Author Interview: I AM AI by Ai Jiang

Episode 116

Release Date: November 29, 2023

Your hosts are joined by Ai Jiang to discuss her novelette I AM AI. They also talk about ghostwriting, Artificial Intelligence in art, and experimental work in genre fiction.

Find more from Ai here https://aijiang.ca/

Find us on discord: https://discord.gg/dpNHTWVu6b or support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fictionfanspod

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” - Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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Episode Transcript*

*this transcript is AI generated, please excuse the mess.

Lilly:0:04

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.

Sara:0:09

And I'm Sarah, and I am delighted to welcome author Ai Jiang onto the podcast today to talk about her novella, I Am I.

Ai:0:17

I'm very excited to be here. Well,

Lilly:0:24

I realized that's kind of the point of the book, so we'll talk about that later. I see what you did there. Before we get into that, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:0:36

Something great that happened recently is Snorri had surgery to remove his eye. That in itself was not great, but the fact that he's recovering very well, he hasn't, like, noticed that his eye is missing. I mean, he didn't have vision in it to begin with, so that was probably a very easy transition for him, but, like, he hasn't been pawing at the sutures or anything, so the fact that that's been a very easy recovery so far is my good thing.

Lilly:1:00

Oh good, that's wonderful news.

Sara:1:02

Yeah, I was concerned.

Lilly:1:05

Aye, how about you?

Ai:1:06

I finished the third round of my first novel's revision, so I'm very happy about that. I feel like I've been just pulling teeth for way too long.

Lilly:1:18

Forward progress on a project is always the most satisfying thing.

Ai:1:21

Very much so.

Lilly:1:22

Well, I made banana bread this week, which I've been enjoying thoroughly.

Ai:1:27

Ooh,

Lilly:1:29

Something, I don't know, banana bread is such a wonderful food, and it feels seasonally appropriate for every season. I don't know what that is.

Ai:1:37

that is true.

Lilly:1:39

Yeah,

Sara:1:40

I don't know, I mean, I love banana bread in the summer too, but I don't know if a loaf of banana bread feels seasonally appropriate. Banana bread muffins maybe,

Lilly:1:50

sure, okay.

Sara:1:51

but I don't think, I don't think like a loaf of banana bread, I don't know.

Lilly:1:55

I, for me, bananas themselves feel summery because they're such a fruit. I mean, they are a fruit. They're such a fruit that they are one. And so, that like gets the bread through to summer. That justifies having warm, delicious bread even when it's hot out. What is everyone drinking tonight?

Sara:2:15

I made some hot apple cider, and so I put that in my insulated canteen in the hopes that it will stay warm throughout this conversation. I don't know if that's actually going to work. We'll see.

Ai:2:26

I am a fan of cold drinks, so I am drinking two day old rose tea that I had steeped, like, two days ago and put in the fridge, and I'm having it in a Minion cup.

Lilly:2:40

Oh, very nice.

Sara:2:42

Roski sounds lovely and refreshing.

Lilly:2:45

It does. Well, as you might have been able to tell, you put the word seasonal on anything, and I will buy it hook, line, and sinker. So at the store the other day, they had a seasonal display for Caramel Apple Dream Herbal Tea. It's pretty good. It's not, you know, as flavorful as apple cider, but it gets the point across, so I'll take it. It's good enough. So this is actually a book podcast and not a various foods that Lily is eating podcast. Has anyone read anything good lately?

Sara:3:20

I read Iron Flame, which is the sequel to Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yaros, and It was okay. It was okay. I, it was, it was fun to read. I've got really mixed feelings about the series, I think, because it's kind of shallow, just in terms of like, I don't know, depth to the book and to the prose, but it's still like a fun read, so I did enjoy it. I'm not sure if I'll read book three when it comes out.

Lilly:3:46

Was that the really tropey one?

Sara:3:48

Yeah, that was the really tropey one that I was reading in our Frankenstein episode.

