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The Current Transcript for January 3, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Persian speaking language]

VOICE 1: Following recent events, the enemies are using all their means, money, policies, and security services to create problems for the Islamic Republic.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: It was almost predictable that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would blame foreign enemies of meddling, as protests across so many Iranian communities continue. After all the leaders of a country changed dramatically by revolution almost 40 years ago knowingly too well how power for anger in the streets can be. And unlike protests of the recent past, these did not begin among the urban middle class of Tehran. This anger first surfaced in rural towns and small cities, among people angry about a lopsided economy that has seen regular people suffering while the clerical elite are enriched. In a moment we'll hear the anger and the analysis. And then economically sideswiped closer to home.

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VOICE 1: I was - I'd say maybe $6,000 deep. Every payday I was here.

VOICE 2: Every time I got paid I would pay it off, and I would get another one.

VOICE 3: An endless cycle. A dead-end.

AMT: The voices of people whose payday loans sucked them into a vortex of climbing interest rates, added fees, and a staggering debt load. As Ontario joins other provinces in lowering the ceiling on interest rates for such loans, we're looking at the problem and new ideas for solutions. That's in half an hour. Also today, hand over control of a Harry Potter story to an AI-generated text and the plot may sicken.

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VOICE 1: Ron was standing there and doing a kind of frenzy tap dance. He saw Harry and immediately began to eat Hermione's family.

AMT: Okay, that didn't work. But novelist Stephen Marche still thought he'd try using an algorithm to write sci-fi - that resulted in a short story with a plot of its own. Not to mention a built-in stubborn and unwavering algorithmic editor. Hear all about his year’s bot-inspired fiction in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

'When it gets to this level of crisis, everything is scary': an Iranian protester speaks

Guest: Iranian protester, Mahsa Alimardani, and Maziar Bahari

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Chanting in unison]

AMT: Sounds of chaos and violence, as people beg security forces not to be anti-government protesters in Iran. The past week has seen the most challenging demonstrations against the Iranian government since the bloody clampdown of the 2009 uprising that became known as the Green Movement. This latest wave of protest began in the last days of December, when a group of Iranians gathered in the country's second largest city to protest dire economic circumstances in the country. What began as seemingly spontaneous rallies about the mounting price of poultry and eggs soon became something bigger, spreading across rural, religious communities and cities. And then to Tehran. Massive protests have now spread across the country also taking aim at the four decades of dictatorial rule by hardline Islamic clerics and calling for an end to their leadership. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broke an almost week-long silence to blame what he called "enemies" for stirring up violent protests. The violence has proven deadly. Reports of 21 people killed so far. We reached a protester in the Iranian capital yesterday who has seen it up close. To protect his safety we are withholding his name. Here's our conversation with translation. Can you tell me when did you join the protests in Tehran?

TRANSLATOR: I started protesting on the Friday, so I joined people on that day and I was mostly on what's called revolution street and on Ferdowsi Avenue. So it's now five days that I've been participating in the protests.

AMT: What is it like on the streets? How many people are out there with you?

TRANSLATOR: There are a lot of people and it's in all pockets of Tehran not just the city centre, so it makes it difficult to give you an exact number. But wherever there are flare-ups I can say thousands of people are there. The day before yesterday the crowd got so large at Ferdowsi square that it was impossible to count the number of people. Wherever there is a pocket of protest people quickly join.

AMT: And what are you seeing around you? How are the authorities reacting? What's happening to the people who protest?

TRANSLATOR: When we are not chanting the plain clothes police and other police don't really do anything. But the moment that people start voicing their demands and chanting they come at us with brutal force. And the riot police will attack us.

AMT: Have you been injured in the last couple of days while protesting?

TRANSLATOR: Yes, I have. A couple days ago in the student Park when the protests started the special forces - riot police - announced that they're breaking up the protest and that's when things got very violent. And I took a couple hits from a baton and they attempted to apprehend some of us by hitting us and then trying to isolate us from the others so they could take us and stop us from voicing our demands.

AMT: Have you seen others getting injured? What kinds of injuries have you seen? What are you seeing happening to other people?

TRANSLATOR: Just today I witnessed a young guy and I'm not sure what the reason was, but I saw plain clothes police attack him and they were able to draw him out of our protest crowd and they began beating him with their batons. They threw him into a car that was waiting. These cars are also not marked, so they're not police cars. I don't know what happened to him. Even his friend who tried to come to his aid was thrown into a car and driven away.

AMT: Why are you protesting? What is it that you want from the government?

TRANSLATOR: It's not just mine. Most people's demands began because of economic reasons. But the reaction and pressure from the special forces and riot police has made us look elsewhere, and to change our demands, and shift our focus to gaining our most basic fundamental rights as people. I hesitate to use the term human rights because really these rights to me are so basic. Civil rights. Free elections. An open society. The government is now saying that these gatherings are illegal but these people don't even give us the right to protest. In all respect we are denied these basic fundamental rights. We don't have the right to choose who we want to represent us. In terms of the economy, everyday unemployment rises. Everyday inflation rises. And all we hear is about the millions of dollars that are being embezzled from this country and these reasons force us to stick to our demands. Also the political prisoners who are in jail who are simply there for speaking their mind.

AMT: I just have one more question for you. I am reading that the head of the Revolutionary Court says, those protesters who are arrested could end up charged with waging a war against God and that would mean the death penalty. What do you make of what they're saying? Does that scare you? Do you think they're trying to scare you?

TRANSLATOR: Of course I'm scared. We're all scared. But the future that we face in this country is no less scary than our present circumstances. When it gets to this level of crisis, everything is scary. Standing your ground is scary. Protesting is scary. But you know what else is scary, silence.

AMT: Thank you for speaking with us. Goodbye. That was an Iranian anti- government demonstrator with whom we spoke yesterday in Tehran. We are withholding his name for his own safety. Translation was provided by The Current's Samira Mohyeddin. Images of the unrest has spread throughout Iran and worldwide through social media platforms such as, Instagram and Telegram. And the Iranian government is watching and reacting. Mahsa Alimardani researches internet freedom in Iran at a UK-based freedom of expression NGO called Article 19. She joins me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: Hi, thanks for having me.

AMT: I should tell you that we tried to reach that man and yesterday and we tried him on Skype first. He was actually trying to get a signal. He was driving around in a car. And then we got him on a cellphone and we were concerned that could be traceable and he told us that was a burner phone. What does that tell you that with that kind of precaution somebody is taking? Does it surprise you?

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: No, it does not surprise me. I know there is this outpouring of tech advice from people on the West. But Iranians have been living under censorship and the prospect of surveillance for years. So I think they're very tech-savvy. They know that they need burner phones. They know that they need to be connected to good VPN.

