9.2 Coding Ourselves Into a Future We Can’t Control ft. Akshay Chopra

What happens to “us” when we’re no longer the smartest beings on the planet?

In our brand new episode, technologist and global innovation leader Akshay Chopra discusses his debut novel After Us, exploring a world transformed by SUI, a self-aware, benevolent superintelligence that questions the very definition of life and humanity.

Tara and Akshay dive deep into the fascinating (and often terrifying) intersections of science and fiction, from the "Longevity Escape Velocity" that could grant us 400-year lifespans to why humans may never truly understand an AI’s motives, and how Akshay conceived SUI not as an invention, but as a fallible, evolving being.

The conversation goes on to explore why science fiction remains largely untapped in India, despite its wealth of technologists and storytellers, and how our fear of AI may stem from humanity’s own history of driving other species to extinction. Akshay also shares his journey of publishing his novel through Jaico and his shift from a "pretentious" writing style to a simplified narrative. By stripping away the jargon, he makes the looming reality of our future impossible to ignore.
If the AI takeover keeps you up at night, this episode is just for you!

Books, Movies, and TV shows mentioned in the episode:

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
2. Black Mirror (2011)
3. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
4. Her (2013)
5. Star Trek (2009)
6. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
7. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma
8. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
9. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam
10. A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
11. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
12. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
13. Interstellar (2014)
14. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

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This episode is part of our brand new series with Draco Publishing House. And like you, Dara, I also believe that, look, this is an infinite universe, yet we see life only on one tiny speck of dust, which is us. So I think AI might actually be what helps us break this barrier. I'm very much looking forward to meeting some aliens. Hi, everyone. If you're a fan of sci-fi or even curious about everything AI, then today's episode is tailor-made for you. But before we begin, take a second, hit that follow button on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram for updates. So I have with me Akshay Chopra. He is a global innovation leader. He's an inventor. And his work has been featured on CNN, CNBC. He has multiple patents. He has high-profile leadership board roles worldwide. But today we're here to talk about his debut sci-fi book, After Us. I honestly don't think we've covered much sci-fi in this podcast before. And I'm very excited because I love sci-fi as a reader. So the book, After Us, is set in a future which is transformed by this super artificial intelligence. And it's also transformed with gene editing. So these are very scientific concepts. But basically what happens is the book follows the emergence of a self-aware super intelligence named Sui. And she takes over the whole world. And she begins to question the very definition of life, consciousness, humanity. And what happens after she awakens. And what it means to be human in an age where technology is evolving faster than emotion. So this book covers many, many centuries, many, many concepts. But I was gripped. I couldn't stop reading it. Because I just love thinking about these futuristic ideas. And of course, you know, like every good sci-fi, behind all of the science and speculation is a human story. So welcome, Akshay. I'm excited to do this with you. Thank you, Tara. And thank you for that really good description. I feel like picking up the book and reading it again. So you nailed it. Thank you. Okay, so let's start. Before we go into your background, let's start with the book, right? So basically what happens in the beginning of the book is that there are these scientists and they're experimenting. And suddenly they give birth to this super intelligent entity. And she sends a message. And she says, hey, I'm sentient, right? Mind-blowing. And she sees herself as the next step in human evolution. So she says, you know, I'm a benign entity. I'm going to help all of y'all. I'm going to get medicine. I'm going to change the way democracy functions. But you can't have more children. So tell me a little bit more about this character, Sui. You know, she calls herself homo informis. And how did you conceive of her? What is she up to? Tell me more about it. Yeah, you know, that's a really fascinating concept. And honestly, here's something I truly believe, Tara. At this stage, no human being alive can accurately predict what an AI will do if it becomes self-aware super intelligence. The gulf between our intelligences is so vast that we can't possibly conceive of its goals, its objectives. So, you know, the one example I like to give is I have a fish tank at home and the fish have no idea why, you know, I scroll Instagram or I go to work or I watch TV. Like they can't even conceive of why I do most of the activities I do. And the gulf between us and a super intelligence is likely to be even much greater than between us and the fish. So that's where it starts. And I honestly believe that the cusp of, you know, super intelligence, self-aware, artificial general intelligence, we are at such an important point today. And it is way too interesting to be left to business books and white papers, which is what you mostly see. And it's also not, you know, all about Terminator and Rise of the Machines. I think there needs to be several different takes on it. No one knows what's actually going to happen. We just can't predict. And so SUI, you know, the way I conceived it was, it was a more benevolent super intelligence. So this is more of an optimistic story where a super intelligence arises. It has empathy towards mankind. But even then, you know, there will be conflict, right? So I'm a parent. And