Episode Details

Ken Liu (born 1976) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Liu has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for his novel translations and original short fiction. Liu's short story "The Paper Menagerie" is the first work of fiction, of any length, to win all of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. Besides his original work, Liu's translation of Liu Cixin's Chinese language novel The Three-Body Problem (the first in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy) won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, making it the first translated novel to have won the award.

He studied English Literature and Computer Science at Harvard College, and graduated from Harvard Law School.

https://kenliu.name/

Steve and Ken discuss: 

00:00 Meet Ken Liu: Acclaimed Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writer

04:25 The Immigrant Experience and Cultural Perspectives

09:22 Harvard, MSFT, HLS, Litigation

15:01 The Art of Storytelling and Technology

34:03 Controversy in AI Reasoning

34:31 Technology Outstripping Science

35:22 AI and the Arts

38:30 The Future of AI in Art

42:44 AI's Role in Creative Processes

50:04 Art, Automation, and Society

57:31 Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy

01:03:06 The Genius of Philip K. Dick

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.

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