAKER: Well we like to
be like five-year-olds here too.
I guess to wrap up my
questions before we open up
to the audience, can you
give us a bit of background,
in terms of how you got
into science fiction writing
from your tech
consulting background?
And then also, where you
see yourself going next?
DANIEL SUAREZ: Sure.
OK.
I was a systems
consultant for many years.
I worked with big
companies to solve
complex logistical problems,
particularly the last seven
years I was working
in that career.
And that involved really
trying to wring out
a lot of efficiency and
distribution networks.
And, I don't know,
there's something--
I had been reading a
lot of tech thrillers
that kind of upset me
because the technology
sucked in them, you know?
I'd read it and I was
like, that's not possible.
And then I was also
trying to figure out a way
to get across to other
people that I knew,
some of the concerns I had
about the way things were being
designed, sort of how
we were getting rid
of resiliency, squeezing
every ounce of fat
out of our systems, whether
they be transportation, energy,
whatever it is, power.
And then it just
hit me that I'd like
to write a thriller about
it, because a white paper,
nobody's going to read that.
I actually was thinking
of writing an article
and sending it in to
some software magazine.
But I wound up writing a
thriller, which was "Demon,"
and I couldn't get a
publisher, an agent, for it,
so then I self published it.
And then it just
really succeeded,
beyond my wildest imagination.
And from that point on, it
really made sense for me
to continue writing
about-- first of all,
I found it to be a lot
of fun, very rewarding.
Also, even though I wrote the
first book under a pen name,
Leinad Zeraus, which
is my name backwards.
I did that-- and it was
very weak encryption.
But the other thing is
that gamers-- this I though
was fascinating-- gamers
would look at that and say,
Daniel Suarez.
And it occurred
to me, the reason
is, I don't know how many
people here have joined a system
and seen your name is taken, so
they just reverse the letters.
And so a lot of gamers
would look at my name
and immediately recognize it.
But when I finally
sort of came out,
and it turns out that
I was this guy who
was working for
these big companies,
and I wrote this hacking
book about tearing apart
big companies, I was thinking,
oh, this is going to be ugly.
But it turns out a
lot of those people
said, hey, I'm
writing a novel too.
So I'm still friends
with all of them
and it worked out very well.
So I got to keep a lot of the
people that I knew as friends
and started writing more and
more books, a little further
afield from software.
Of course, "Kill Decision" was
all about robotics and drones.
And I've always loved
technology, always
loved computers.
But I don't have a
computer science degree,
I have an English
literature degree.
So I think I always
took a very, I
don't want to say holistic
approach, to technology,
but a lot of what I would
do, particularly when I
was doing code reviews
for big companies,
is I would spend a great deal
of time talking to the people
to understand how the
software got written.
Not just what was in every
module, what the source
code was, but under
what conditions,
what psychological environment--
or social environment's
probably better.
And I had a great deal of
success doing things like that,
finding problems, as a result
of talking to the people and how
they related to each other,
not necessarily code.
So I sort of bring an English
major sensibility to tech,
and so I think that I'm
continuing that with my books.
I love talking to people,
researchers, about
new technologies they're
working on and then connecting
these various components.
A lot of my books, for instance,
I combine existing technologies
in new ways, in ways people
might not have thought of.
And that's, I think,
why I love it so much.
I will continue doing that.
I love writing books.
And I'm no doubt
going to continue
writing tech thrillers.
Sci-fi thriller, like I
said, I put these generally
in the same category.
I'm just using a
slightly different tool
from the shelf to achieve
a lot of the same ends.
It's been said that
sci-fi in general
is never about the future,
it's always about the present.
And so in that
sense I don't think
it's a big stretch
to do a bit of sci-fi
and then some tech thrillers.
MALE SPEAKER: Sounds great.
We're excited to see the
next stuff you work on.
DANIEL SUAREZ: So am I.
AUDIENCE: I have a question
about Malaysia Air.
And I think one of the things
that people find so frustrating
about the story is that
because we're so now used
to this technology being able
to solve anything instantly,
and you can see everything all
the time and know everything,
and everybody on that plane has
a smartphone in their pocket.