AMT: How are the Iranian authorities trying to crackdown on the internet and social media in light of these protests?

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: There have been a number of different tactics. I know the Minister of ICT, Jahromi, reached out to Telegram which is hugely popular in Iran and asked them to remove a channel that was providing information about protests and encouraging people to go out onto the streets. And then when eventually they stopped responding to them, they shut down and blocked the only uncensored foreign social media platforms, Telegram and Instagram. And then we've been seeing a number of disruptions occurring across the internet. I think for about half an hour or a few days ago, the internet was completely shut off for a number of people. There's a really great report from the campaign for human rights in Iran about some of the disruptions that the internet exchange points that are occurring inside of Iran. And then some users are also saying that at times especially through their mobile operators they can only connect to local traffic or local content and they can't access foreign websites, so anything that's hosted on servers outside of Iran. A lot of these different strategies are being used to hinder access to the internet.

AMT: Telegram is sort of like a WhatsApp with more channels on it. Is that a good description?

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: Yes. Telegram has a really unique role that I think is in large ways indigenous to Iran. I mean it's kind of spurred it up in other places, Latin America and Russia too. But I think the biggest user base might be in Iran. Iran has an internet penetration rate of about 45 million. So there are 45 million Iranians online in a population of 80 million. And Telegram has somewhere around 40 to 45 million users per month. So it's ubiquitous. If you're online in Iran, you're likely on Telegram. And Iranians use Telegram from everything to talk to their friends and family, to get weather updates, traffic updates from these public channels. And they're following things like BBC Persian's channel or radio [unintelligible] channel, as well as different notable public figures across all political factions. So for information flow, Telegram is very key. It came to this position because it was one of the uncensored platforms in Iran up until a few days ago.

AMT: And so the leadership obviously views it as disruptive if they've started censoring?

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: Yes, I mean a lot of people are asking, "Is Telegram causing protesters to go out onto the streets? Is there a Telegram revolution?" Which is not a smart or intelligent thing to say. But we can't really know what the effect or the significance of telegram is right now for these particular protests. But we can gauge the reaction of the authorities. Telegram has been popular since 2015 but it's only been in the past few days that they've been really cracking down and becoming sensitive towards it.

AMT: Is social media being used differently now than it was in the 2009 post-election demonstrations?

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: In some ways yes and in some ways no. So in 2009 there was this whole discourse of a Twitter revolution that came out, which was retrospectively, very much wrong because Twitter was significant in the way that it was bringing out information for people outside.

AMT: It was helpful for us as opposed to them.

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: Exactly. I think Telegram is a bit different in that it does have a significant user base inside Iran. And so in that way it is helping with the flow of information inside of the country. But the same discourse is coming about that from the government. I mean Khamenei came out yesterday and said, "This is all foreign influence." And the discourse of foreign influence often times coincides with the reasons why they censor these foreign platforms. So it's kind of similar to what they were saying about Twitter and Facebook back in 2009.

AMT: And we do know yesterday that the president of the United States Donald Trump urged Iran to unblock Instagram. What do messages like that do for the Iranian government?

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: I mean it does nothing to help. And the Iranian won Donald Trump talks because I think we all know that there's so much irony when he talks about rights. If anything it just establishes that discourse again of this is all foreign influence. "Donald Trump wants Instagram to be unfiltered?" Well of course. He wants to put his agenda through Instagram that's why.

AMT: So it feeds into that narrative.

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: Yes, it totally fits into it.

AMT: So you're constantly monitoring. What are you learning even today? What you've been seeing today.

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: The last thing - another internet researcher Nariman Gharib got in touch with me to tell me that DigitalOcean, which is this cloud infrastructure that hosts getlantern, and getlantern - sorry not get getlantern that's their handle on Twitter. Lantern the circumvention tool has opened the free services to Iranians and it got publicized a lot in the past few days and so Iran has been cracking down and trying to disconnect Lantern connections. And Lantern is hosted on the DigitalOcean's infrastructure. So they block DigitalOcean to block Lantern, but in turn a lot of local start-ups also rely on DigitalOcean's infrastructure to hold their servers. So they're also blocking all these local businesses that rely on this internet infrastructure which is completely counter-intuitive to what the government needs to be doing to help the economy still. Interesting times in monitoring internet censorship and economic program in the country.

AMT: It may come back to bite them then.

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: Yes.

AMT: Thanks for coming in.

MAHSA ALIMARDANI: No problem.

AMT: That is Mahsa Alimardani. She researches internet freedom in Iran at the UK-based freedom of expression NGO Article 19. She's also a PhD student at the University of Oxford's Oxford Internet Institute. And she joined me in our Toronto studio. Well we want to talk more about the protests in Iran and what it could mean for the future of the government in Tehran. And for that I am joined by Maziar Bahari. He's a Canadian-Iranian journalist and a former political prisoner in Iran. He is the author of "Rosewater: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival." He's also an editor of Iranwire.com. Maziar Bahari joins us from London, England. Hi.

MAZIAR BAHARI: Hi.

AMT: how much of a threat are these protests to the Iranian government?

MAZIAR BAHARI: It is very difficult to know how much of a threat they are because as your first interviewee said, the protesters know what they do not want. But it is very difficult. It has been very difficult for us to establish what they want. I think the government is threatened by the protests because the protests mean that a great number of people across the country in small towns, in very small religious traditional societies are very unhappy with the government. But the protest will not be successful until there is an alternative for this government. So the protesters have to say, what they do not want, but also what do they want instead of this government.

AMT: How do you read the fact that so much of this happened - it began outside of Tehran and began in areas that are very religious and more conservative?

MAZIAR BAHARI: I think the best description of what is happening in Iran came to me from someone I spoke with who lives in the outskirts of the city of Isfahan - in a very poor neighbourhood. And he ironically quoted Ayatollah Khomeini's rhetoric before the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He said that this is the revolution and the movement of people who have nothing to lose. This is the movement of people who are forgotten and the oppressed. This is exactly what Ayatollah Khomeini said about people who always started the demonstrations in in January 1978, which ultimately led to the revolution in February 1979. I'm not saying that this is going to be leading to a revolution in one year time or not. But we can see many similarities between what is happening now and what happened in 1978 when people who were marginalized, people who were poor, people who were ignored by the elite of the society, by the elite of the Shah's regime, and by the intellectual elite came to the streets and chanted slogans against the Shah. What is happening right now is exactly the same thing that people who we don't know, who most of my colleagues and my friends do not know who they are, because we don't have people who are very poor, who have nothing to lose, who walk onto the streets at the moment risking their lives. And they're demanding a change. They're demanding change in their lives. They are asking for end to corruption. End to cronyism. End to nepotism that has been plaguing Iran for the past four decades.