Ai:3:53

I actually read Fourth Wing a while back too, and it was one of those like, you know, when you need like a mind numbing read, something just like goes really fast, and it's like, you don't need to think too much about it, you just, you just read it, and it's done, and you can go back to your life.

Sara:4:11

yeah, you can, you can turn your brain off.

Ai:4:13

Yes, it was very much that kind of read.

Sara:4:18

Which sometimes that's just what you want.

Ai:4:20

For sure. So, something I've read recently, I think it would be... A very good fit for the holidays, if y'all like horror, which is Candy Cane Kills by Brian McAuley. It's like a very fast paced holiday horror.

Lilly:4:36

interesting.

Ai:4:38

So if you're looking for something very fast paced and like suspensy and thrillery, I would highly recommend it.

Lilly:4:45

I always am. I have been tearing through the Books of Blood by Clive Barker. They're a collection of books that are a collection of short stories. And they're all, well, they're not all really good, but I would say 95 percent of them are really, really good. And then the other 5 percent is like, pretty good. Which. As far as a collection of short stories go, it's a pretty good number. But yeah, I started for Halloween and then I couldn't stop.

Ai:5:17

That's when you know it's good though.

Lilly:5:20

I am mad because the sixth and final one has a long wait for the library, so I can't read it yet. But it's probably good for the rest of my TBR that I'm forced to take a break from those.

Ai:5:32

Oh, let's not talk about TBRs.

Lilly:5:36

But something I did read recently was I. M. I. The, the plot of this as I, I sort of mentioned, I made the joke, is it AI or is it, I, this feels like a very timely story that you've told. Can you talk about what inspired it? Was there anything specific

Ai:5:52

It's actually very funny how timely it was because by the time I finished writing it, it was last November and I knew I wanted to get it early because like, I think during November, ChatGBT was still not a very big thing. I think it just came out. Or something like that, and I was like, if I don't get this out now, it's not gonna be too relevant if it's in like two years or something like that, but as we know with the progression of things, it seems like it's been trending upwards, which is not great for us, but it's actually inspired by my ghostwriting career before I came into fiction writing. So I used to be a ghostwriter, much like the main character in the novelette, and that's kind of like what I base it on. So it's like semi autobiographical in a way.

Lilly:6:43

wanted to ask because the name, main character has the same name as you, but I didn't know if maybe that was just for the I AI. Like, pun or what? So, I feel justified.

Ai:6:55

It's very meta.

Sara:6:57

That's fascinating to hear about your ghostwriting career, can you tell us a little more, this is a little off topic, not specifically about, about the book, but more about yourself, but can you talk a little bit about that?

Ai:7:09

I mean, it's also related to the book to be fair, because when I worked as a ghostwriter, you basically get paid, like, for the company I work with, you get paid by the page. So like, the more you write, and the faster you write, the more you get paid, right? Because you're getting paid the same amount per page. So if you finish like, 10 pages in an hour, not possible, by the way, versus like 10 pages in 10 hours, your payment, like average would be very different. So there would be like Usually we would work like three months and then take like a month and a half off just because, you know, burnout rate is ridiculous. But like in that three months you'd be writing maybe like 200k words or so and just be expected to like churn things out very quickly. And it's not just like writing to you would be expected to do like research and things for that writing as well with like ads into the hours.

Lilly:8:02

Damn, and then of course you wouldn't get paid for those research hours because, I mean, you kind of do because of the pages you create, but not for that time specifically.

Ai:8:10

Well, the company I work for did pay for research hours, but they didn't pay enough for like in depth research hours, you know what I mean? Just like enough that you can like gloss over things very quickly, read abstracts and summaries.

Sara:8:23

I wasn't expecting to hear that, but I can see how it kind of informs eyes, the book eyes, like experience and comments about burnout and all of that.

Lilly:8:35

Out of curiosity, have you messed around with ChatGPT at all?

