Guy Morris on Artificial Intelligence, the AI Tsunami & the Future of Humanity

[00:00:00] Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity, storytelling, and the unpredictable path of the creative life all collide. I'm your host, Erin Egnatz. Erin Egnatz Hello and welcome to Plot Twist Radio. Erin Egnatz Well, thank you so much for inviting me. Erin Egnatz It's great to have you. Before we get going, can you introduce yourself to the audience? Erin Egnatz Okay. Thank you very much. I'm an eclectic individual, really. I started off as a homeless runaway. I wound up working with migrant workers for a number of years.

[00:00:29] Erin Egnatz Then I got a chance to go to college, and I saw that as a chance to change my stars. Erin Egnatz So I put everything I was into it, ended up with four degrees. I got a scholarship to get to Harvard. I was able to get an MBA. Erin Egnatz I developed a macroeconomic model that outperformed all economic models in the world at the time and changed how we build economic models to this day. Erin Egnatz A nerd was born. And so I spent 40 years in Fortune 500.

[00:00:58] Erin Egnatz I was working with a lot of companies like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, doing lots of other nerdy things. Erin Egnatz And learning a lot of things about the world, about technology, about power in oil, power in technology, and power in people that want more. Erin Egnatz And retired early because I felt like the world was, there was a number of things I wanted to say and wanted to write about that I couldn't really do freely when I was an employee.

[00:01:25] Erin Egnatz And so I had to kind of make the decision, said, well, do I have, you know, the question is when do you retire? Erin Egnatz And the question I had to ask is, well, how much is enough? Erin Egnatz And my wife and I decided that for a number of reasons, health wise, mental wise, that better for me to kind of take a step back and retire early. Erin Egnatz And since then I've become an author. And so since 2020, I've published four multiple award-winning thrillers that have been compared to Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, Robert Dudlems, James Rawlings, and others.

[00:01:55] Erin Egnatz And I've just released two non-fictions this year, one called The AI Tsunami, A Survival Guide for Humanity. Erin Egnatz And the one that'll come out next month is called The AI Tsunami. Erin Egnatz Let me go backwards. Erin Egnatz The prophecy analytics, how to discern prophecy in plain sight with mathematical validation. Erin Egnatz And the one that'll come out next month is The AI Tsunami, A Survival Guide for Humanity. Erin Egnatz I need to drink more caffeine. Erin Egnatz You're fine. I do too. Don't worry.

[00:02:22] Erin Egnatz So that is impressive. You going from nonfiction to fiction. I started in nonfiction and moved my way over to fiction. Do you prefer to write one versus the other or do you like writing both? Erin Egnatz I prefer fiction. And now my fiction is saturated with fact. So when you're reading my fiction, you're getting a lot of information. Matter of fact, the two non-fictions I wrote were to support some of the claims and some of the things I was talking about.

[00:02:52] Erin Egnatz So my fictional books deal with the convergence of artificial intelligence, the growing power of it. I'm an expert. I've been dealing on and off with the technology for decades. It's been a long time coming. Erin Egnatz And the corruption of our geopolitical systems, which I got a glimpse into at the CEO level, sitting in the board and consulting for the government and everything else.

[00:03:12] Erin Egnatz And then prophecy in plain sight. And that was based on a personal obsession that I had trying to decode biblical end time prophecies in a way that removed a lot of the religious bias and dogma and other things and got it down to, can it be verified at a mathematical level?

[00:03:31] Erin Egnatz So I started in the fiction primarily because I loved what Michael Crichton did. Michael Crichton was a medical doctor who really had issues with cloning and DNA manipulation. Erin Egnatz But instead of writing a very intellectual, very, I'm sure, well thought out, well reasoned white paper or article or book to other doctors and physicians saying, what are we doing? We're which we should do this differently.

[00:04:01] Erin Egnatz He wrote Jurassic Park. He turned it into a narrative and said, what can go wrong? Let's illustrate it rather than talk about it. Erin Egnatz And in authoring, they had this saying called, you know, show, don't say. Right. And it's the ability to illustrate for the reader. Why is that a bad idea? What could go wrong? Erin Egnatz What happens when you combine advanced technologies with human hubris, greed and pride? And the result is always disastrous.

