STEM Tuesday

Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview, a repeating feature for the last Tuesday of every month. Go Science-Tech-Engineering-Math!

Today, we’re interviewing Martha Brockenbrough author of Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence and How It Will Change Everything (Feiwel & Friends, March 2024). This 23-chapter deep dive into the history, prevalence, and future of artificial intelligence is sprinkled with black-and-white photos and sidebars.

About the book:

Unlike the wheel, combustion engines, or electricity, AI does the thing that humans do best: think. While AI hasn’t reproduced the marvelously complex human brain, it has been able to accomplish astonishing things. AI has defeated our players at games like chess, Go, and Jeopardy!. It’s learned to recognize objects and speech. It can create art and music. It’s even allowed grieving people to feel as though they were talking with their dead loved ones.

On the flip side, it’s put innocent people in jail, manipulated the emotions of social media users, and tricked people into believing untrue things.

In this nonfiction book for teens, acclaimed author and teacher Martha Brockenbrough guides readers through the development of this world-changing technology, exploring how AI has touched every corner of our world, including education, healthcare, work, politics, war, international relations, and even romance. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how artificial intelligence got here, how to make the best use of it, and how we can expect it to transform our lives.

Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence and How It Will Change Everything

Linda: This is a timely subject that affects writers, publishers, and other creatives. What inspired you to take on this project?

Martha: I started research on this book after my biography of Donald Trump, UNPRESIDENTED, came out. During his first run for the presidency, bots attempted to influence opinions and divide Americans. This got me interested in the many ways artificial intelligence will affect our lives. So I started researching everything I could. 

Linda: You covered a lot of ground in this book: the history of AI, the pros and cons, relationships with AI, the future, and more. What was your research process like, and how did you keep track of so much information?

Martha: I’m not gonna lie, Linda! It was an enormous challenge. I wanted there to be a lot of ways into the book for readers. Some people are really into tech. Some are more into the history of science. Some people like reading stories about people. I read books about the history of science. I read some books that got into the implications (I agreed with some and disagreed with others). I listened to tons of podcasts. Watched videos. 

When I am first researching a subject, I’m trying to get a sense of the big picture. I didn’t know anything about A.I., really. To understand it fully, I wanted to understand the history. Also, the practical bits of how it works. And that’s what helped me write the later chapters, where I engaged in some predicting. Those chapters were very much guided by my questions. Honestly, the whole book was. That’s how I write, most of the time. Questions and my best shot at answers.  

As I learn, I write about what I’m learning and where I learned it, and the deeper I get into things, the more I start to see the shape of the story. When you’re writing nonfiction, it is so important that you keep track of what you’re learning and where it came from, because you will need to demonstrate that for fact-checkers and to make footnotes, if you’re using them (I always use them in longer works). There are tools like Zotero that you can use to keep track of your research, but I am a big fan of spreadsheets and tabs. Also? I put the footnotes in as I write. It does slow the writing down, but the saddest writers in the world I’ve met are the ones who are “finished” with their books and suddenly realize they haven’t done their footnotes.

Linda: Do you have any fun facts that you learned about AI that you’d like to share?

Martha: I don’t know that this is fun, but it’s useful. Human beings have a propensity to form emotional bonds with bots. When I was working on my book, this was not something people were talking about. Now, it is. But I really wanted readers to understand this tendency and how vulnerable it makes us. So, put up some guardrails. Don’t personify any AI tools you use. Don’t disclose information to them that you wouldn’t tell a stranger. Understand that bots are primarily designed not to serve you, but to make a profit or influence you in some way. Now, we can get some utility out of certain kinds of AI, even generative AI. But there is always a cost to it. 

OK, now this is more fun. AI is being used for all sorts of cool purposes, including understanding what animals are saying. Maybe someday, my dream will come true, and I’ll be able to talk with animals. 

Linda: Now, that would certainly be entertaining. Martha, what do you hope readers take away from this book?

Martha: I hope they’ll have a deep understanding of why humans make tools, why AI represents a change in the type of tool we make, and that the “is it good/is it bad” question is an oversimplification. Like any tool, it can make life better. It can also cause harm—both intended and unintended. We are at a turning point in technological history, as well as a turning point in political history, where the very wealthy—many of whom are profiting from this technology—have a great deal of political power. I want readers to understand this technology and become engaged citizens so we can ensure AI serves humanity and the planet. Unless we ensure AI is optimized to serve humanity instead of simply being profitable, it represents an existential threat. We cannot prepare for things we don’t understand, and I wanted to prepare the next generation as well as I could. 

Linda: The book has a wealth of information about AI that could benefit students, and the chapter about AI in the world today was enlightening. Technology teachers might find it useful in their classrooms. How do you envision the book being used by students, teachers, and librarians?

Martha: I hope people get from it what interests them. There’s history, there’s some computer science, there’s futurism and a splash of biography—follow your interests. That’s what we should ideally be doing as readers. I hope that the information is such that readers recognize AI where they’re seeing it in the world, and that they have gained enough understanding of how it works to ensure their safety and prosperity. 

Linda: Ironically, technology is changing technology jobs. I programmed computers for fifteen years. I’ve always embraced technological advancements; however, if my job had become obsolete because of AI, I don’t think I would have welcomed it. How do you feel about AI?

Martha: Generative AI that is based on intellectual property theft is an outrage. The people who designed these tools protect their IP vigorously and absolutely knew better. That said, these same tools, trained responsibly, could save a lot of labor. Let’s say you’re a coder and AI does a first draft for you, and then you fine-tune. I can see where that would be useful. But I think we need to be measured in our glee about this. Lots of tech has saved certain kinds of labor, and we aren’t working shorter days or work weeks. In the end, the only people who benefit from the saved labor are the people at the top, who are highly paid and have company ownership and other benefits. 

With AI, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. The solution to this is to have a universal basic income and adequate housing, health care, and the rest. Otherwise, we are going to see a lot of suffering. 

Certain jobs, I don’t think, should be replaced by AI. For example, writing stories or making art. No problem is being solved when you have generative AI gush this stuff out. These are human pleasures and human challenges, and AI-produced art is grotesque. The purpose of art is to make us feel something, and if it’s a machine that cannot feel doing that, well, it’s being emotionally manipulated by a machine. Does anyone actually want that? Is that what we want to subject our children to? 

On the flip side, there is great potential with AI to solve complex problems based on pattern recognition and production. Say, for example, taking novel viruses and rapidly developing vaccines to prevent infection. That’s cool. I love it when technology is a solution to a problem and not just an engine of profit. That’s when humanity and our tools are at our best. 

Linda: I totally agree. When AI helps us find cures and solutions, it’s a hero. When it’s being fed pirated work, it’s a thief. Martha, you certainly opened my eyes to the many places where we encounter artificial intelligence and how it is transforming our world. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Martha Brockenbrough (rhymes with “broken toe”) is the author of 29 books, including YA fiction and nonfiction, picture books, middle-grade novels, and a chapter book series.

She is the Program Director for the MFA in Writing for Young Readers at the University of San Francisco. She founded National Grammar Day, wrote game questions for Cranium and Trivial Pursuit, was the editor of MSN.com, and has interviewed lots of celebrities, including the Jonas Brothers, Jason Bateman, Mike Myers, and Slash. She also wrote an educational humor column for Encarta for nine years. 

She lives in Seattle with her family. Besides reading and writing, she likes dogs, cats, cooking, working out, and laughing. 

Linda Zajac is the author of Robo-Motion: Robots That Move Like Animals and eight Minecraft books for kids. She is an award-winning science writer and a former computer programmer and systems analyst. Find her at www.lindarosezajac.com