And yet, it's gone.
And it's a week now and
it's still a mystery.
I was wondering if you might
talk about that, sort of in why
I think it's befuddling
people so much
and bringing up a lot
of conspiracy theories.
And I think a big part
of that is related to,
we can't believe in this
age that this can happen.
DANIEL SUAREZ: This is a
great question actually.
It really is because
I obviously have
been-- for future audiences who
look at this, around the time
that this is taped, a Malaysian
airliner has disappeared.
And with all hands, it doesn't
look like it's crashed,
because of the
Rolls Royce engines
had some sensors in them, that
every 30 minutes would report
via satellite that
they were up to stuff,
aside from being on the
bottom of the ocean.
So I think what this does
is brings up a great point.
People think of technology
as this monolithic solution
that just deals with
things, when really they're
these tiny little data
points, or connections, how
it connects to the
rest of society.
I think a lot of us
might have been surprised
at how could an entire
airliner not be on radar screen
at all time.
But they aren't, apparently,
aside from military radars,
which are very closely held
in secret, both their sweep
and the extent of the
stations they have.
Civilian radar, a lot
of it is augmented
by transponders on machines.
So here, if it has in fact
been stolen and spirited away
to some other location,
as opposed to crashing,
there was a
knowledgeable person.
A person knowledgeable
about these systems and just
the few connection
points that connected it
to the rest of society,
which is the transponders
get turned off.
There was, I think,
also a mapping module
that gets turned
off for navigation.
They, of course, if
they have satellites
in a cell phone on board they
can turn off that transceiver
so they're not making
satellite connections.
And then from there, they can
change-- now my understanding
was that the belief is that
they went down another air
corridor that's pretty heavily
traveled that would go either
to the Middle East or Europe.
And so they blended
in with traffic.
Anybody looking
at a plane is just
going to think it's
a plane and assume
that all of their
transponders would be on.
It is amazing that in
2014 you could basically
disappear with an entire
plane filled with people.
But I'll bet that
as a result of what
happens-- because we
haven't seen the other shoe
drop on this.
Because was it stolen?
What happened to
the people on it?
And if so, what is going
to be done with it?
Is it going to be
rebranded, repainted,
and used for some
terrible purpose?
Or is this just a
mistake, did it crash?
The process by which we
track planes, I think,
is going to change as a result.
It definitely is
because the fact
that everyone's looking for
it and it just disappeared.
You know?
That's shocking.
And it shocks me.
And again, every time these
types of things happen,
I bookmark a lot of stuff
and I research stuff.
And whenever one of
these things happen--
and not to make a light
of it-- but whenever
there is some calamity,
my inbox fills up.
Somebody revives a
60,000 year-old virus,
and man, you have to have
this as your next book.
You've got to do it, here.
It's like sometimes it's
too low hanging fruit.
It's a little obvious.
But in the case of
technology gone awry,
I do take a great
interest in it.
That's why I was very excited
when you asked the question
because how tenuous the
thread is, what connects us
to the rest of society.
Particularly when
you're out-- that's
why I like the movie
"Cast Away," for instance.
You look at it, it's like, he
should be-- oh, that's right,
you can't-- because we really
have lanes across these vast
spaces.
And civilization really
kind of frays at the edge.
And I guess we'll find
out what happens to it.
Gee, dare I make a prediction?
I do think they will
find that plane.
I hope that the people
involved are still alive,
being kept somewhere, I hope.
But I think it's-- the best case
scenario is somebody was just
stealing a plane, that
seems very unlikely.
It seems very unlikely.
But it will probably find
it abandoned somewhere,
when they realize
that-- they figured out
that it didn't crash.
And probably months
from now, they'll
find it in some
hangar somewhere,
on the Andaman Islands,
in the Indian Ocean,
and hopefully the people are OK.
So I hope that
answered your question.
AUDIENCE: It's a good sign the
very first page a your book
is intriguing to me.
That says, "The future
is already here,
it's just not very
evenly distributed."
DANIEL SUAREZ: Yeah,
that's William Gibson.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: And I think when
you talk about people fearing
technology, there is the
sort of status quo fear,
but there's also
this fundamental fear
that technology will
drive us further apart
and be more polarizing.