even though I want the absolute best for my kids, and I do everything what I can to improve their lives, they hate me very often. And so I honestly believe that even if there is a super intelligence that is purely benevolent, wants to look after us, wants to do the best for us, it will have to make certain hard decisions and there will be conflict. And one of those hard decisions could be, for example, human beings cannot reproduce further until we stabilise the ecosystems. But that's just a metaphor, right? There could be so many things that need to be done to save our species that a super intelligence might put in place purely for our benefit. But even then there will be conflict. So that's how I kind of envision it, that firstly, we can't really tell what will happen. But no matter how good the outcome is, there will still be disagreement. There will still be conflict. There will still be our angst as a people that we are no longer the dominant intelligence on Earth. Yeah, and what I also liked about the book is that there's this constant tension, right? Because Sui is positioning herself as this benevolent kind of super intelligence. And there's some people who really like that about it. You know, they love it and they're happy about it because she's uplifting humanity. And you show how humans also live 300, 400 years, which is something that's in conversation right now. There's people like Brian Johnson who are talking about this sort of like living forever phenomenon. And then you talk about our human society also changes because if we live 300, 400 years, then people have 300, 400 marriages, people have 300, 400 careers, and the way that we live the entire fabric also changes. So can you talk a little bit more about that concept? Because I found it very fascinating. So Tara, spot on. We are at a very, very interesting point when it comes to longevity. Many scientists believe we are at the cusp of something called longevity escape velocity. Here's what that means. So with every generation, even every decade, our ability to increase our lifespans increases somewhat thanks to medical science improvements. So we are at a stage where our ability to increase our lifespan will soon outpace our ageing, right? Right now we still age faster than our ability to increase our lifespan, but soon we will hit that point where we can increase our lifespans faster than we age. And that basically means we are immortal. I mean, you can still, not immortal, you can still get hit by a bus and die, but you won't die of regular ageing. And this sounds like science fiction, but it is actually not. Lot of medical research is going on on anti-ageing and many scientists around the world believe that we are at the most 10 to 15 years away from anti-senescence and the longevity escape velocity. And that has severe implications, right? So the positive implications are, well, you get to live for a very, very, very long time, but you also have to think about what that means for you as a human being in terms of your purpose. Half of our purpose comes from the fact that our life is finite. We have different stages in life, which are pretty predictable. We have to procreate and create the next generation, whether it's biologically or through our intellectual legacy, all of that gives us meaning. Now, what happens if that lifespan extends three or 400 years? I actually believe we'll be in a situation where people will go through many lives within their life. They'll go through many careers, many research, maybe many families. So it's very interesting and we don't quite know it yet, but it's actually something that's much closer than it appears. But it also has several other implications, right? Think about the population crisis then. Now, already we are at a place, if you look at India, for example, the death rates has gone out, the average life expectancy in India at independence was 25 years, and now it's significantly higher, right? So what happens when people stop dying in terms of demographics, in terms of wealth distribution? There's so much that we don't know yet, but it is something that's staring us in the face right now. And how did that sort of like come into the book? Basically, what I'm trying to ask is, how did, what is Sui's sort of character evolution in the book vis-a-vis this human society that has now been created? That's a great question. So a lot of people believe that a superintelligence, because it's a superintelligence, will kind of have all the answers from day one. It will know exactly what it's doing. It makes no mistakes because it's just so smart. Here, we actually show a fallible superintelligence. We show that ultimately, this is also an intelligence in its infancy. And as it grows up, it makes mistakes. It's not always consistent. It learns and it kind of changes course a few times when it comes to its own strategies, et cetera. And even just its relationship with humanity also evolves. Even though it has the most novelist intentions, it also learns how to work better with people, how to navigate this new society, how to trust. So I honestly believe that even a superintelligence, especially one that's kind of born out of our own consciousness as a species, will also be fallible, will also have limitations, and will not always be perfect. Yeah, I think you show that in the book also because there are different things happening. So the book is basically about what happens to humanity when the superintelligence comes alive and how humanity changes. And it's told through these multiple characters because there has to be sort of like a underlying element for that. And what I liked is the superintelligence because she's doing so many experiments and I'm calling her a she, what's in it? There is a leak called the unfuckup leak where there are a bunch of humans that have to kind of counter the mistakes she's making. She had an idea that let's make the Sahara green rainforest and then that didn't work. So I really liked that part about it. But coming to sort of how do you even write about all these concepts? And because I read a lot of sci-fi and I'm just quite amazed always at the kind of depth of thinking combined with this amazing feat of storytelling. And I feel like