~Q&A by Spencer
Scott Hutchins’ debut novel A Working Theory of Loveis about a lot of things, but the strongest theme is the attempt to reconcile when it is too late to do so. Neill Bassett Jr. is a man whose job is to chat with a computer programmed from the journals of his father, who committed suicide. Every time Neill logs on to chat with the AI program, the program becomes smarter, more life-like, and therefore more like his father. And as this continues, it becomes harder and harder for Neill to distinguish between his dead father and the computer program.
Huffington Post called Hutchins “San Francisco’s hottest new novelist.” A regular contributor to The Rumpus, Hutchins is also a Truman Capote Fellow in Stanford’s Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program. He’ll read from his novel here at BookPeople this Friday, October 26 at 6pm. Spencer, who reviewed A Working Theory of Love for us last week, asked Hutchins a few questions on our behalf in advance of his appearance. We hope you can make it out on Friday to meet this brand new literary talent.
BookPeople: Most of us have never heard of the Alan Turing Test. How were you first exposed to this AI benchmark?
Scott Hutchins: Turing is an extremely famous unknown person. You’ve either never heard of him, or you have and you think everyone else should have heard of him. Like you, I wasn’t familiar with Turing or his test until I ran across his essay “Computer Machinery and Intelligence.” I was reading about consciousness; I came at him through philosophical interests. Despite the dry title, his essay is a mischievous, lively piece of writing—and his biography! After inventing the computer and then spending WWII cracking the “uncrackable” Nazi Enigma code, he was outed as gay—actually outed himself. He was stripped of his security clearance, forced to undergo estrogen treatment (homosexuality was considered an excess of virility at the time), and finally driven to suicide, which he accomplished by eating a poisoned apple. Snow White was his favorite fairy tale. You can imagine he had an interesting take on what defined a human and human behavior.
BP: Which came first: Were you asked to participate in the Alan Turing Test, which in-turn inspired the book, or did your work on the novel precipitate an invitation to be a judge?
SH: The Turing Test wasn’t part of my novel when I was a judge, but it was a writing interest. I admired Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2 very much. As his title hints (it’s a Pygmalion reference—Frankenstein would have done just fine as well), the Turing Test really reaches back into older stories, even into myth. An eternal question: how human are the things wrought by human hands? It’s a fundamental question in art, as well as science. (Think of the anxiety we feel around GMOs.) But high theory aside, it was after the very comical two hours of chatting with computers pretending to be humans that I really grasped the dramatic potential.
BP: There are strong themes of loss and reconciliation in your novel. What moved you to write about them?
SH: I can’t say precisely. My mother died when I was very young, and the loss has always marked me. But I’ve had plenty of losses since then, too—many of them self-inflicted. Can we reconcile ourselves to them? We can at least accept them as our lives, as the lives we’ve led.
BP: What’s your writing style? Methodical and disciplined? Fueled by spurts of creative energy?
SH: I’m definitely more on the methodical and disciplined side. Actually, just the disciplined side—I don’t have much method. I just make sure I’m writing five or six days a week (I take Sunday off). I usually have to write my way to any spurt of creative energy—the blank page inspires me only with dread!
BP: There seems to be a wave of “identity crisis” literature focused around 30-something male protagonists. Do you think this is a reflection of our current society?
SH: I think the differences in generations are usually wildly overexagerrated, but there may be something to this one. The “forms” of society—career, marriage—are incredibly fluid right now. And there’s also the belief that we should be self-realizing, not just showing up to work. Many of us find ourselves stripped to the bone in our 30s (not just men) and we have to start fresh with a different way of seeing our lives and possibilities.
BP: VAMing. Good or bad for the aforementioned society?
SH: I wouldn’t try it!
BookPeople 