And I wonder if
you could comment
on the future of
technology as a way
to bring people closer together.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Yeah, OK.
So the question being
that, is technology--
is that fear valid in any way,
that increasing technology will
bring us further apart as
opposed to connecting us?
I find the Amish to be very
interesting in this case,
because I never thought that
the Amish could use cell phones,
but apparently they can.
And talking to Kevin
Kelly-- Kevin Kelly's
this great expert
on the Amish, that's
why he's got the beard I guess,
but he-- when he was writing
about this, what amazed me-- and
"What Technology Wants," which
is a book he wrote,
it's a fascinating book,
highly recommend it.
He talks about how they
will ingest technology
into Amish society, and their
sole, very purposeful direction
there is to make sure
that it doesn't break up
their community.
That's it.
That's the sole overriding--
so they, for instance, they
will have, and this
part amazed me,
Amish maids running
CNC milling equipment,
I mean programming these--
because for work purposes,
they're allowed to use
computers, and robotic arms,
and all of this other
stuff-- Amish people,
with the cap and everything.
Then when they go home though,
they don't use it there.
So the idea is when
you're in a workplace,
you can use very
different technology sets
than when you're at home.
And so, for using a cell
phone they would have,
some distance away, on the
edge of their property,
a box holding their
cell phones because you
don't want that phone--
you want to make it
so that you absolutely
need to use it.
And so, otherwise, if
you're not needful of having
to have a long
distance conversation,
you'll talk to the
people around you.
So that was their focus.
And a lot of that
makes sense, really.
I think when we sit around
in places where everybody's
on their cell phone, I
think we'll get through
that type of-- I
don't want to say
dysfunction-- but
alienation, in a few years.
I think, again, we'll come
to some social contract,
some agreement-- and we
see this now already,
where it's OK to
use a cell phone,
where people frown on it.
I don't know how many of you
have gone to a dinner where
everybody piles the phone up,
and the first person to use it
has to buy a round of drinks.
That's a perfect example,
it's like penalty system
for misusing technology
in the social context.
But we'll still have them.
And I do think they
bring us closer together.
There's people that
I would not have
talked to, people I
went to high school,
that I'm now still very close
with because of technology.
The depth of that relationship,
and how deep we get,
sure, you could make an argument
that having 20,000 social media
friends is not friends, so
let's choose a different word.
But I still think that we're
more connected and more
social than if we didn't
have these technologies.
I will say though, that
there is an aspect of it
where-- how to put this?
We have to be mindful of what
the purpose is of the system.
In other words, if the system
is to drive advertising or do
something else, everybody just
needs to be aware of that.
In other words, what
you actually see,
what is put before
you as important,
I think there needs to
be some clarity there.
Because, if in any way
there are algorithms
weighing in that somehow
modify your social circle,
that is keenly
interesting to me.
Because to the extent that
we control our social circle,
and see the things that
we-- we direct what we see.
I think it's very
interesting, very positive.
It's where you have the power
of software enabling things
to happen invisibly.
Again, I'm one of those people
who always, always wants
to basically tear the black
box open and take a look at it.
Now that's not always possible
in modern society, obviously,
but that's my impulse.
I tend to think of the
social-- how would I put it?
Well, these networks
are becoming society,
and to that degree it's
sort of civic concern.
So I like to understand
the inner workings of it.
Again, for the same reason,
I don't want my phone
doing a bunch of things
I didn't ask it to do
or didn't agree to.
If I have any concerns,
that's where they lie.
But I do think technology,
by and large, makes society
function much more smoothly.
And can put people in
touch with each other
who never would meet.
And there are literally hundreds
of examples of that for myself.
I have been connected with
so many readers by email,
and then later social media,
and then, just right now,
in South By Southwest, I
met a great many readers,
who turned out to
be very cool people,
that I don't think I
would've as easily met
it wasn't for this technology.
So it's hard to say that
that's not a social boon.
MALE SPEAKER: I think
you're [INAUDIBLE] over.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Hello.
AUDIENCE: So would you
agree that technology begets
technology, so computers
enable better computers,
and the internet helps us
build a better internet?