AMT: So that can't be lost on the Ayatollah Khamenei that they're using the same language almost 40 years after the revolution.

MAZIAR BAHARI: Unfortunately, I think it will be lost to Ayatollah Khamenei because the authoritarian rulers are not famous to be great learners of history. Ayatollah Khamenei knows about what happened in 1978 and 1979. Unfortunately for someone in his position, for someone who has been in a position of power who is reaping the benefits of the 1979 revolution. What is happening now has nothing to do with 1979 and I think this kind of disconnect will ultimately lead to the demise of the Islamic Republic.

AMT: Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in an interview that the protest are the birth of a big movement that will go on for a long time and spread across the country. What do you think of her assessment?

MAZIAR BAHARI: It has already spread around the country. I was counting the cities that were involved in the protest two nights ago and I counted 52 cities. Last night someone told me that it's gone up to 70 cities. So it will be very difficult to predict what is going to happen in the next few days, few weeks, or a few months. The government allocate a lot of security and military resources in order to suppress any kind of a space for the protesters to come out and protest. That is possible. The protest may be suppressed for the foreseeable future. But that will mean that the government has to allocate a lot of resources to this and we know what happens. What happened in Soviet Union when that happened that the government just put all its resources into suppressing people.

AMT: Maziar we have to leave it there. But thank you for your insights.

MAZIAR BAHARI: Alright, thank you.

AMT: That is Maziar Bahari. He's a Canadian-Iranian journalist and editor of Iranwire.com. He joined us from London, England. We did reach out to the Iranian Mission at the United Nations, as well as the Iranian Embassy in London and asked them to respond to the events in Iran. We have not heard back. Stay with us. CBC News is next. And then when he needed a little extra help one Christmas after getting sick and losing his job. Robbie McCall took out a $200 payday loan. it took him nine years to pay it off as it kept on climbing to tens of thousands more than that. We'll hear from him about new regulations to protect borrowers in our next half hour. I'm Anna Maria. This is The Current.

AMT: [Music: Adam Goddard]

How a $200 payday loan cost over $31,000

Guests: Robbie McCall, Tony Irwin, and Doug Pawson

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. Still to come Stephen Marche wrote a short story with an unlikely co-author: an algorithm. In half an hour we're putting the algorithm-created story to the test with a real human editor, and asking if robots can write better than we can. But first the high price of payday loans.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We came to find around Christmas time in 2014 that the local payday lenders were targeting people to cash in their gift certificates for grocery stores and retail outlets that were typically given out by our social agencies at 50 percent face value. We felt that this was completely unethical to take gifts that they had been given to be cashed-in at half the value. When we started to look at this industry across the city, we begin to see the collective impact it was having on our low-income residents. People would take out these short-term loans that over the course of the year would add up to 546 percent interest, which is almost like extortion.

AMT: That's Hamilton, Ontario city councillor Matthew Green, talking about the impact of payday loan companies in his community. He has been at the forefront of that municipality's push to regulate such companies, which offer quick, small, short-term loans to cover a borrower's needs until their next paycheck comes in. Hamilton now requires payday loan companies to clearly post the actual annual interest rates that people end up paying when they sign up for a loan. They're also are required to offer credit counselling information to each customer. This city is not the only place cracking down on payday loans. As of this week, Ontario has lowered the cap on how much companies can charge for loans. It's now at $15 per $100 loan. Other provinces have similar caps. But even so, interest rates can still add up to more than 200 percent a year. Quebec long ago said nothing could climb higher than 35 percent, which has essentially driven payday loans out of the province. The companies offer to cash checks and transfer money. They do not offer payday loans in Quebec. However, those who use the loans often say it's the only option they have after banks turned them down. Robbie McCall began using payday loans when he had to stop walking because of his health and he had trouble making ends meet with disability cheques. Robbie McCall is in Ottawa. Hello.

ROBBIE MCCALL: Good morning.

AMT: When did you first take out your first payday loan?

ROBBIE MCCALL: Nine years ago, almost to the day.

AMT: And what was it for?

ROBBIE MCCALL: It was actually for a pair of jeans for my daughter for Christmas.

AMT: How much money did you take out?

ROBBIE MCCALL: $200.

AMT: And how long did it take you to pay it off?

ROBBIE MCCALL: Nine years.

AMT: Nine years.

ROBBIE MCCALL: Nine years.

AMT: Why?

ROBBIE MCCALL: When I went to pay them back, the first one was actually for $20. And disability - January I am on a limited income, right? So paying it back I was left with no money. I had no choice but to re-borrow.

AMT: And then the fees started adding up?

ROBBIE MCCALL: The fees started. Because of the fees I went to another payday lender. I borrowed from them another $100, the following month an extra $100, and the following month an extra $100. It was $100 extra every month to pay the fees off. On a limited income I couldn't get ahead of it. It didn't take long before I was handing over my whole cheque and running from one payday lender to another payday lender. Until my anxiety got so bad that I had to talk to somebody. I first started talking to my doctor about it and prescribed me anti-anxiety and depression pills for the end of the month. Into a couple of years, I didn't even want to get out of bed. At the end of the month the stress was very high.

AMT: At one point you were living alone. Your daughter had moved on. You still had this big debt. What did you do? How did you pay your rent?

ROBBIE MCCALL: Well I kept the facade on for my daughter for about 3 years until she moved out. She didn't know the financial crisis I was in. Just trying to pay the rent and keep food on the table. After my daughter moved out about three and a half years after this payday lenders started. I forgo rent for food. I eventually got kicked out. I started squatting in a house and stealing electricity from the neighbours until a friend of mine found out exactly what kind of condition I was in physically and emotionally. He was nice enough to offer me his basement. It needed renovations, so for in lieu of rent, I would renovate his apartment and he capped my rent. He said my rent would never go up. You know it was a fantastic deal for me. But without that and without a part time job, there's no way of getting out of these payday lenders and predatory lenders. I reached out to ACORN and ACORN was amazing at trying to get the message out there. CBC also, getting the message out there.

AMT: What's ACORN?

ROBBIE MCCALL: ACORN is a volunteer group - poor people trying to help poor people, right?

AMT: You calculated what you paid in interest and fees over those nine years. What did it come to?

ROBBIE MCCALL: $31,752.

AMT: That's staggering.

ROBBIE MCCALL: It is. It's a new car. It's a Mercedes.

AMT: And you had no idea when you took out that $200 that it would turn into that?

ROBBIE MCCALL: No idea. Absolutely none. For four years I was chasing my tail, trying to get ahead of it. And it took me about three and a half years to finally pay - I just finished paying it off.

AMT: What did that feel like?

ROBBIE MCCALL: It felt amazing. Actually one of your listeners who listened to the predatory lenders in Ottawa offered to help me at zero interest and I was able to pay her back. She ended up paying my loan for me and I was able to pay her back without the item fees - without the cashing my cheque fees. It was possible in the end. But it was a long, long road.