people who are able to do that, that's just amazing. I don't know how that happens because you have to be proficient in both those domains and be able to speculate and put it together. So I would love to know a little bit about your background. I know you're a technologist, inventor, investor as well and you have speaking engagements. So how did your professional life and all the things that you do sort of help you write the sci-fi novel? Yeah, so you're absolutely right. Technology, AI, all these things are something that I live and breathe. And even in my profession, so I've spent a lot of time in the payments industry. And even if you just look at the last 10, 15 years, you've seen how our lives have transformed because of one very specific technology, simply the way we pay. So we see that, and I live that impact of technology, how it changes life, how it changes society. But here's what I also believe that when it comes to some of these big forces that are impacting our society right now, things like, of course, the rise of AI, gene editing, cryptocurrency, longevity research, when they all come together, it's going to be such a different world and such a different unpredictable universe that nobody is qualified enough to actually say this is what's gonna happen. So what I mean to say by that is, honestly, it's not that I'm, my background makes me a Nostradamus when it comes to these things. It certainly helped me engage with some of these topics more, but I believe that all of us are equally certain, all of us are equally qualified to imagine what that world is going to be. And to that point, many people ask me, why did I write a fiction about a world after AI? I actually believe that any book written about a world after AI is a work of fiction because we simply don't know how it's going to play out. And the other thing I would say is that these are topics really, really close to my heart, Tara. And when I started writing the book, I actually experienced the opposite of writer's block. I call it writer's flood. There were just so many ideas and so many stories. And there were points when I was wondering, okay, which direction the story will take. And I would just do my meditation of sitting with a cigar in my backyard. And within 15 minutes, I would know where things are supposed to go. So I actually just love this content so much. And I think there's so much fertile ground in terms of where the world can be in just a few years that there was a lot of opportunity and a lot of stories that could be told. What do you think is a role of a sci-fi writer? Is it to, you know, I mean, you said that it's not an Austradamus because we see a lot of sci-fi also becoming reality. So do you think there's a role of a sci-fi novelist? Listen, I actually think that sci-fi and fiction in general has a tremendous role to play when we are at a pivotal stage of society. And I'll give you a couple of examples. When the industrial revolution was changing mankind from mainly a cottage industry, make by hand world to industrial world, we saw Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which talked about, you know, this combination of man and machine. When, you know, after the post-war era, there was increased state control, state surveillance, things that simply didn't exist pre-war. We saw the emergence of 1984 and Big Brother and all of that. Even now, like in the last decade, when the internet and the digital society has reached a certain crescendo, we saw things like Black Mirror coming out. So I actually believe that when there is a major change in society, our collective conscious kind of forms into works of fiction that represents our own thinking, our own aspirations, our own insecurities about what that next future is going to be. And I think for us, the biggest cusp that we are on right now is what does the world look like if an AI were to take over? And I think fiction has a really important role to play in just helping us think through what that could look like. So that's kind of where After Us came in. Honestly, science fiction is, of course, a really close genre to my heart, but I'm also very close to magical realism. So I would say my greatest literary influences nowadays are folks like Haruki Murakami and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So it's a blend of those two genres, sci-fi and magical realism that kind of made it really come alive for me. I like that point that when we're sort of like at an inflexion period, then we want more fiction, we want more stories, we want more discourse around that. And I think many people are just very scared about what's going to happen with AI. There's all this talk, like even this Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari keeps talking about that AI is going to render us unimportant. And in the book, you talk about some of these concepts. So, you know, there's always this, while Sui is a benevolent being, there's always this tension that, you know, is she at one point in time going to realise that humanity is just not relevant anymore? And then what's going to happen to her and what's going to happen to us, you know, as a consequence. So, yeah, like as technology progresses at this breakneck speed, what do you think sort of, you know, is the answer to that question? Yeah, and look, we're starting at that question today. You don't even need to wait for an AI to become self-aware and superintelligent. We are already, like so many of our professions, we're already wondering what happens when AI kind of does everything better than us, right? So there is this whole kind of philosophical and economic debate about if everything can be done better by AI, by machines, then what role do humans have to play? Like in 20 years time, even if AI is not sentient and superintelligent, do we still need human workers? If not, what do people actually do with their time? How do they make money? So there's this really interesting, you know, school of thought that says, even if companies don't require people, and even if all jobs can be automated by humans, they still need consumers. And for consumers, they still need to have money, right? So there's this whole concept of will there be a universal basic income or a