[00:04:29] Erin Egnatz And so my books really kind of take that same approach, but apply it to the AI tsunami, the political corruption that we're seeing, and even the spiritual corruption that we're seeing on the world today. Erin Egnatz And try to draw it and rather than take it to a angry deity coming to destroy humanity kind of mentality, bring it back to we're responsible for ourselves. Erin Egnatz We're responsible for setting our own destruction up. Erin Egnatz And drawing back some conclusions and thought-provoking questions from our readers to say, where are we going and how are you going to play it?

[00:04:59] Erin Egnatz You know, my day job, I work in education. So we have all those academic journals like you were talking about. He could have went that route, but it's not going to reach the populace as he did with Jurassic Park. It's a brilliant idea. Erin Egnatz Yeah. Erin Egnatz And so, and matter of fact, when my first book came out in 2020, Swarm, and The Last Ark, it was a sequel to that. And the latest one is The Image, which came out last year.

[00:05:22] When I first started talking about AI and advanced weapons systems and mass surveillance and deep fakes and all of the things that we're now starting to really realize, oh my gosh, that's a real thing. I knew it was a real thing or would soon be a real thing on the horizon. But when I first published the book, people thought I was writing science fiction. I had to kind of convince my readers that said, no, I'm writing this book because this is actually happening in the real world today.

[00:05:48] Sure enough, two years later, chat GPT hit the market and the world went, oh my God, this is real. And so, I've been trying to write a little bit ahead of the curve. I'm trying to write from the lab level forward. And if I'm writing a couple of years in advance, to try and bring some of these things that you're not seeing today into your awareness. And talk about who's doing it, why they're doing it, and whether we should be doing it.

[00:06:15] And if it does happen, which it will happen, AI will happen, it will become smarter than humans, bad things will happen. How do we react to that as individuals? Now, in my narratives, I have my protagonists and they have to deal with the crisis that are being thrown off by all of this political crisis and AI power and everything else. But they always bring it back to, it's not about the technology.

[00:06:43] We have to make this about re-asserting our humanity. And I think as an overall theme, that's my overall theme, that we can't make the AI tsunami about the technology. We have to bring it back and root our response in our humanity. Absolutely. And you bring up a really good point because to us, it seems like AI really just smacked us in the face and here it is. But as you said, it's been behind the scenes for a long time.

[00:07:11] Same month I was born was the very first conference of AI at Dartmouth University. Really? In 1956. Long before many of your audience was even conceived. We've been working on this technology. Now, people don't realize how complex this is. And so we've been working on different pieces of the technology with the idea that we're going to make intelligent machines as intelligent as humans since 56.

[00:07:38] Now, the goal in 56 is that they would do it in a lifetime. And you know what? They did. My lifetime. We're here. We've achieved this. And before Iville, we're going to achieve AGI. And so the transition has been from, but it's not something new. We've been, I talk about it in my book, The AI of Tsunami. This is something we've been trying to do for thousands of years to create a humanoid version of ourselves that can respond on command.

[00:08:04] It's our, it's almost like our God-given need to replicate ourselves and then turn it into a slave. It's the oddest human thing that we've ever seen, but we keep trying to do it and we're finally going to succeed. The question I keep asking is, is that really a good thing? We've been the smartest thing on the planet for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. What happens?

[00:08:30] Do we really know what that transition is going to look like when we're not the smartest thing on the planet anymore? I'm not sure we do. I don't think so either. Yeah, yeah. We don't really think about it. We, and we're so reliant on technology. So we're letting it kind of sneak up on us here, I guess. Well, that's part of the warning. That's part of the warning. So the reason I'm writing the books is to try and help people really kind of get in touch with, first off, the technology is not the real danger.

[00:08:58] We try to make it all of our, all of our science fiction, you know, the iRobot. Every time we get the technology that becomes as smart as we are, it figures out that we're the problem on the planet and it tries to dominate us. That's always a possibility. But I'm trying to take a different approach. I'm trying to take a more nuanced approach. Technology is neither evil nor is it benign. But we are, it's trying to reflect humanity and we're both.