AMT: Why did you go to a payday loan company instead of the bank?

ROBBIE MCCALL: Well, I fell on hard times. I lost my job due to health complications. I was in good standing with my bank. I held a mortgage. I had a line of credit - overdraft protection. I was my banks best friend when I had a job. When I went in there and explained to them I wanted to stay in good standing and that I had lost my job, I needed the insurance I had taken out on my credit cards because I couldn't pay the credit cards. They honoured the credit card insurance. But they also took away my overdraft protection. They took away my line of credit. They closed my chequing. They put a hold on all my cheques going in, including government cheques. They would hold for 10 days. It was basically a slap in the face. I couldn't turn to anybody. I have a very small family and we're not that rich.

AMT: So you had no choice.

ROBBIE MCCALL: Yes, no choice.

AMT: We contacted the Canadian Bankers Association to ask about this kind of situation. I am going to read you part of what they sent us. This is a statement and I'm quoting: "99 percent of Canadians have a bank account or an account with a financial institution. This demonstrates banks in Canada offer accessible and convenient financial products in a regulated and trusted environment that can meet the needs of a vast majority of Canadians. These include small, short-term loans and credit options that are a fraction of the cost of a payday loan. Canada's banking sector is deeply committed to working with clients who are facing financial difficulty. It's important to remember there are always better, more holistic options to helping someone struggling with debt than providing them with more debt or credit." That's the end of the quote.

ROBBIE MCCALL: Well, I asked my ODSP worker when my bank closed me down. Now ODSP and welfare in Ottawa, they deal with the Royal Bank. I went to the Royal Bank and asked them to provide me a low interest or a bank account with an overdraft protection or moderate to low NSF fees, if possible. Their answer to me was, "No, absolutely not. You're on ODSP. ODSP takes care of that."

AMT: That's the Ontario Disability Support Program.

ROBBIE MCCALL: It gives me a card that's an RBC prepaid card. So now when I use my prepaid card I get an item fee because it's considered a credit card. Although it's not a credit card, it's considered a credit card in stores. A lot of stores, a lot of smaller stores, ask for an extra $1 or an extra $3 on top of the $1.80 that the banks charge. So even a $2 pack of gum is going to cost you $5 with all of the fees.

AMT: Ontario has new rules governing payday loans - capping interest at $15 on every $100. What do you think of that?

ROBBIE MCCALL: It's a good start. Not far enough. ACORN would like to see the criminal code lower to a maximum interest rate of 30 percent from 60 percent. Why can't we create a real time national tracking system or a database to help stop payday, rollover loans. There's no database out there. I went from Money Mart, to payday lenders, to cash lenders, to money stop. In a one-kilometre stretch - in the low-income area in Ottawa - there are 22 visible payday lenders. In a one-kilometre stretch, that's a bit much.

AMT: Okay, Robbie McCall thank you for telling me your story. I'm going to raise some of those issues with our next guest. Thank you.

ROBBIE MCCALL: Thank you.

AMT: Robbie McCall, former user of payday loan companies. He joined us from our Ottawa studio. The payday loan industry is adapting to new regulations in provinces across the country. It is a progress according to Tony Irwin. He's the President and CEO of the Canadian Consumer Finance Association, formerly known as the Canadian Payday Loan Association. The association represents 961 retail financial services outlets providing smart-sum, short-term credit, including payday loans. Tony Irwin joins us from Hamilton, Ontario. Hello.

TONY IRWIN: Good morning.

AMT: I have to ask you why changed the name?

TONY IRWIN: Well we changed the name because, really, it was a case where our industry is evolving as you're talking about on your program this morning. Our member companies provide a range of services, much more than just loans.

AMT: It makes you sound friendlier.

TONY IRWIN: [Laughs] Well, thank you. I'm a friendly guy.

AMT: Okay. How do you respond to Robbie McCall said? He goes for $200, it becomes $31,000.

TONY IRWIN: Well, Mr. McCall obviously has faced some significant challenges in his life and that's certainly something that we should all think about - sort of as a society. People who are facing those sorts of challenges on a daily basis. But in terms of our industry, Mr. McCall's story, while an important one, is not certainly one that the majority of our customers experience. Most people payday borrows probably access loans four to six times a year. They come in, get a loan, and pay it back their next payday. For a situation that they've experienced where they're unable to receive credit or help from other sources, and then they're able to move on with their lives.

AMT: If it's so unlikely, why all those fees? Why do they get so high if that's so extraordinary?

TONY IRWIN: Well, I've not heard of a circumstance quite like Mr. McCall's in terms of the numbers that he is talking about.

AMT: But you know that the rollover loans - they keep climbing and that the fees get added on. You know that people face that.

TONY IRWIN: Well, obviously. Sure, I mean in terms of the fees that our members obviously charge, the fees that the province sets out and regulation, the cost is a fee-based loan, and then of course there are other fees that can accrue if a loan goes into default. But our members are in this business because they want to help their customers. They want to help them in times of need. If someone is in a situation where they're unable to repay their loan on time, many of our members will work with them; work at some kind of alternate arrangement so that they don't have to face all these fees that Mr. McCall did. That's certainly is the experience I hear every day from members and from people who use the service because that's what member companies want to do each and every day.

AMT: The current prime is what - 3.2 percent right now. Why are interest rates so higher at all?

TONY IRWIN: Well it's because this product is an expensive one to provide. And there are numerous reasons for that. You spoke about the locations that we have - paying employees. All of the costs that go into supporting a large retail network. In addition of course there are other costs such as, IT and cost of capital. Certainly our members are going to banks and accessing money from banks to then lend to their customers. So we're paying a premium for that capital. Our customers in general are higher risk. So there are default rates that apply.

AMT: Would you ever take a loan at that rate? Would you ever sign up for a loan at those rates?

TONY IRWIN: If I found myself in a situation where my bank, as Mr. McCall talked about, wouldn't help me if I needed help. I need to feed my kids. I have three daughters and two step-sons. If I had nowhere else to turn, would I go to it? Sure, absolutely. If it was either that or not being able to put food on the table or pay my rent or keep my lights on, I absolutely would use it.

AMT: So what do you think about the new regulations on your industry?

TONY IRWIN: We worked with the Ontario government on this for about four years and provided feedback and input into potential changes. One of them is that the government is moving forward is an extended payment plan. That's something that the industry recommended. And so how that works is, if a borrower in Ontario's case now as they've defined it, takes out third loan within 63 days, that third loan will be taken and divided by three and spread over your next three paydays instead of one. We think that really is responsible regulation. It helps borrowers who in that situation are unable to repay that loan. They need additional time and now they'll get that. It will help them to be able to manage their finances better, make those payments, and then get on with their lives.