universal basic dividend that companies pay out to people just so that they can continue to consume and, you know, fuel the global economy, even if the companies themselves are entirely run by AI or with a very few humans. So all those kinds of things, you don't even need to wait for AI to arise. This is kind of the natural progression of just how AI is taking over many jobs and, you know, transforming many industries. But if you think about, you know, after us and the way AI, which does everything better than us, had a role for humans to play, it essentially gave mankind three main missions. It says, I need your help in firstly restoration, which is healing the earth, rebuilding ecosystems. Second is preservation, means protecting, you know, earth's culture, art, science, the, you know, human legacy. And the third is discovery, exploring space, expanding knowledge. So I do believe that, you know, even in a world where super intelligence arises and do everything better than us, there are still significant roles for humanity to play. And I think the most important among them is the restoration of the earth to restore the ecosystems and the planet back to the way it was. But yeah, again, this all remains to be seen, but you don't need to wait for AI to become sentient. Your question of purpose and what do you do if everything is done better by AI is something you should be thinking of today. And I like the fact that also in the book, AI wants to know what it's like to be human, because there's some things that, you know, AI, as you said, we are the fish in the tank and the super intelligent beings are, you know, out of the realm that we can't ever understand. But even we are like that because they can never be human and they are not in our bodies and they can't understand. And there is something that happens in the book where the AI has that experience of, you know, understanding what it's like to be in a human body. I found that very interesting and I found another concept very interesting where you said that earth is covered by a film, which is why we can't see the other aliens. And, you know, you talk about Fermi's paradox, which is that if the universe is infinite and obviously there will be other super intelligent beings out there, where are they? You know, are we all alone? And that's something even I think about. I sometimes think about it and I feel very lonely. Are we sort of the only people in the universe? And then what you say is that, no, there's actually sort of, because those beings are beyond our senses and your super intelligence, we actually is helping humans see those beings. And then you also talk about this league of super intelligent beings, which reminded me of this movie Her, where the AI fell in love with the human, the human fell in love with the AI. And then what happened was that the AI, the human was only one of the people that the AI was talking to. The AI basically started chatting with the other AIs because it'd rather sort of speak in their language. So I really love some of those concepts which you put in the book. So can you talk a little bit about some of them? Yeah, I love it. So let's talk about the eggshell first, right? Kind of that barrier that's built around the solar system, the earth. And you know, what's wild is Tara, that only weeks after we'd begun the process of publishing the book, I actually saw an article which confirms that there is kind of a film surrounding our ecosystem, our solar system. And it's only recently been discovered. There's many terms for it. It's called the Oort Cloud OORT in some forms. And there is still a lot of debate around, okay, what is that film made of? Is it made of like matter? Is it made of energy? So interestingly, there is kind of a shell surrounding our ecosystem. And the theory in this was that, well, that film is not by accident. It is actually something we very deliberately put there so that humanity can only peer beyond the universe and see that it's teeming with life once it has reached a certain level of intelligence and only then. And AI is kind of that, a super intelligent AI is that level where it is able to pass through that. And now it can actually be part of the galactic continuum. And by the way, there is, I think in Star Trek, there is a similar concept where the intergalactic league waits for a civilisation to show that it can break the speed of light. And only then does it get contacted to join the Federation, right? So something similar to that, although not as deep into sci-fi. And so there is a genuine legitimate school of thought that believes that AI will be the tool that helps us break through that barrier and to kind of get accepted by the rest of the universe that we are no longer just hunter gatherers or some small intelligence. So that's a lot of scientists actually believe that this might be the case, that AI was the thing that will help us make contact beyond. And like you that I also believe that, look, this is an infinite universe, yet we see life only on one tiny speck of dust, which is us. So I think AI might actually be what helps us break this barrier. I'm very much looking forward to meeting some aliens. But it reminds me of another book, Children of Time. I don't know if you've read that. Very interesting concept. But again, like in this case, the super intelligent being is humans and we are orbiting a planet in space and they're waiting for the species on that planet to evolve to a certain level to be able to communicate. So I like those concepts. Oh, that's fascinating. I haven't read this one, but that's exactly it. Who knows? Maybe we are the one who makes contact. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about the characters in this book and the structure of this book, you know, because we start as with those siblings, right? Who actually are seminal to creating Sui. Then we see Paul, who's one of the siblings. And he's living underground and he's obviously hated by people because he's the one who's created this. And there's a whole bunch of other characters in the middle doing different things, you know, interacting with this AI, creating this world. Tell me a little bit more about some of these characters and their motivations. Right. So there's, if you look at it broadly, there's the story of three families, right? And I wanted to keep it like that because ultimately this is a story about humans and how this will affect our families. So one family is a really simple, you know, sort of the earth kind of family from the Philippines. They're going through a very challenging time and that kind of tracks, okay, how AI improves their lives and how, you know, it reduces corruption. It helps with addiction and, you know, inequality and poverty. So that's more like a geopolitical aspect. So that's the Filipino, the Mendoza family. Then you have two families, you know, which are more, you know, technocratic. They have more of a, you know, role to play in society. One of them is the core Rosnovsky family. So there's, you know, both of the parents are involved in massive projects when it relates to, you know, the world after AI. The dad, for example, among many projects is involved in building something called the Open Trust Foundation, which uses the super intelligence to expose corruption and is like a constant watchdog. And that really improves the world because, you know, dirty politicians have nowhere to hide. And the mother, Shashi, she is a, she's also a scientist and she helps Sui build a very important transmitter. Then there's the son and the daughter and the son, Ved, is actually, is an important character. And we also track his journey throughout many, many epochs and many of his lifetimes within that 400 years lifespan. But, you know, the last family that you mentioned, the Brugman family is Ryan and Liz, which are, you know, two siblings. Ryan is kind of a AI CEO, who's, you know, very ambitious. He just wants to build a smarter and smarter, intelligent, world-famous guy. And his sister is a neuroscientist. And they really catalyse the emergence of a super intelligence because they combine technology with the human brain and the understanding thereof. And I won't give out too many spoilers, but there is a part where Liz, the sister, helps humanise Ryan's approach towards building an AI. And that human touch, that very organic touch is what helps the AI transcend from being just a machine to a true intelligence, to a true being. And I think that's something that I'm very passionate about, that I feel that the day we will hit this escape velocity for AI is the day we start thinking about it as not an invention, but a being. Yeah, and that's mentioned in the book many times, where Sui herself says, I'm not, you know, an invention. I'm a being, just like humans are a being. And I find that so hard to wrap my head around because it just doesn't seem like... And you also mentioned that, you know, because humans are sort of like zero-sum games, right? Where we think that other species or whatever are a threat to us. Like if an alien came today and took this thing, we would find it a threat. Like our first reaction would not be trying to collaborate or anything like that, right? Like we historically... And it makes sense because it's like the prisoner's dilemma. I don't know what their intention is. So if it turns out that I trust them and the intention is malicious, then I'm screwed. So the logical thing to do is not trust them. And that you see that playing out with Sui and the human beings and super intelligence. But tell me a little bit more about the whole cyborg aspect of this book. Because there is a very interesting dynamic of... Yeah, I won't give away too much, but tell me a little bit more about it. So actually the first thing you mentioned, the human beings being zero-sum is so critical, right? Because a lot of the anxiety we have towards AI stems from our own zero-sum mentality. And this is very real, right? So if you look at the history of mankind, when the first Homo sapiens set foot on earth, we shared the earth with no less than five other hominid species. But they all went extinct thanks to us. We out-competed them for resources. We fought them. We interbred with them. In some cases, we even hunted and ate them into extinction. So from our very conception, we have dominated earth because we are zero-sum. So it's no surprise that when we are at the cusp that, hey, there might be an intelligence greater than our own on earth for the first time ever, we are feeling threatened because we are zero-sum. And this, you know, the super intelligence in After Us, Sui, she believes that I am actually your successor, but I am also more than just human. And what that means is I'm not here to replicate the way you treated your ancestors, the way you treated your cousins. So you need to grasp the concept of coexistence, humanity. Otherwise, this was not going to work up. So that's very true. And, you know, that thing you mentioned about Cyborg Tara, that's also interesting because, you know, there is this whole concept of how does humanity evolve, right? And many people actually believe that we are already at the point where our evolution is not going to be through, you know, to another primate. We are not slowly over millions of years going to become another Como species, you know, with two thumbs or whatever. What is more likely to happen is we will evolve via things like genetic editing, via bionics, and maybe via some kind of connection to AI. And there's a chapter where we've explored like an experiment in which humans kind of try all these different evolutionary pathways. And they realise that, look, we're just not responsible enough to, you know, use bionics, genetic editing to make superhumans in a responsible way. So that is not likely for us. We might just end up destroying ourselves. What technology are you most excited about? And what technology are you most scared about? Oh, that's a tough one. I think when it comes to technology specifically, I am most excited about longevity research, cryptocurrency. And I think the future of transaction essentially, and to some extent, gene editing, as long as we can control it, right? By the way, we already have the capability as humans to edit genes, to remove like genetic diseases, to really make a difference and create designer babies. I think that what is known, but we just have to use that responsibly. So I think I am very excited about the