Ai:8:38

I've tried it once, a couple months ago, and I was like, oh, this is, this is very interesting. It would kind of do what I would do in school when I'm being very lazy about my summaries, if that makes sense. Like in my undergrad, I did English literature. So then sometimes we'd have to read books really, really quickly, and then write summaries very quickly, right, for them, and then decide which ones you want to later go in depth and write your essay on and things like that. So it kind of reminded me of that, like me, sleep deprived at 12 a. m.

Lilly:9:13

Oh man, I've run into a couple of... Recipes, specifically, that I'm pretty sure were written by AI. And they just,

Ai:9:21

Oh,

Lilly:9:22

nonsense. Just like circling back on itself. In my other life, I work in advertising. And so, of course, everyone is very excited about AI. I've seen it used well. When it's summarizing something, like, if you put in, like, here's a bunch of stuff, give me, like, the three sentence summary. So, like, it's good at making something concise, but when you're asking it to create something new, I think it kind of flounders.

Ai:9:46

Mm hmm. There was this article I read. It was by Ted Shien. I believe it was in the New Yorker, either the New Yorker or New York Times, where he was kind of like explaining kind of like his thoughts on just like chat GPT and AIs and things like that, right? And then, I will not go too much into it, but y'all should read the article. Yeah, no, it was because it's too smart. I would have to read it like 10 times to try to like articulate it properly. But it's kind of like, in like a writer's point of view, like, if you go up to someone and then give them a keyboard and tell them, this is my idea, can you write it for me? And it would be like a similar concept. Like, you wouldn't be the one creating it. It would be someone else creating it. It's someone else just recycling a bunch of other someone else's things rather than creating it themselves.

Lilly:10:37

Yeah, absolutely. No, that sounds really interesting. I know what you mean sometimes. And you're trying to describe an article and you're like, I'm not doing it justice. Just go, just go read it.

Sara:10:48

So genre definitions vary very broadly from person to person, or they can vary broadly from person to person. Can you tell our listeners what genre you would consider I. M. I. and why?

Ai:11:00

I would say like dystopian cyberpunk, because it does kind of depict a society where it's very high tech, like at least higher than what it would be here, but it's very focused and centered on kind of like technology dominating their world and the people within it. But it's very funny. that you asked me about genre because I was recently having this conversation with a friend of mine. I'm not sure if both of you have read my story Give Me English before, but it's also kind of like cyberpunk and it's basically about a society where people use language as currency. But then there was like an argument for like, if you cannot explain the science, would it be still considered science fiction?

Lilly:11:46

Interesting.

Ai:11:48

Yeah, so then I would consider I. M. I. sci fi, but then in like that definition, if I can't like explain all her, you know, cybernetic implants and things like that, would it still be sci fi?

Lilly:12:02

I don't think, well, personally, I don't think you have to be able to describe the tech for it to be science fiction. Then it's just an essay. That is just a science essay. But I don't know. I think this story ticks. Well, cyberpunk is sort of a subset of science fiction, right? It's like a, a separate subgenre. But for me, in my opinion, You know, you have that conversation between, like, augmentation and identity, that's like the central thrust of this book, which is so important to cyberpunk. And then of course the setting has this, like, overreaching, capitalistic, awful company, which also feels very cyberpunk to me. So I think, I think it ticks all the boxes. It also felt like a very small glimpse of a much wider world. Were there any details that didn't make it onto the page?

Ai:12:50

I feel like the thing about world building is you can hint at a lot of things without putting in a lot of things. And I feel like whenever I am writing, I always want to put everything in it. But there is like never space for anything. So I will mention specific things about the world, like very briefly just to show that they are there, but I won't like go into depth. about it, but it definitely has a much bigger world because I've only like really focused on one small community of it. But if I ever do go back, I think I'll explore like the different parts of it.

Sara:13:27

Yeah, I was actually just about to ask, like, do you have any plans to return to this world?