AMT: Alberta introduced legislation to cap interest at $15 for every $100 lended. It's called An Act to End Predatory Lending. How has the industry fared under those changes in Alberta?

TONY IRWIN: It's been very difficult. And [unintelligible] was one of the parts of the change. The other thing that Alberta did that's different from Ontario is they changed every loan into instalment loan. So they changed the term from sort of a payday loan. So typically two weeks to six weeks. And that's been a challenge for us because it fundamentally changes the product. It changes how it works. It increases capital requirements significantly. It's definitely been a challenge. There are a lot of stores that have closed in Alberta. Some of our members have withdrawn the product. But in Alberta's case, you mentioned the name of the act; their clear intention was to extinguish the product. They were quite clear about that.

AMT: They're not the only ones who call it predatory lending. We heard our last guest say that.

TONY IRWIN: Sure. But the point I just wanted to make though is that while Alberta stated that they intended to extinguish the product, Ontario has not said that. Ontario has recognized this product. There is a need. There are many people who have no other options. So they have brought forward regulations, hopefully, in attempt to find the right balance between ensuring consumers are protected, but allowing for the industry to remain viable. And that's certainly the industry's hope as we move forward.

AMT: What do you think of that term? "Predatory Lending."

TONY IRWIN: [Laughs] it's not one that I like. Not one that I think is a fair representation of what this industry does. And the assistance we provide to people who as you have heard, really have nowhere else to turn.

AMT: Are there ethical considerations when you provide loans to desperate people at rates that make them so hard to pay back?

TONY IRWIN: For sure. As I spoke about earlier, I hear every day of circumstances where our members do things, whether it be waiving fees and providing extensions on loans to be able to help those who are having a more difficult time. That is a consideration. That is something that our members do think about and do try to implement as much as possible.

AMT: What do you say to those critics who want to see your industry, basically ended? Those who don't think that there is a place for your industry.

TONY IRWIN: I guess I would ask them what they think the alternatives would be for people who, as we've heard, are turned away by their bank or credit union and don't have the family support, and don't have those options. If our industry were to not exist, where are those people go? The Financial Concern Agency of Canada did a study last year. They surveyed 500 payday loan borrowers and only about 90 percent responded that they used the ones for necessary expenses. These are not frivolous things that people are getting the money for. They're very real needs and they're immediate. And so if this industry didn't exist, how would those needs be filled? We know there are lots of ways it happens every day. People go online. They go to websites that are unlicensed and unregulated lenders located offshore, who are not filing any regulations that would exist in Canada today. That happens because people need credit. And if they can't go to a safe, licensed regulated vendor, they'll go somewhere else and find themselves in far worse circumstances.

AMT: Okay, Tony Irwin thank you for speaking with me today.

TONY IRWIN: Thank you.

AMT: Tony Irwin is president and CEO of the Canadian Consumer Finance Association. It was formerly called the Canadian Payday Loan Association. He joined us from Hamilton, Ontario. My next guest says it is time to consider alternatives to the payday loan industry. Doug Pawson is the Director of Social Business and Social Finance with Causeway. Causeway is a non-for-profit organization that runs social enterprises in Ottawa. Doug Pawson joins us from Ottawa. Hello.

DOUG PAWSON: Hello.

AMT: What are you thinking as you listen to my last two guests?

DOUG PAWSON: Mr. McCall's story is unfortunately not unique. We've seen hundreds of people come through our doors now, who face circumstance where they've just been rolling over payday loan after payday loan for many months or years. And the total cost that they're paying results in thousands of dollars. So his story is really not unique and the challenges that he faces are challenges that people across Ontario are facing.

AMT: And a lot of them can't go to banks?

DOUG PAWSON: So the folks we've looked out, we found everybody that we've served through our alternative to payday lending program that we partner with three credit unions here in Ottawa - everybody is banked but nobody has gone into their bank or they've been refused. And they don't go in for a variety of reasons, mostly because they identify as a low-income person and they don't believe that they'll have access to basic services like an overdraft protection or even a small-sum credit card option. So they resort to the payday lending industry simply because they feel like they've been marginalized or excluded from mainstream banking. But everybody that we serve is banked.

AMT: So you're doing a pilot project. What are you doing?

DOUG PAWSON: So we identified years ago that through the work that we do that a lot of low-income folks that we serve are confronted with the high-cost borrowing of payday lending. So we partner with three credit unions here in Ottawa to raise capital. We raise a small amount of money - about $100,000 and we'll look to grow that over the next year - to say can we provide an alternative? For us the lending piece is one aspect. It's also that bridge of mainstream financial institution. So we don't want to just simply just give people money and just be a cheaper source of capital. We want to make sure that people have access to a photo institution where they can go in and speak so that they can break that cycle permanently. That they develop that relationship and find banking services and options that are more accessible and affordable to them.

AMT: And so how does the lending work. Say they needed $200 like Robbie did. And they go through your program. What would be different?

DOUG PAWSON: I would say that what we've learned early on is we thought people would come in with their $200 to $500 request. What we see now is the average loan that we've helped finance is about $1,700 and the average number of payday loans people have is about two and a half. So we've seen people with five to seven payday loans coming through our doors. These are people who have thousands of dollars in payday lending issues. What we do is we work with them to make sure that they have the capacity to repay us. We develop a budget. We make sure that there is enough money that they can comfortably pay all of their expenses and comfortably pay our loan without having to resort back to a payday loan issue. We help people with, on average, about $1,700 in loans. And that breaks them free of hundreds of dollars of monthly fees. So we're saving them thousands of dollars over the course of that loan.

AMT: What's the average interest rate?

DOUG PAWSON: The maximum interest rate that we would charge as prime which is 3.2 percent as you said earlier, plus two to six percent. So the very maximum would be 9.2 percent, which is getting in line with a regular line of credit. We work with people who don't otherwise qualify for typical services because their credit is low. Mr. Irwin had mentioned earlier that payday loan users are often higher risk clients. That's interesting that he noted that because one of the aspects of payday lending that people enjoy is that is not a credit check. So I'm glad that he recognized that those individuals using his member’s services do face barriers to financial services.

AMT: So is this working? Do you find that it's making a change and that you could extend this? It's like community banking. Do you think you can replicate that?

DOUG PAWSON: I think we can. I think one of the things that make us unique is as a community economic development organization, we can help not only with the loan, and we can also provide them with access to services around employment because we have a number of employment programs and social enterprises. But we also serve as a nice bridge into financial services because it can be intimidating for individuals to work through a bank's doors and ask for a loan.

AMT: That's not a small thing.