Do you think we're accelerating
and then do you ever think
about an end-game, where
suddenly like-- [POP] we just--
DANIEL SUAREZ:
Singularity city, right.
I think about that, more
or less all the time,
because that's
kind of my job now.
It can be unhealthy.
It's like, what's your job?
Well, I think about how the
world's going to end, mostly.
No.
And by the way, I'm not a
doom and gloom guy at all,
just to preface this.
I am very optimistic about
where technology will bring us.
I like to think what I do is
sort of like spotting icebergs.
I might suggest some
course corrections,
but I'm still happy
I'm on the boat.
And I'll give you a
good example of-- yes,
I do think technologies,
they sort of catapult us
to different, higher
orbits in a way.
And to me an apt
example would be,
the cell phone was
around for many years,
and the computer was
around for many years,
and then somebody shrunk it
down into this handheld thing
called a smartphone and boom-- a
whole different thing happened.
Both of those
technologies existed,
but combining them together
in a mobile platform
changed everything.
I think we're going to see a lot
of that in coming years, which,
what's going to make--
robotics is a good example.
We will wrestle, as a society,
with automation and robotics.
I think a great many
good things will happen.
And I think the parable here is
that idea of the last company
to make buggy whips.
They made the best
damn buggy whips ever,
but eventually we didn't
need them anymore.
And yet, lot of
horses lost their jobs
and there was a big
shift, but I think
we will endeavor
to do other things.
So the hope is, that
is what happens,
that new industries are created.
Again, software jobs,
and they didn't exist.
So we're going to have upheaval
in the meantime, though.
I think some serious upheaval in
terms of job loss, dislocation.
And it's getting
through those that I
think are going to
be our challenge.
Not where we're going.
I think as a species,
as a society,
as a civilization, the more
technology we have, well,
we're going to need it.
We're going to
need it because we
have some very serious problems
in terms of climate change,
and that's just for
starters, but also
dealing with large
numbers of people
at a time of climate change.
That's going to be
a whole other thing,
rapidly shifting populations.
And then there's space.
That, to me, is the
logical thing to do next.
I think it's about time
that we got busy on that.
And there's plenty
of room out there,
so we're going to need every bit
of our technological know-how
to keep us alive out there.
Not only that, but
to build sustainable,
self-enclosed biospheres.
There are so many
challenges for us,
and technology will
make it all possible.
I'm very excited about it.
I think we will go in leaps.
We'll have these
pivotal inventions
that take us to the next level.
There will be disruption
centered around those leaps,
but getting to the
next level to me
is-- I guess it's like a game.
I'm a big game fan and
getting to the next level
is literally what we're
trying to do, time and time
and time again.
And as far as game over?
Sure, I guess the game
will be over eventually
but, I don't know,
not for a long time.
Hopefully a long,
long, long time.
MALE SPEAKER: One of you guys.
AUDIENCE: You said you were an
optimist and, you know I think
I'm optimistic by nature, but
I'm not sure it's-- sometimes
with technology, it
doesn't seem rational.
I mean, if you
think about maybe,
do you address the Bill
Joy, slash Kaczynski, slash
Kurzweil discussion
argument a little?
DANIEL SUAREZ: Yeah.
OK.
Is optimism rational when
it comes to technology?
Actually, it's a fair
point, it really is.
But I would say this, I look at
technologies like the blinding
laser.
This is an immensely
effective weapon.
It is insidious, it's cheap,
you can blind everybody
on a battlefield if you have
the proper swivelling head,
anybody who's looking
is blinded, for good.
And yet, they're not used.
There's a prohibition
against them.
Pretty much every country
says, no, let's not use these.
That to me right there
is a slice of optimism,
that there's
limit-- again, we've
had nuclear weapons
for half a century now,
we're still here, that's another
tremendous, tremendous argument
in our favor.
I think we're capable of
pulling back from the brinks.
There's things we'll do,
even in large numbers,
and things we won't do.
So it's that sociability
of mammals, I think.