[00:09:24] So what I'm trying to say is that the technology will be human in that sense, evil and benign, but amplified. Amplified in its speed, amplified in its power, amplified in its capabilities. So that brings us into a very much more mixed kind of scenario to look forward to. And so it's, it's been from a, from a narrative perspective, it's a lot of fun to explore those things, to explore how a super intelligent AI would.

[00:09:52] For example, in my book, The Image, we look at how it would explore certain experiments to create a mini black hole to prove a fifth dimension. In the book, The Last Ark, we explore two genuine, authentic Arks of the Covenant that not only still exists today, but have resurfaced in, and are in play today. New stories never really covered in the U.S. media. And so it's looking at these things and trying to interpret what it means relative to the overall theme of prophecy is not about a deity coming to destroy humanity.

[00:10:22] It's a warning of how humanity will come to destroy itself. And so as we look at a third temple scenario, the Ark is a real key part of that scenario. It not only raises the plausibility that it could happen, or even already has happened, which caused the Gaza war. But it's looking at what are the probabilities, what are the, of all of these things occurring in a single generation? What is it telling us about the time that we live and how we should respond?

[00:10:50] So it gets, always gets back to all of these threads really kind of lead us back to, wow, we're living in a very unique time. We need to have unique responses. So true. So when you are writing these books, especially the fiction, how do you balance educating the readers without slowing down the thriller pacing of it? Oh, that's always tough. I have to carefully plot it out.

[00:11:15] Each, there's three major themes in my series, the AI, science, technology theme, the political corruption, you know, geopolitical economic theme, and then the corrupt religious prophecy and plain sight kind of theme. And so before I start writing, I have to sit down and I have to look at the news. I have to try and use my economic training, my business training to say, if I were sitting in this, if I were sitting in the boardroom today, what would I be telling my CEOs to prepare for in five years?

[00:11:43] And think through those scenarios and then think, okay, now what's the story behind those scenarios? What are the kinds of characters pushing those things? And most important, the most important question any thriller writer can write is not only, you have to nail how the world works or the history behind it. All of those things that thriller writer, you've got to get the facts right. And then you take one tiny twist and you say, gee, what could go wrong?

[00:12:12] And then you make it go really, really wrong. And that's where the thrill comes in. That's where you keep the page turning. It says, okay, I got to figure out how he's going to get out of this one. And as a matter of fact, as an author, I'm often trying to figure out, okay, now how am I going to get him out of that one too? I don't know. So I'll spend weeks trying to figure, okay, I painted them into that corner. Now what? Maybe I did too good a job at that corner. But yeah, that's part of it is bringing those themes together.

[00:12:42] So I do a lot of work. I'll spend probably a year or so researching those themes. And then I'll probably spend several months planning out how do they balance each other? And then how do I put that in a plot where it's keeping the action moving? You know, keeping the questions that you need to have answered moving forward. If I answer a question, I got to ask another one. And then once I have a plan that's what I call an 80%, I think there, it's almost impossible to get 100%.

[00:13:11] I'll start writing. And the first draft will go pretty quick, usually within a couple months. And then I start the real work. I start revising and moving and cutting and adding and polishing. And that can take 20, 30, 50 versions. And because I'm trying to connect this dot to that dot, I'm trying to keep it all of this complexity within a format, you know, certain number of word count.

[00:13:41] And I'm trying to polish it so that every time I go through it, I'm looking for what didn't I answer? What's not clear? What's not connected? What could I have said better, you know, from a this perspective and that perspective? And once I take all the perspectives, is the plot good? What about this character art? What about that character's art? What about this theme? Am I clear about what I'm saying at that theme or is it too confusing? Can my wife understand what I'm saying? If not, I have to rewrite it.

[00:14:09] And so it's a process, just like any software process in the real world. You have a concept. You have basic functional components that you build, but they're kind of kludgy and they don't work well together. And then you've got to figure out the user interface. And then you've got to figure out how to stale it. It's a process. And so I never sit down to say, I have a story. I have a, in my head, I have a simple beginning, middle and end. And I can write that story from a character perspective.