responsible use of longevity research, gene editing, cryptocurrency. I am also quite excited about clean energy, although that could be used in great, but as not so good ways. But honestly, when it comes to the emergence of a superintelligence, I am a bit scared. And not because I think it's definitely going to come and destroy us, but just because we just can't predict what direction it'll take. That's what makes me anxious. I just, none of us, even the smartest minds on earth have no clue what it's going to do. Yeah. It seems like all of the movies and the books talk about them just destroying us. That seems like the prominent narrative. Tell me a little bit more about your publishing journey. You know, you're a debut author. What are some of the biggest surprises or learning moments that you experienced in this journey of becoming an author? So it's really interesting. I mean, exactly. I'm a debut author. I wrote my book when I was 38. It got published when I was 39. And, you know, this is not the first book I tried to write. And, you know, when I was about 23, I actually tried writing a book and it didn't go that well. Like, I think my writing style was a little dense. I was a bit pretentious in, you know, how I wrote. And I didn't have the tenacity and probably a little too much perfectionism for it to actually see the light of day. But, you know, as a more mature adult having experienced life and kind of having simplified and not having to prove so much, to me, the best thing was the words came on paper quite easily. And especially in this realm of science fiction, speculative fiction, it's really important to simplify very arcane concepts. Otherwise people, only a very subset of people are going to read your book. So once that happened, you know, the publishing journey, I got to say, like, it was much easier for me than I understand it is for many, many people. I was very lucky to meet Jaiko at a very early stage in my writing journey. And these guys have just been amazing. And, you know, I have a lot of appreciation for them, not just as an author, but even growing up, like I read so many Jaiko books. I have Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Autobiography of a Yogi, so many that have helped my own intellectual development. And I recently found a book that my mother had bought when she was a teenager, a Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published in 1956 by Jaiko. And, you know, it's in my collection now. And when I hold it, you know, this book published in 56, it's wild that I got published with them in 2025. And it's still the same family, you know, the Aisha family, they've run Jaiko since its inception. They were very, very supportive from the beginning. They took a bet on me, I have to say, and I really appreciate that. And, you know, this is not the most typical genre that you will find on bookshelves in India, but they see potential in new and innovative things as well. So for me, that part was actually a very positive experience. Jaiko has been a fantastic publisher. Yeah, no, it's interesting you said that, you know, it's not really what you see in India. And even most people who read sci-fi, they kind of read things that are coming out from the West, like Andy Weir and things like that. I don't see much sci-fi being written by Indian authors. Like, I know Hachette has a book where, you know, they compile the best sci-fi stories. You have speculative fiction authors, but we don't really have a thriving genre here. Why do you think that is? Do you know, like, why? Do you have any ideas? It boggles my mind why, you know, we have excellent technologists in India, some of the world's best. We have excellent writers in India, some of the world's best. But why those two don't come together it does confound me quite a lot. And, you know, Tara, like yourself, a lot of us Indians grew up reading sci-fi. I mean, when I was a child, even before I could read, my mother used to read sci-fi books to me. She would tell me stories. And I still remember there was, you know, A Clap of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. It's a short story, which he paraphrased for me. And that blew my mind as a child, right? So, and I'm not alone. So many Indians grow up with sci-fi, yet virtually none of them end up writing it. I think it's a combination of, you know, what sells commercially. So nonfiction, for example, but also it's, I don't know. I honestly don't know why Indian authors don't write it, but how many requests that they do? Yeah, a call to action for, you know, readers to also pick up books by Indians. Because I think maybe we have this sort of mentality in India where fantasy, sci-fi, all of that, we're still picking up, you know, Western books. And another question I had in sci-fi books, you know, it seems like all movies, books, they have these concepts that they converge, you know, the speculation of technology kind of converges. So things like cryosleep is always used as a device. You know, and what I liked about your book is that you had the super intelligent being, but it was a benevolent being. So it was a different twist on it. But why do you think like all of these speculations into the tech space, they kind of follow a linear path? So what makes each sci-fi different? That's a great question. I think one thing that a lot of sci-fis have, which I try to stay away from, is like deep space and space exploration and space battles and that kind of stuff. I think I'm not the most qualified author there. And I think there's enough on that topic already. I'm much more interested by what's going to happen on earth. Right. So even if you look at the sci-fi greats, the shows, the books, they once in a while they'll visit earth and they'll show, you know, either it's amazing or it's terrible. But I think that's a much more interesting story for me. So what happens on earth is interesting. There are so many trends that are happening. Look, so there's gene editing, there's, you know, the rise of artificial intelligence. I honestly believe cryptocurrency and the future of money is a tremendously important theme. Clean energy is another one. And I think all these forces are going to converge on earth and create something