This was one of
the reasons why I
was so concerned about
automation of warfare
with robotics, is
because if we take
these evolved prohibitions,
or limits, to violence
out of the system, and
instead we imbued robots
with a sort of an insectoid,
or a colony brain--
and again, you give it the
same brain as a species that's
not concerned about
self preservation
because it has to
queen that does that.
Again, the fact that I gave that
TED Talk and talked about it,
and a lot of people afterwards
were talking to me about it,
people in very
interesting positions.
That gives me optimism.
The fact that people can
hear these reasoned arguments
and say, well, that might
be good in the short-term,
but let's not do it.
I mean, we're still
here, our lifespans
are pretty much double from
what they were a century ago.
A lot of that's
technology and reason.
Yes, there's horrible
warfare, but on the whole,
warfare is going down.
It's hard not to be a bit
optimistic about that.
Now, again, that's
not-- what do they say,
past results don't
guarantee future results--
but I think that technology
is pretty much the best
thing we have going.
And really, what it is, is
it's a physical manifestation
of human will, it's reason.
It's reason personified.
That's what I like
about technology.
Because you can
see how it's used,
you can talk about how
it was constructed,
and then modify
it, and then we can
have that constant
iterative conversation.
That's to me with
technology represents.
Which is why I'm
optimistic about it.
But then, you're right,
there are occasional ones
that make you wonder
like, well, how
long are we going to be here?
But thankfully that's
not all the time.
Most of the time when I see
a new technology I think,
oh cool, they're doing that now.
I think medieval
farmers probably
didn't have as much
entertainment as far as
that goes.
It's like, wow, we're still
doing crops just like we did,
and my father.
We get a much more interesting
life cycle for technology.
AUDIENCE: So this is a little
bit of a two-part question.
Everybody else has
asked you a bunch
of really cool questions
about technology.
My question is more about
the writing side of things.
DANIEL SUAREZ: OK.
AUDIENCE: So I really
enjoy your books.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: A couple of my friends
just pestered me over and over,
you have to read "Demon,"
you have to read "Demon."
DANIEL SUAREZ: Thank
them for that, please.
AUDIENCE: And I picked
it up and it was great.
And I think your books-- they're
really good at sucking you in.
I've been a voracious
reader my entire life,
and the best books are
the ones where I sit down,
and I'm reading the book, and
the entire world is just not
interesting to me.
And when I'm not
reading the book,
I'm plotting how to
get back to reading
the book until I'm finished.
And so I think you
do a really good job
of structuring the
books and making them--
DANIEL SUAREZ: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: --readable
in that sense,
and I was wondering what your
process is for doing that.
Are you somebody who has
a really strong outline
before you start?
Or do you-- like, OK,
I've got an endpoint,
and I'm going to
sort of make it up
as I go along and
just naturally,
where the characters take
me and connect from here?
And the second
piece is, I've had
a lot of good luck over
the years discovering
new people through
existing authors.
So I now have-- you
know, Daniel Suarez
comes out with a new book,
I'm going to pick that up.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Cool.
AUDIENCE: Good.
But are there people
like that for you?
Who are you reading
who you think
is doing really interesting
things right now?
Because, hopefully, there's
somebody on that list
that I don't have on mine.
DANIEL SUAREZ: OK.
The first question
is a great question.
I like talking about
the craft of writing.
That effect that you talk about,
where your sensory perception
is overridden by fiction, I
call that casting the spell,
essentially, because I enjoy
it when it happens to me,
when I'm reading
a book and then I
forget that I'm a person
sitting in a chair.
I'm instead in some
medieval place or whatever.
That is really-- talk about
an amazing technology.
That somebody could
squiggle things
and that we could make that work
at all is just mind blowing.
It really is.
So I have great awe for that
rather old, amazing technology.
As far as how I go
about crafting a book,
I very definitely
use an outline.
And maybe that's the
software guy in me,
you're designing databases,
but thrillers in particular
are all about pacing.
I suppose I acquired
the skill set
to do this by reading a
bunch of thrillers and books.
But also, actually, I
think a big piece of it
was role playing games.
I used to be a DM,
second edition D&D.
And if you want honest
feedback, I must tell you,
having a group of teenage guys,
or college-level guys around,
you will get immediate,
very honest, feedback
about how things are going.