[00:14:38] I'm dealing with characters. I'm dealing with global themes. I'm dealing with sensitive topics like politics and religion. And all of that, I take that landmine, that landfield, minefield. And I try to navigate a story around that with characters that you love so much, even though you're laughing at them and yelling at them throughout the book, you have to go back and find out whether they can do next.

[00:15:05] And that to me has been, after spending a career learning how to perfect certain parts of my brain, this has been a joy for me to continue to develop as an individual. And take all of that factual knowledge that I learned and then learn how to turn it into an award-winning narrative. And I'm loving that process. The writing, the research is my number one joy. The writing is my second joy.

[00:15:34] All of the editing, marketing, and promotions and business stuff around the rest of that, they could leave it. But it's got to get done by somebody. And until I get Dan Brown money, I'm going to have to do it. Yes. Yeah. That's my least favorite part, too. As soon as the editor comes in, I want to hide, usually. It's all right. Don't give me your... Whatever you say, that's fine. That's fine. I'm already... At that point, I've already lived with this thing day in and day out for two and a half years.

[00:16:02] And I'm saturated with it. You know, it's like if I... I'll go through the book and there's half the time I'm saying, did I already say that before? Or am I remembering the last time I read this part? You know, and you get to that part where you're just writing in circles and you've got to say, okay, I've got to have somebody, a new set of eyes on this before I can really take it to the next stage. Yes. Yes. Hardest part, but one of the most important. Most important.

[00:16:26] And the other thing I found is that I kept thinking, you know, an editor was a one and done kind of problem. And it took me a couple of books before I realized that no matter how good the editor, no matter how good I can buy an editor, they had to be double proofread and double checked. And sometimes it took two or three editors before you finally got all of the issues taken care of. And that was a learned lesson for me is the difficulty it is to actually clean up a manuscript like that. Yes. Yes. That is very important.

[00:16:55] All of you writers out there definitely listen to that. I just had the one editor when I first came out and I learned a very important lesson about why you need more than what. One of my first reviewers was like, yeah, but I found too many typos. I was like, typos. I just had it edited. I paid lots of money. There couldn't be typos. That's impossible. And I went, I found it was like, oh, crap. Well, the lesson learned. So next edition, next book. So you learn.

[00:17:24] Yeah. It's been great to learn. And I think that we're always happier, healthier people when we're in a process of learning something new. So true. So where can the audience find you and your books? Ah, well, an easy place to start. Obviously, you can go to Amazon, just search Guy Morris. But if you want to learn more, if you want to learn fact versus fiction pages, if you want trailers, if you want links to some of my AI research, go to GuyMorrisBooks.com.

[00:17:52] And that'll link you to Amazon and all the other places. All right. I'll make sure that that is in the show notes. So what's up next for you? Well, after the AI tsunami is coming out next month. So I'm busy trying to work on. I think it's the first book that I've ever had where I'm really going to try and promote it because I think there's a broader market. It's not a narrative.

[00:18:13] It's geared towards individuals and small businesses to help them understand what this tsunami looks like, how this demystify the technology, break it down to some of its common parts that you're using already today and how it's developed. And then talk about both the good, the bad, and the existential ugly. But more important, talk about, okay, so you're an individual. What are your options? How do you plan? How do you take this at this event and not only survive, but thrive?

[00:18:42] And that'll come out. So I'm going to be doing some television and radio interviews to promote that. And in the meantime, I'm working on the next two novels. So the last two books of the Snow Chronicles series that deals with AI, political corruption. I've got two more books to finish that out. And I really want to go back to my archaeological ancient history stories because I love researching those. And so, you know, there's all kinds of stories. There's the Golden Disc out of Peru.

[00:19:12] There's Atlantis. There's all kinds of legends out of Africa and Europe. I'd love to go and research some of those and go back to the narratives around archaeology. The ones with AI and politics are just, even for me, they can be a little intense at times. Yeah. The researching of them, diving into it that immersively on a daily basis. I just want to pull my head back and go, you know, go do the Dan Brown thing and look at art. Absolutely. Yes.

[00:19:42] Well, thank you so much for joining me. This has been very interesting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.