DOUG PAWSON: It isn't a small thing. It's not a small thing just for low-income people. It's a challenge that many of us face. What I've learned over the last year is that the loan is symptomatic of a bigger issue, which is people are just under-banked and underserved.

AMT: So you try to get to the crux of the problem. Doug, we're out of time. We have to leave it there. But it's really important to hear what you're working on and you're making headway. Thank you.

DOUG PAWSON: Thank you.

AMT: That is Doug Pawson. He is Director of Social Business and Social Finance with Causeway, a non-for-profit organization that runs social enterprises in Ottawa. We requested comment from Ontario's Government and Consumer Services Minister, Tracy MacCharles. She was not available today. Let us know what you think. We are @TheCurrentCBC on Twitter. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us in our next half hour. We're talking about algorithms and fiction.

Can an algorithm make science fiction better? Author Stephen Marche finds out

Guest: Stephen Marche, Sandra Kasturi, and Daniel H. Wilson

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: The machine sat empty in the dark. Only a single light was on when Anne and Ed entered. A lone searcher was staring at the other planet. His face half-swallowed by the viewer, and the empty bags of blank screens sloped into the room's vague emptiness. "Profitable and marketable," Ed said. "I cannot stress that enough." "Profitable and marketable," Anne murmured in agreement.

AMT: The beginning of a science fiction story that is the product of a bit of science fiction itself. It is written by Toronto author Stephen Marche, a freelance journalist and author of several books. His co-author? An algorithm. It is not the only instance of technology trying its hand at writing fiction and rather process doesn't always produce the best writing it can teach us a lot about the essence of fiction. Stephen Marche worked with two researchers, Adam Hammond and Julian Brooke at the University of Toronto, to develop a tool to help him write his ideal science fiction story. The finished product appeared in Wired magazine complete with footnotes on how the algorithm helped create that story. Stephen Marche is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

STEPHEN MARCHE: How are you?

AMT: Who picked the title, Twinkle Twinkle? Was that you or the algorithm?

STEPHEN MARCHE: That was me. I got that much.

AMT: [Laughs].

STEPHEN MARCHE: I mean if we could have found some way to automate title selection, we would have done that, but we couldn't.

AMT: Well let's talk about the process. What did you and the U of T researchers do to develop this algorithm?

STEPHEN MARCHE: Well Adam and Julian had this algorithm that they used to do deep stylistic analysis of massive databases of literary text. And basically what we did together is that we reversed the process. I selected my favourite science fiction stories and then by comparing them to two other sets of texts, which are like science fiction stories and then ordinary stories, we were able to develop a linguistic system - an algorithm - that would give us a short story. And then they built an interface for me to write it onto.

AMT: You selected 50 stories.

STEPHEN MARCHE: Yes, 50 stories.

AMT: Who were your authors that you chose?

STEPHEN MARCHE: That is proprietary.

AMT: And how did you choose those 50 - they were your favourite?

STEPHEN MARCHE: That's it. It's totally arbitrary. It's just my favourites. So it's a creative process in a sense. This is what I want to do. These are people I want to be. In a sense it's trying to automate the process of influence.

AMT: And what kind of rules did the algorithm come up with?

STEPHEN MARCHE: It was a lot. So we had thematic analysis and that provided me with like 14 rules. The real problem was, they seemed at first totally contradictory. So it had to be set on a planet other than Earth. It could not involve space travel, but there also had to be a scene at a farm. So it took me about two months of being like, well that's actually not doable. And then I realized like, oh well why we don’t just have someone on Earth watching something on another planet. And then the whole story came from that. And then it's about human beings sort of hopelessly despairingly watching this other planet that they can do nothing to change – how ever many light-years away [laughs].

AMT: I wrote it down: 1,564 light-years away. I really got into this actually. I want you to know this. I really got into her watching the other planet, and the others. I don't want to give too much away, but I really got into it. So let's listen to another part of a story where one of your characters, Anne, visits her parents.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Her parents were still up when Anne, sick from the train and suffused with an indefinable and all-suffusing disappointment, rolled through the portico of the family farmstead. She found them in the viewing room, watching a new storm roll ferociously over the cornfields and the apple orchard. Mom was lying down asleep with her head on Dad's lap. The lightning from the storm was continuous enough that the room needed no other illumination, and Anne's skin tingled furtively with the electricity in the air.

STEPHEN MARCHE: These adverbs here like, "furtively," I just would just never...

AMT: "Her skin tingled furtively."

STEPHEN MARCHE: Part of me is just like, 'you got to go in and cut those adverbs'. But part of the algorithm was like: this is how many adverbs you have to have per 100 words. There were about 28 stylistic rules like that I had to follow. That was the nub of the problem. That's why it was so tricky to write.

AMT: We heard several rules in there actually. You had to be on a farm. And cornfields and apple orchards fields were also part of - the algorithm picked this up from the stories you chose.

STEPHEN MARCHE: From the stories that I chose that there had to be corn and apples in it. I don't know why I'm attracted to corn and apple stories.

AMT: You didn't know that?

STEPHEN MARCHE: Well, no. I mean it's like what is wrong with me?

AMT: [Laughs].

STEPHEN MARCHE: Especially the gendered stuff around the narrator, which I found disturbing.

AMT: Explain that.

STEPHEN MARCHE: Well basically, the algorithm rule was that you have a female character. The percentage of dialogue by men and the percentage of dialogue by women, it had to be - I think it was 17 percent 16 percent. So basically the rule was you have to have a prominent woman who is then silent and is talked at by men. Which is not a very flattering portrait of myself [laughs]. You know that I would be attracted to those kinds of stories.

AMT: Well we're going to hear that in yet another clip. This is Anne and Ed.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: "Ed?" She called up the professor's visuals from control. His face, on Skype, was the haggard face of a begging administrator on one call after another. "Hi Anne, did they hold up a sign saying 'Hi, Earth'?" "I saw something." "Is it profitable and marketable?" Was there profit in that rickety old machine somewhere? Was there some kind of profit in that? Or in the look of sadness on the other’s face? "There's lots of wonderful things to see, Anne. Nobody needs us here to show them a new wonderful thing. The moon shines wonderfully every evening. Nobody needs 70,000-ton telescopes in the sky to show them a place they have never seen before. If we want to keep an eye on, we have to find useful, profitable Otherness. Not the new and wonderful. Got it?" "Got it."

AMT: So Stephen Marche, he's talking at her. She barely gets a word in edgewise and it's because the algorithm wanted it that way. That was part of the rule.

STEPHEN MARCHE: That's not to excuse myself from blame because obviously these are the stories that I am choosing.

AMT: It's interesting, though. It's what the computer picks up. It's what the algorithm picks up, in terms of the use of words. That kind of thing suddenly becomes very clinical then.