far more powerful before they end up on spaceships. So I think that convergence and look, Indians, you guys, we're all so well steeped in all these fields. We have the best medical researchers, the best, you know, technologists from around the world. So pick up that pen. As a debut author, what kind of advice would you give to other writers who want to explore the sci-fi genre? Like are there any tips and tricks in order to do you think do this well? I'll share a few that were personally very meaningful to me. And I wonder if they will be useful to others. The first is we need to start sowing the seed in our next generation, right? So our children, our teenagers, they need to be exposed to sci-fi, the greats from all over the world. So much of scientific progress in the world started in sci-fi books. There's innumerable inventions that were actually conceived first in science fiction. Then they became a reality. So the first thing I would say is exposure, expose children, students to sci-fi. Second is when you start writing sci-fi, at least for me, I wanted to make it very accessible. If it becomes really hardcore sci-fi, then I don't know if it's going to be as mass appealing and, you know, might turn off some people. So for me, that meant don't go too deep into space and, you know, too deep into like intergalactic battles, but keep it to something more accessible, something that impacts people on a day-to-day basis. Those kinds of themes are really powerful. Third, sci-fi, if not managed well, can get overly technical and a bit obtuse for the average reader. And you need to master the art of explaining these difficult imaginative concepts in a way that is clear to the reader, but also talks about the relevance to the reader, right? So these are a few things, you know, the clarity of writing, just talking about what happens with humans that really helped me. And as I said, like a lot of it came with maturation as I grow older as a writer, more experienced, but also I had many friends who were like, listen, actually this part is just a bit too dense for me. So we need to run it down a bit. And most of those readers were actually the non-sci-fi folks. So I tested the books with a lot of non-sci-fi audience just to make sure that it still appeals to them. And I think these are some of the learnings that helped to appeal. Yeah, I love sci-fi because it's fun and makes you think, you know? So it's always like really, really, for me, a great thing to read. So I'd love to know a little bit more about you, you know, about you sort of, your inventor, your patents, because obviously that would also feed into the book. So could you tell me a little bit more about, you know, your personal journey and was any incident that inspired you to write after us? Great question. So since about 2013, which is about 12 years now, I have been very much involved in the innovation space. So, you know, I was in Singapore when I started and then, you know, now I'm based in Dubai for the last several years. Most of my patents are in the payments space. So, you know, they could be from, how do you do a pre-authorisation for a home delivery, for example? You know, when there is not enough trust between the buyer and the seller, or they could be things like, this was one of my early patents in Singapore, you know, where there is a culture of putting a piece of tissue or like a key chain on a table in a hawker centre so that people know it's taken. So it's called CHOPE, C-H-O-P-E. They do this a lot there. So I think it was the thought process and being exposed to innovation, IP creation. I also invest in a lot of startups and that's the kind of stuff I like doing. So all of those things kind of converged and now it was time to tell a story that was purely birthed in my head. And when the first stem cell of that idea came about and I picked up the pen to paper and I wrote the first chapter of Flourish's message, I just couldn't put the pen down after that. Like it was just the most exhilarating experience and I highly recommend it. It is the, you know, what they say, the flow state being in the zone. It was the best version of that that I have experienced in my 39 years on earth. And the only advice I would have there is pick a topic which you are passionate about. Don't think about the commercial impact. Don't think about, you know, how many people will read it. If you really care about that topic and it could be anything, I think the words will flow very naturally. And did you have any sort of editorial intervention? So I had a lot of support from my publisher. They really helped, you know, it's my first book. So I was very grateful that they helped me improve things without any kind of micromanagement and while retaining pretty much all of my key ideas, right? So the editorial support from the publisher was fantastic, but I would say the real editorial support even before I went to the publisher came from some of my friends and family. So my wife was my guinea pig number one in all these and she is not a sci-fi reader. She loves watching Black Mirror and, you know, things like that, but she doesn't read sci-fi. So this helped me make sure her input that it is accessible, it is approachable in the way it's written and many friends around the world, they helped me, you know, with some of the concepts, with some of the editorial support, but then ultimately it was the editorial team at JECO who really helped me finesse this. Okay, what's next for you in the writing journey? So I have to strike a balance between, you know, I have many forces saying that I should write a non-fiction next, but my own passion is very much leaning towards fiction. So I still have to strike that balance. I want to give After Us its due attention and love, like I've only published it last week. So I want to make sure that it, you know, sees the next few months where I'm promoting it, engaging with the readers as much as I can. And so Tara, this opportunity is fantastic in this regard, right? But I already know at least two or three books that I want to write. And without giving away too much, the next fiction could either be a sequel of After Us or there is another world I'm imagining in my head where the future of money and