So that gives you a sense
of pacing, story pacing,
because it is very
much a knife's edge
when you're talking about a
suspense or thriller book.
If it's going too
easy, it gets boring.
If it's too hard,
it's frustrating.
And so what I simply
do is write a lot.
I'll typically write twice
as much as I need to,
and then I will let it
cool off for a while.
Now, again, I will do
most of the writing--
I'd say most of the writing
process is in the planning,
is in structuring.
I will typically start
with a three-act structure
with certain key
points, turning points--
first act, turning
point, second act,
turning point-- as a framework.
Now that still leaves a lot of
room for individual creativity,
but this tripartite
structure has
been very powerful--
archetypes, long,
long stories from many years
ago follow this structure,
and it seems to map pretty
well with the human brain.
Let's face it, just a
beginning, middle, end,
and right there that
just makes sense.
And to be cognizant of that
structure as you build it,
it's very key with me.
And then, basically,
I will write a lot
and then take a merciless,
just a machete, to it later.
That to me is the key thing,
being able to be honest with
yourself about what
works and what doesn't.
Having an internal
editor is so important,
because I find when I take
about half of my book away,
it's a lot better,
a lot tighter.
I don't know what process
others, other writers, use
but that is very definitely one.
So yeah, it involves
writing about 300,000 words
for 150,000 word book.
But the other thing
I would say is
when you're starting
out a book-- I'll
run into people who have a
great deal of difficulty getting
started on the book,
because they're focused,
like, how do I begin this?
And I just say just write it,
because that first chapter,
it's doomed.
Don't even think it's
going to be in the book.
Why have any stress
over something
that you're absolutely
going to delete later,
because you're going to hate it.
Because what's going to
happen is, you're going to go,
even if you have a
very careful structure,
you're going to go
write that whole book
and really, for me, that
first chapter so important.
Typically, it's best
informed by the rest
of the book that follows it.
So that when I'm
done with the book,
I'll go back to
the first chapter,
and find out all these seeds
and threads that I need to plant
and tie back in.
I'll typically go back and
weave threads, various subplots
and stories, throughout
the whole book,
and have them surface
at important points
to reinforce things,
themes, characters.
Yeah.
So you can see you
can wind me up.
I love talking the craft of
writing because, in many ways,
it is programming.
It's-- things have to
compile in the human brain.
It's like, ah,
that's not compiling.
And I guess character
names are variables,
but I'll finish it there.
Yeah, so that's
generally how I do it.
And the other one was, who
am I reading right now?
Or, what authors
do I really like?
I read a lot of
nonfiction, so I'm
going to try to focus
on some fiction writers.
I just read-- oh, god, "Name of
the Wind," "Name of the Wind,"
what is it?
Yes.
He has a cool name, I
remembered-- what is it again?
AUDIENCE: Patrick Rothfuss.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Patrick Rothfuss.
I enjoy that very much.
I think also I tend,
lately, to be reading
so many medieval fantasy
books because I've
read so many
thrillers that I keep
looking for the scaffolding.
All of the things that
I just described to you,
I'd be like, well, where
is the second act turning?
It's sort of like, knowing
that as a craft makes it tough
sometimes to read them.
Although I just Andy
Weir's book, "Martian."
Loved it.
Just absolutely loved it.
And what I loved in
particular about his book is,
he does not shrink
away from science.
For those who aren't
familiar with his book,
he basically has a guy find
himself stranded on Mars
as part of a team, and
using all of the science
and scientific knowledge
at his disposal to survive.
And I found it to
be very interesting.
And it's not like-- I don't
know how many people remember
"Robinson Crusoe"-- on Mars.
No, it's not that.
He does not run into a Friday
who's dropped-- no, it's
a much more realistic book
and I enjoyed it very much.
But again, I enjoyed it because
he did the heavy lifting.
He did a lot of research to
really back it up with science,
and then he wove a
story into it that
had a really compelling pace.
And it was constantly
raising the stakes.
That's another thing
with a thriller,
is you want to be
raising the stakes.
And it sounds kind of cheesy
when I say it like that,
but in effect, that's building
that action, involving us more,
having characters we care about.