STEPHEN MARCHE: Well, totally artificial. I definitely had to figure it out. I need a fancier word here or I need a less fancy word here. It's on that level.

AMT: If you typed a word that didn't fit with the algorithm, what happened? What were you looking at on your screen?

STEPHEN MARCHE: I mean they designed it very well. It's just a line red dots on the side. And when I got it within half a standard deviation, the light would go green. So it was doing a Rubik's Cube where you'd fix one thing and then you would be like, 'oh well that messed up the thing that I just fixed'.

AMT: Right. So if you had too much dialogue with Anne in one place, you couldn't have dialogue somewhere else.

STEPHEN MARCHE: Exactly. We did science fiction because there is generic consistency, right? We all know what a science fiction story looks like. We wanted to see if what it produced was recognizably a science fiction story, which it is.

AMT: I have a few more questions about all of that and your motivation. But before we go there, I want to bring someone else into this conversation and go back to that. Sandra Kasturi, publisher and co-owner of the sci-fi publishing house Chi-Zine Publication in Peterborough, Ontario. She is with us in our Toronto studio. Hello.

SANDRA KASTURI: Hello.

AMT: You are a sci-fi expert. Would you publish the story that Stephen co-authored with the algorithm?

SANDRA KASTURI: I probably would have sent it back for notes because again I mean the adverb thing is definitely - I would have definitely said something like, "furtively," what is that?

STEPHEN MARCHE: Everybody's an editor [laughs].

SANDRA KASTURI: I read the story just on its own and then I read it with the footnotes, and I was actually quite entertained by the footnotes and I felt like the story with the footnotes made its own kind of meta-text and became this whole other entertaining thing.

AMT: I was entertained by the footnotes too.

STEPHEN MARCHE: And that's just me. I didn't use a machine for that [laughs].

AMT: Did you like the story?

SANDRA KASTURI: I loved the idea of the story. I think it was one of those science fiction stories that is high-concept, but it also felt to me - and this isn't necessarily a bad thing - but it felt sort of "golden age science fiction.

STEPHEN MARCHE: Galaxy magazine.

SANDRA KASTURI: Yes. It is kind of lovely in that way. Like Philip K. Dick - that real sort of oddness and disconnection - because after reading it I felt very disoriented, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the algorithm or whether it was because of that sort of Philip K. Dick sense of disconnection.

STEPHEN MARCHE: See, I just find that so fascinating because that's of course what I'm trying to get and the algorithm actually gave it to me.

AMT: So Sandra is this a better story than one written by human alone in your view?

SANDRA KASTURI: Well given some of the submissions we get, 'oh my God, yes'. If I hadn't known that there is an algorithm involved I don't know that I would necessarily have known that.

AMT: So if you had received this cold, you would have maybe sent it back for some editing. But you were intrigued enough that you would want to work with it?

SANDRA KASTURI: I was intrigued. I wouldn't have published it as is. But I mean, you get to that last line which is, "She was middle-aged now, there is only light moving through emptiness trapped by machines." I mean that's beautiful.

STEPHEN MARCHE: I like this segment [laughs].

SANDRA KASTURI: Oh, just wait [laughs]. There is enough in that I wanted to read to the end and I would have gone back and take out some of these adverbs. My biggest criticism would have been that I did not connect with Anne, but then I also started to feel like maybe that disconnection is sort of, again, that's surreal [unintelligible] thing, where you have to feel disconnected and there are these vast distances between Earth and the other. I will say I didn't like your title and I feel bad now because that you came up with that. You know what I would have called it, Another Other, because you have that phrase in here.

AMT: Do you think a lack of human connection is because of the algorithm?

SANDRA KASTURI: I don’t know because a lot of especially the early science fiction stories read very much like that because I often felt when reading those stories they were full of fabulous ideas and again vast distances and great spaces and just a great sense of wonder, but I could never really relate to the humans in it. For me I needed that human connection. This is what you do have in this - in the vastness - you have the smallness of humans and people and their connection or disconnection. And I think that's beautiful.

AMT: So let me ask you in a world of science fiction come to life. Do you see yourself as an editor being replaced by an algorithm?

SANDRA KASTURI: No. I remember when e-books first came out and everybody was like, "It's the death of the book." And it wasn't. More people are reading than ever. We're just reading differently in different ways.

AMT: Do you see the idea of introducing algorithms into the literary world as Stephen did? Can you see that going further up? Would you welcome more of that?

SANDRA KASTURI: I mean it would certainly be a way to get through your slush pile.

AMT: [Laughs].

SANDRA KASTURI: Here's the algorithm, run your story there, if you don't have as many adverbs I don't want to talk to you. Or if you have this many adverbs [laughs].

STEPHEN MARCHE: Listen, if you have a manuscript with too many adverbs...

SANDRA KASTURI: That's right, you're done.

AMT: Okay, well we heard it from the editor. Sandra, thank you.

SANDRA KASTURI: Thank you.

AMT: Sandra Kasturi is publisher and co-owner of the sci-fi publishing house Chi-Zine Publications in Peterborough, Ontario. She joined us in our Toronto studio. Stephen Marche let's continue. Do you think editors can be replaced by the algorithm somewhere down the road?

STEPHEN MARCHE: No not at all. I mean the thing about editors is that, that's like a very gifted profession. It's a profession that requires extremely refined entirely human abilities to process stories. Now, I will say that there are certain kinds of writing that could use automation.

AMT: Such as...

STEPHEN MARCHE: Well the slush pile is a perfect example. I mean this process that we have here, which is a natural language processing application to style. There are lots of companies that mass produce books. When you write a romance novel for Harlequin, they have rules. They have a lot of rules. Well that's automation. That's in its own way systemization. But this is just the next step of that.

AMT: Well what was your goal? Was it to write a better science fiction story? Was it a playful exercise? Or was it to actually incorporate - did you expect to?

STEPHEN MARCHE: No, no, no. I mean it was strangest - we wanted to write an Avant- Garde short story. It partly was like, let's try and use technology for a humanistic end rather than the other way around which is how it tends to be done. I think on that level it has been successful in that we - so many interesting things about language and the relationship between a human and an algorithm have come up just accidentally in this process. It's been totally fascinating.

AMT: Is there a place for non-artistic writing with this as well?

STEPHEN MARCHE: Well definitely. We were joking about the sludge pile, but like it would be very simple to take this thing - it wouldn't be very simple - but it would be possible to take the system, you give us a thousand texts and we give you the top 20. And then we could just automate the whole thing. That would be better for everyone. When I was a kid writer, sitting around, waiting a year to get rejected was the worst part of the whole thing. Like if I could get rejected more rapidly, that would be way better for me.

AMT: What did the technology teach you about stories?

