“In Machinehood,  I made a conscious choice to have women of colour as the main characters”: S.B. Divya

Divya: I started reading science fiction at age 10, and I got interested in writing it a few years later after a school assignment inspired me. I dabbled in writing through my teenage years, but after I went to Caltech for college, I was consumed by my studies and then my engineering work. I didn’t write much fiction for about 15 years. I never lost the dream of being an author, though, and I resurrected my interest about 10 years ago with the goal of getting published. I’ve been very fortunate with my journey since then.

Divya: I love seeing pop culture embrace science fiction and fantasy more. The genre has a long history of tackling social issues, and my own stories are no exception. Fiction in any medium is in conversation with the topics of its time, just as authors are products of their time, so I think it’s impossible to tell stories without having some amount of political and cultural influence, whether conscious or not.

Divya: Yes, I think it’s fair to say that Runtime warmed me up for Machinehood. In my head, the world of Runtime is much closer to today, maybe a couple of decades off, whereas Machinehood is set further into the future. Thematically, they definitely have some parallels, especially when it comes to biotechnology and social conflict, but Machinehood has a strong focus on AI that I didn’t get into with Runtime.

Divya: I like to look at cutting edge science and technology developments and think about how they might get integrated into everyday life in the future. The secondary problems then arise from all the various failure modes. For example, in Machinehood, people take daily pills to prevent illnesses, so what happens if something prevents that for a day or a week or a month? To consider bigger and longer-term changes, I consider how I might fill in the time periods between today and when the story takes place. Every action has a consequence, so I can invent a series of stepping stones to arrive at a future with ideas that I find interesting.

Divya: While I think it might one day be possible to build a superintelligence, I don’t believe that intelligence (which is already a very vague term) is sufficient to result in the takeover or replacement of humankind. Ultimately, it’s the core biochemistry of life that compels us to propagate. Unless we build a similar drive into machine intelligence, it will have no desire or inclination to take over. 

My intention with the novel was to poke holes in the usual narrative of the AI bogeyman because I think it’s flawed, overdone, and often a stand-in for xenophobia. Human beings, including the ones behind some of today’s technology, are much more scary.

Divya: It’s pretty easy to “other” a machine intelligence, especially if it doesn’t look like us. We already do this in plenty with other human beings who look, sound, or act in unfamiliar ways. Western religions also espouse human exceptionalism - the idea that we’re special relative to other animals - which plays into the same trap. Fear is an instinctive reaction to the unknown, one that often leads to violence, and this is inherent in every scary-AI story. I acknowledge that this isn’t the only reason people are afraid of artificial intelligence and robots, but I do think it’s a significant factor.

Divya: Yes, I’d agree with that comparison. Asimov’s laws were inspired for their time, but they’re outdated by today’s moral and ethical standards, never mind that they’re impractical to implement. This also ties into the previous question. When we approach a solution from a place of fear, we’re more likely to end up doing harm.

Divya: One of the trends in science fiction and fantasy over the past few decades is increasing representation of characters and stories outside the white, Western canon. I’m really grateful that I started my writing career after a lot of ice had been broken and that I’ve been present as ceilings get smashed. A lot more writers are deliberately trying to diversify the points of view in their stories, and with Machinehood I made a conscious choice to have women of colour as the main characters, which unfortunately is still uncommon in science fiction thrillers. I’m glad to see that trend changing in a positive direction and to contribute to it.

Divya: Thankfully 95 per cent of the response has been very positive. I’ve definitely seen some reviews about how the characters are “unrelatable,” which is often code for “not like me,” and some criticism that I’m trying too hard to “check all the boxes,” but most readers have celebrated the diversity in the book. We are six or seven years out from the Puppy fiasco, and I think it’s clear that they were bucking the trend. I’m happy to see that science fiction and fantasy has rejected their stance.

Divya: Family is an important part of my life, and I feel like it’s often ignored in science fiction, so I’ve made it a point in my stories to emphasize those ties. I think it can make for interesting conflicts and complications for the characters, as much or more so than with friends or “found families.” I’m especially interested in intergenerational and cross-cultural conflict, both of which appear in the novel.

Divya: There is a lot to choose from! A few names are: Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Lavanya Lakshimnarayan, Samit Basu, Vajra Chandrasekara, Vandana Singh, Gautam Bhatia, and Shiv Ramdas. Outside of science fiction, there’s also Mimi Mondal, Priya Sharma, Indrapramit Das, Usman Malik, Nibedita Sen, ML Krishnan, and many others, especially in the world of short stories.

In terms of trends, I’m seeing a lot of cross-genre and cross-cultural science fiction and fantasy, which I love. We’re getting Western readers used to the idea of English stories that aren’t written purely for them, and we’re witnessing a global shift in acceptance toward that. I think it’s still a struggle to get readers in India to recognize the literary merits of genre fiction, but the trend is moving in a positive direction there too, especially with the work that people like Tarun Saint, Manjula Padmanabhan, and Salik Shah are doing.