Ai:13:33

I feel like most of my sci fi have like very interconnected world building, like the part about the roaches. They will appear in my first novel, and then there will be other beings that are similar to them. So, I do plan on revisiting, but not, like, in specifically the same world, but maybe in, like, a slightly alternate reality slash altered history type of thing.

Lilly:14:00

Well, I can't wait to find out more about that. Very mysterious.

Ai:14:03

Oh.

Lilly:14:04

Zooming out a little bit, who are your current favorite authors and do you have any specific influences?

Ai:14:12

Let me, let me open my list. I mean, the first ones that would come to mind, obviously Ted Xian read his article, has to be a favorite. Kazuo Ishiguro, I'm not sure if you've read Never Let Me Go, very good by the way, highly recommend it. Ursula K. Le Guin, Shirley Jackson, I am missing someone, someone very important, I am sure. Let me look at my Goodreads profile.

Lilly:14:42

You don't have to give an exhaustive list. We can just assume there's more.

Ai:14:46

Yes, yes. Please do assume that there's more but those are I think like the ones that immediately come to my mind

Sara:14:54

What's one thing that you love about the current state of SFF and horror, and one thing that you wish you saw more of?

Ai:15:01

I feel like like there has been a lot more representation and diversity and SFF and horror but especially horror as of Recently because in the past I feel like it was a very much West dominated field like you can see it in Like the demographics that would attend the conventions in the awards list things like that But then now it's like a lot more diverse, which is nice to see I feel like there is always improvement There can always be more but I feel like I would like to see things that are even more experimental and risk taking, I would say, especially in, like, books that are more traditionally published, I feel like small indie presses are doing a very good job in, like, making space for, like, More niche sub genres and stories and like more transgressive work, whereas like larger publishers may not take as much of a risk on these works. Or even if they do, maybe they won't market it as much as some of their like safer works.

Lilly:16:07

Yeah, absolutely. Especially, I feel like the novella space also has a lot of room for experimentation.

Ai:16:14

Mm hmm.

Lilly:16:14

With the shorter work, I feel like you can take so many more risks, because the reader doesn't have to be on board for as long. I don't know, when you pick up a book that's like 600 pages long, it's like, oh, you better make this worth my time.

Ai:16:29

That is true. But I've also heard like the opposite of argument where Yeah, where they're like, okay, but if I pay 30 for 600 pages versus if I pay 20 for a hundred, you know, but I'm like, okay, but they are both complete stories. You gotta, you gotta think about them as complete things.

Lilly:16:48

Mm hmm. I mean, by that metric, everyone should just only watch the Lord of the Rings movies.

Sara:16:56

mean, I like, I definitely think that you get more bang for your buck if you buy a 600 story, but that doesn't mean that you're getting a better story, a 600 page story.

Lilly:17:07

I was gonna say, that depends on your definition of bang.

Sara:17:09

Yeah, but like, it doesn't, you're getting more pages, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're getting a better story. And certainly I think it's a lot easier, like you were saying, Lily, it's a lot easier to experiment when you're writing something short, because the reader doesn't have to devote so much time to something that maybe it turns out they don't like, or that's weird and off kilter in a way that doesn't work for them.

Lilly:17:34

Or even if it's just hard. I mean, House of Leaves comes to mind. I don't know if either of you have tried to read that book. I've tried a couple of times, and I always get like a quarter of the way into it. And it's weird and cool and fun. But it is so just difficult to read because of the crazy formatting things and everything that, like, while I appreciate what the author is doing, I just can't, can't finish it. It's too long.

Ai:17:59

I feel that in my soul. I think I'm in like the first three pages and I'm still like, the text is so small and the page is so big. And I have to multitask and think about ripping the page because the page is so thin.

Lilly:18:14

Yeah, and then you start getting, like, to the part where there's the blue squares where the text is printed backwards and you're like, oh no.