That's another thing.
That's something
that, for instance, I
don't get a lot when I see some
movies, a lot of big action
movies.
Very often I'll be
finding myself saying,
why do I care about this person?
Because I'm told to.
That's not enough.
And when it's done right, and
you get your buttons pressed,
you don't mind getting
your buttons pressed.
But if you get sore about
it, it's not being done well.
So hopefully I answered
your two questions.
OK.
MALE SPEAKER: I think we
have time for one more.
AUDIENCE: So I
guess my question is
about the people's
social aspect.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Yes.
AUDIENCE: You gave the
example of the camera,
and over the course of
time, through back and forth
discussion and op-eds
and everything else,
people slowly
began to accept it.
But in this time
our social discourse
isn't nearly as polite.
And it's a lot more, I'm right,
you're wrong, and that's final,
and not this back
and forth discussion.
And I wonder what you think
that's going to play into,
this forward progress
of technology,
when people are saying,
I'm right, you're wrong--
DANIEL SUAREZ: Yes.
AUDIENCE: --that's it.
DANIEL SUAREZ: I feel better
about that for this reason.
I'm trying to remember
the election--
I think it was the election
of the 1880's and whoever
was running for
office then, it's
like one of these Taft
presidents, guys you barely
remember-- but his opponent at
the time, in the newspapers,
accused him of being a cannibal.
And I thought, wow, man,
talk about-- so apparently,
going back to the time of
Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson,
all these pamphlets
would just be out,
political in other
words, just the most
vile lies about people.
And when you take
a look at that past
and think about how we do
things now, it's almost genteel.
It's like, I really
don't agree with you.
I think you're a
terrible person,
not that you're a cannibal.
So I think that history
shows us that we really
haven't changed all that much.
And if we have, we
are mindful of how
we'll look when somebody
does a Google search on us.
You'll sound like
a raving lunatic
if you said somebody
was a cannibal.
But I don't think that
that, that, I don't know,
the cordiality of
it, is as necessary.
And maybe it's because I grew
up going through the New Jersey
public school
system, but I think
a vigorous debate,
let's call it,
is a huge corrective for us.
I think being
polite to each other
isn't as-- now, you
were also talking
about deliberate mistruths,
I imagine, right?
People digging in their
heels, and that old idea
that you're entitled to your
opinion but not your facts.
That, to me, is the
bigger challenge,
is muddying the waters
with fake facts.
And, boy, this is where I'll go
on a soapbox about education.
Public school education
in New Jersey, 1970s,
I got a tremendously
good education.
In particular, we have
formal logic, right?
To learn how to think
critically, this to me
is a big thing.
Again, I don't have kids, so,
sorry for those-- but as far
as education goes, I think that
should be one of the overriding
purposes, is to
learn how to think,
not necessarily rote memory
of all these thoughts.
And be able to separate the
wheat from the chaff using
your own brain to
look at the evidence.
That's the thing that I think
is missing in society right
now, generally.
And I think it makes people
susceptible to some highly
questionable opinions
about things,
very uninformed
opinions about things.
Because it shouldn't matter.
It shouldn't matter.
If you have the ability to
separate fact from fiction,
or at least give
it a good shot, you
should be able to chain
together causation and come
to a reasonable conclusion as
a member of a civil society.
And boy, that it sounds
very optimistic, I know.
But it's happened before.
And again, I think about
my education, again,
a public school education.
I was able to work
alongside people from all
around the world, my
clients, and my education
held up to anywhere.
And that always reassures me,
that it's absolutely possible,
we just try to instill that
in the next generation.
It's a big challenge,
I know, particularly
in a very politicized
environment.
But that would be it.
Teaching people how to think
critically and analyze evidence
will help us get
rid of-- at least
moderate the influence
of, basically, bullshit.
MALE SPEAKER:
Daniel told me he's
happy to stay for a little
bit, sign books for you guys,
but in the meantime, thank
you so much for coming--
DANIEL SUAREZ: Oh,
it was my pleasure.
MALE SPEAKER: --for the
thought-provoking lecture.
DANIEL SUAREZ: Thank you.