where cryptocurrency and the blockchain really governs how we not just transact, but also how we interact, how we live, how we are governed. So there's a few concepts in the oven right now. Let's see which of them makes it out the fastest. I think you should definitely do fiction. And the blockchain one sounds very interesting to me because I personally do not understand anything about crypto or blockchain. And I've tried, I've read up on it. I've even done a class on it. I just don't understand it at all. So the way that you write, I think, you know, in simplifying the concepts, it'd be a good opportunity to learn about it. Maybe this is the motivation I needed to put pen down to paper. But no, I do think that this book has a lot of potential in terms of leadership because I think it's very unique. And I had a lot of fun, as I said, reading it. And for me, that's what I go to for sci-fi as well, like think and read. So coming to like any books, you know, that you like, you must be reading a lot of sci-fi. So do you have any top two favourites or any recommendations? Absolutely. And you know, these are not the most mainstream ones, but these are a couple that really blew my mind. So the first is a book called Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, right? So it's got so many of those completely unpredictable M. Night Shyamalan style twists where you think you know what's going on and then suddenly it's a complete pivot. So I love that aspect, but it also kind of talked about a theme that's in After Us, which is humanity as at the end of its childhood and now achieving adulthood and what comes then. And in my case, that adulthood came through, you know, the invention and the awakening of AI. In Childhood's End, it comes to some other vectors, but I would highly, highly recommend Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. The other one also by Clarke actually, it's called Rendezvous with Rama, right? And this is very topical right now for a few reasons. So even if you, in the very first chapter of After Us, you will see that there is the observation of an interstellar entity, right? Which actually draws on history, which in 2017, we observed something called Oumuamua, which is a interstellar object, first time observed having certain characteristics. But if you've been following the news, these days, there is an other much bigger interstellar object called 3i Atlas that has made some really strange manoeuvres in the solar system. It's, you know, it was going on a certain path and it suddenly went around the sun. A lot of people, including a Harvard scientist, believe that this is a intelligent object. Maybe it's a probe. So this stuff is 100% happening in the real world today. This is not science fiction. So Rendezvous with Rama is another fiction by Arthur C. Clarke where, you know, an inanimate, a kind of a dead object which they called Rama, you know, which and literally from Lord Ram is found in space. And, you know, we intercept it and what happens from there. So I think both of these are both themes that you will find in After Us, but also extremely topical in terms of where we are as a species and what's going on in the environment around us right now. It sounds absolutely fascinating. I've heard of Rendezvous with Rama. Lots of people have recommended it. So I think I'll definitely also pick it up. Okay. The most futuristic technology you personally wish existed today? I think it was longevity, right? So longevity, but here's the thing that I don't think it's very futuristic. I think it's actually quite right around the corner. But if you were to say, okay, what is truly futuristic? There are a couple of things. One is the ability to see in more than three dimensions. Right. And we technically like, we can see length, breadth and height, and we can perceive time, which is the fourth dimension, but we can only see it in one direction, you know, present to future. So a lot of speculation is that the next level of intellectual evolution, whether it's AI, whether it's some other interstellar species, they can perceive the world with time as just another dimension they can go up and down in. Right. So when we crack that, it has both incredible, but terrifying implications, and it will fundamentally change everything about humanity. So I think the fourth dimensional technologies, especially as it remains, you know, relates to the manipulation of time. Those are futuristic, and I would love to see what happens there. Yeah. Again, that's another mind boggling one. Your favourite sci-fi movie? It's going to sound cliched, but I'm going to pick Interstellar and 2001 A Space Odyssey. So Interstellar, like, you know, we were just talking about four dimensions. And if you remember, there's that scene where, you know, the dad is in that space where he can look at his daughter's bedroom, and he's trying to pass a message. And, you know, just the way they create that visualisation of what four dimensions might look like, and how it can be perceived by a human. I think that was an absolute masterstroke. But 2001 A Space Odyssey is, again, I'm really attracted to pivotal moments in mankind's evolution. And there, it literally starts with, you know, an ape turning into a civilised being, a civilised being, you know, discovering a interstellar AI, essentially, or some other greater species. So just those things really appeal to me, the perception of multiple dimensions, and, you know, pivot points in the evolution of man. I can watch Interstellar anytime, anywhere. I love that movie. But thank you, Akshay, for such a riveting conversation. It definitely sort of made me think a lot. And, you know, I sort of thinking a lot about what happened in the future, you know, when the super, when the super intelligent being comes into our lives and what we should do with that. And I think a book is a good sort of thing to look at when you're thinking about this. So thank you listeners for tuning in today. And I have a fun question for you. If your AI assistant suddenly became sentient, what would be the first thing you'd ask it to do? And while you think about that, hit follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, you never miss an episode. Thank you.