Ai:18:22

oh,

Lilly:18:22

It gets weirder.

Ai:18:25

I mean, it is cool though. And I like the fact that something so experimental got so much like mainstream press. For it that it kind of like paves way for other people who want to do something similar to like be able to say, Oh, I have like this comp, you know, it does sell kind of thing, but it is definitely a read for people who are like, into this niche.

Lilly:18:49

yeah. I, like, I really appreciate what it's doing. I like the concept, but it's just a lot of work for a really long book. Well, before we get into the spoiler conversation, I actually have a question for Sarah. Sarah, who should read this book, this novelette?

Sara:19:09

You should read this novelette if you are looking for something short with a cyberpunk setting that raises questions about AI's place in art.

Lilly:19:20

The remainder of this episode contains minor spoilers. So, while you were writing this story, were there any scenes or things that surprised you about it?

Ai:19:35

I think the part where Hermes is an artist, that was actually added later on. And I feel like whenever I'm writing things I don't realize what exactly I am doing until after the fact. And I reflect on, like, what I've added, why I've added it. Because when I'm writing it, sometimes I, myself, don't know why I've added this specific thing. Until later, I'm like, Oh, actually, it does fit the theme very well. I don't really need to tinker with it. But, like, it made me think of the fact that my mom is an artist, so it makes sense that I made one of the characters an artist. And like the way how AI has been affecting artists in general, you know, like a lot of people have been trying to make their own AI covers, own AI art and kind of replacing human artists because of it. And the cover of I am I is actually hand drawn by my mom, which was a pretty cool thing. So she like hand painted it on canvas and then we took a picture of it and then we kind of like color adjusted it to make it. Look more like cyberpunky and then I put it through like procreate and add it on like the tech element So I was just thinking about the fact that you lose kind of a lot of these Collaborative things when you use AI, you know what? I mean when people say like, oh, yeah, like I collaborated with AI but I'm like but like

Sara:20:59

Did you really though?

Ai:21:01

did you really do any collaboration at all? You know what I mean? It's like not the same as when you're like human to human going back and forth with their ideas and creating something that's like based on both of your artistic visions and also your experiences in life that goes into it. I think I, like, went off on a tangent, but you know,

Sara:21:23

No, that was, that was great though. Kind of the same vein. How different is the final product from the first draft?

Ai:21:29

I think the first draft was something like 7, 500 words, and then the final draft is like 12, 500, which I guess if I'm, like, talking to, like, readers about this, like, readers listening, they might not think anything about, like, the word counts. It might not mean anything to them, but then it, does mean like a lot more emotional core was added in afterwards. Not as much world building because I feel like during my first few drafts I really focused on the world building and let the emotional aspects slack and then afterwards I added in a lot more, like, connections between I and her community, I and Hermes, and, like, the other characters.

Lilly:22:12

One of the sort of through lines in this story is I, working as a ghostwriter and having to compete with AI writers in this industry, and so there's that tension there of the competition, but then also Her constantly augmenting herself and sort of wanting to become more like the AIs that she's competing with and that sort of back and forth was fascinating to me. It didn't feel like it really landed. I don't know. I liked that there was still that sort of gray area for her throughout the whole story. There wasn't a question there, I just liked it.

Ai:22:50

like, I'm back. I mean, it's, it's funny that you mention it because, like, it is very much reflective of a struggle I also had when I was a ghostwriter. But obviously, I can't really augment myself, but like, I would attempt to I pressed something. Can you still hear me?

Sara:23:09

We can still hear you.

Ai:23:10

See, if I was like an actual cyborg, this would be issues all day. I'd be like, Oh, my, you know, audio is not functioning or something. But when I was working as a ghostwriter, I would try to push myself like and work past the hours I was supposed to work and stay up past the hours I was supposed to stay up and getting like two, three hours of sleep a day, or maybe like in a 60 hour time span, I'll take like two one hour naps or something like that, which is not very healthy for a human. And then I always found myself thinking while I was like doing the work, I'm like, Oh, what if I just like didn't need to eat this? would go so much faster or like what if I didn't have this like really annoying, you know, like heart acceleration when I drink too much coffee, that would be great, you know, or like the brain fog, things like that.

Lilly:24:02

So is there anything, well, I think I might be able to guess your answer, that you want readers to take away from this story after reading it?

Ai:24:09

Hold on to your humanity friends and don't overwork yourself.

Lilly:24:16

Yeah, self care. Hermes tries. She tries to convince Ai to take care of herself a little more. I think she got through to her at the end.

Ai:24:24

I feel like we Like especially society now favors productivity over everything else, you know, and they would like rather us be able to be super efficient and kind of like use that as a model, you know, the very young and very efficient worker, look at them, you should be like that. But of course, not everyone can be like that, right? We all have like different health situations, or like financial situations, home situation. And I feel like To be successful, you need to be healthy first. I say that, but

Sara:24:57

I mean, I don't, I don't think you can do work if you don't take care of yourself first,

Ai:25:01

Mm-Hmm?

Lilly:25:02

I mean, taking that one step further, a person's value is not just what they can produce. Yes.

Sara:25:07

that too.

Lilly:25:08

But that might be asking too much.

Sara:25:11

Like you said, it's, it's pretty short, but there's, there's a lot of content in there. I mean, like Lily was saying, it's really interesting that through line of competing with AI versus becoming the AI and just how I think society devalues the individuality that, that we can bring.

Lilly:25:28

There was that one customer though, the one client that fires her after she gets rid of her heart because the work that she's producing isn't interesting anymore. I thought that was a nice touch.

Ai:25:39

Oh,

Lilly:25:40

The drawbacks, the immediately apparent drawbacks. Well, Ai, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. It was wonderful getting a chance to talk to you and learn a little bit more about this story. You mentioned a full length novel. Is there anything you can share about current projects or anything our listeners can keep an eye out for?

Ai:26:00

So I do have a novella Duology coming out with Titan Books in 2025, which is basically a play on nature versus industrialism, but both of them are personified and are being forced into marriage. In this book,

Lilly:26:20

Ooh.

Sara:26:21

That sounds intriguing.

Ai:26:24

so there's that, and I have to, so the first book is done, and I have to write the second book of it, and it's giving me very much like Avatar Last Airbender vibes, but like with a bit more steampunk.

Lilly:26:40

Awesome.

Ai:26:41

So there's that, yeah. And then the first novel, I am hopefully going on sub with that soon, but it is also kind of like, dystopian, but also post apocalyptic, and mixed with solar punk, which is an interesting mix, and inspired by Chinese opera traditions, so I'm very excited about that one. Thank

Sara:27:03

sounds like fun.

Lilly:27:04

Yeah.

Ai:27:05

you.

Sara:27:05

Can you tell our listeners where you can be found on the internet so that they can buy your books, get news for when these novellas and novels come out?

Ai:27:15

So you can, well, this place is wildfire now, but you can find me on x at ijung underscore and then basically everywhere else that's floating about now under my name and also my website is also my name. ca and yeah, that's it. That's about it. Just type my name and you should probably be able to find me.

Lilly:27:40

Awesome.

Sara:27:41

Thank you so much. This has been just an absolute delight chatting with you.

Ai:27:46

So thank you so much for having me again and for talking to me about my book, which like, you know, I feel like authors always have such anxiety about and loathe, but we have to do it and then we love it in the end anyways.

Lilly:27:59

Well, I'm glad you came around to the loving it side.

Ai:28:02

Yes.

Sara:28:03

I mean, promoting yourself is hard.

Ai:28:06

And it's award season, so I'm just sitting here like, the world is burning and I'm supposed to promote myself.

Sara:28:17

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly:28:21

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Sara:28:33

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Lilly:28:41

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Sara:28:47

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!