STEPHEN MARCHE: These things that you think of is very numinous and very ethereal like the alienation of feel Philip Dick - you can program that. So that in itself is very surprising to me. I think the other thing I learned is like, when the machine tells you to do something that you know is wrong, you shouldn't do it. I should have cut all those adverbs.

AMT: Maybe you could write: the algorithm that took over the novelist's mind, you know. That would be the next one right [laughs].

STEPHEN MARCHE: Right [laughs].

AMT: The algorithm that refuses to let you do that [laughs].

STEPHEN MARCHE: I think we're going to do a robot story back next, which I'm really fascinated by. I also was amazed to learn by doing this, how some things that I assumed would be totally available for computationally. I assume that plot structure and narrative structure - because when you write those things as a writer, it's in numbered form often and it's diagrammed. So I assumed that there would be a way to turn narrative structure into something mathematical that then we could apply - nothing. There's nothing useful in any of the narrative analysis by algorithms. And that I found in itself - how can this be so mysterious? I just found that fascinating.

AMT: Well the whole thing is fascinating. Thank you. Thank you for doing it and talking about it. Really wonderful.

STEPHEN MARCHE: Pleasure.

AMT: Stephen Marche is the author of several books. He's written for publications such as the New York Times and Esquire. He is in our Toronto studio talking about his latest science fiction short story with the algorithm, Twinkle Twinkle. Stephen Marche wrote his story with the help of a data-analyzing algorithm. But robots and Artificial Intelligence have also taken a crack at writing fiction -from stories to short films to musicals - on their own. The screenplay for the film Sunspring was written entirely using AI - though the actors here are human.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: What are you doing?

VOICE 2: I dont want to be honest with you.

VOICE 1: You don't have to be a doctor.

VOICE 2: I’m not sure. I don't know what you're talking about.

VOICE 1: I want to see you too.

VOICE 2: What do you mean?

VOICE 1: I'm sure you wouldn't even touch me.

VOICE 2: I don't know what you're talking about.

VOICE 1: Principle, which is completely constructed of the same time.

VOICE 2: It's all of value to be true.

VOICE 1: You didn't even watch the movie with the rest of the base.

VOICE 2: I don't know.

VOICE 1: I don't care.

VOICE 2: I know it's a consequence. Whenever you need to know about the presence of the story. I'm a little bit [unintelligible] on the floor.

AMT: Well, okay. A predictive keyboard bot wrote a new chapter in the Harry Potter story. It starts off well enough - it quickly changes direction.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Magic. It was something that Harry Potter thought was very good. Leathery sheets of rain lashed at Harry's ghost, as he walked across the grounds towards the castle. Ron was standing there and doing a kind of frenzied tap dance. He saw Harry and immediately began to eat Hermione's family.

AMT: And the TV show Scrubs, remember that? That went off the air seven years ago. Here is the show's star Zach Braff reading a monologue for the show, written by a robot.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: The truth is, every patient suffers from dementia. And I'm not going to change all that. After all, the right things, not always the best thing to do. You would know that if you ever worked in a hospital. What is a hospital? A hospital is a lot like high school. The most amazing man is dying and you're the only one who wants to steal stuff from his dad. Being in a hospital is a lot like being in a sorority, you have greasers and surgeons and even though it sucks about Dr. Tapioca, I'm not even that sad.

AMT: Okay, so maybe we're not at the stage yet where writers need to consider new career options. But looking at the differences between what's by robots and what's written by humans can give us insight into the meaning of art. Daniel H. Wilson is an Artificial Intelligence and robotics expert. He's also the author of Robopocalypse, which is a science fiction novel about out of control AI, and the sequel Robogenesis. Daniel H. Wilson joins us from Portland, Oregon. Hello.

DANIEL H. WILSON: Good morning.

AMT: So you're a science fiction author too. What are you think of the idea of writing science fiction with an algorithm? Would you do that?

DANIEL H. WILSON: Well I've kind of already transitioned into doing that. I realize as I listen to Stephen - for instance I wrote my own algorithm in Matlab just to go through my manuscripts and pull out places where I'm using the same words over and over and over again. Because when you write you sometimes become blind to the little themes and patterns that are showing up too many times. My wife will read my stuff and she'll say, "If you mention her raven hair one more time, I'll throw this thing." [Laughs]. I actually I started using a program called Hemingway recently that just runs through your text and picks out compound sentences, sentences that are really long and unwieldy. It picks out how many adverbs you are using and if you are using passive voice. It's not that I'm allowing that algorithm to tell me what to do, but it's highlighting something and just giving me more information about what I'm writing. And so I've already noticed that this stuff has started to become part of my process and it's useful.

AMT: Hemingway, does it force you to write short sentences?

DANIEL H. WILSON: It really encourages you to write short sentences [laughs]. Which I am good with that, but it's not always the right thing.

AMT: So writing with the help of technology is one thing, but what do you think, are robots and AI going to replace authors any time soon?

DANIEL H. WILSON: My instinct is to say, 'no of course not. That's what I do for a living that could never happen'. But never say never when it comes to robots and the progress of Artificial Intelligence. That's one thing I've learned is we as human beings we keep circling our wagons tighter every time AI makes some kind of advance. Right now I see AI being useful for helping a human right. And as it gets more powerful and the pattern's recognition gets better, there could be a moment when AI can start to encroach on writing creatively. As it is right now AI can easily cook up articles about stocks or about sports scores and things that are very sort of formulaic. But I would never say never when it comes to AI.

AMT: So what stage have we reached in terms of the ability of AI to understand what fiction and maybe broadly what art is?

DANIEL H. WILSON: Well I think it's very simple right now. It's very simplistic and for instance thinking about Stephen and what his algorithm was doing, it kind of frightens me because he seeded that program with a lot of golden age science fiction and as a result that program captured not only the stylistic aspects and it sounded like the sort of scenes and characters, but it also captured all of the biases of that age. You saw his female character never spoke. Well that's because a lot of golden age science fiction was written during a completely different time and a time when women were treated very differently. And when sexism and racism were completely rampant. And so it's a little bit frightening to think if we're going to use this to try to recreate patterns of the past, how much bias we are going to be capturing alongside whatever genius was in those stories.

AMT: So that's a really interesting point. What the element in writing that humans have that robots just don't have, at least not yet?

DANIEL H. WILSON: I often think about what is going to be the last thing left for human beings as AI and robotics takes over more and more, and my feeling is the only thing we've really got going for us is our intrinsic humanness. The fact that we are alive and we are experiencing the world and that there is some truth to that right. So you think about James Frey's novel, A Million Little Pieces, and one day that was his bestselling novel - everybody loved it. And then this one bit of information changed and that bit of information was, did this person really experience that? And when everybody found out that no human being had actually had those experiences that went from being incredibly valuable to being worthless. And so you think about robots and machines, and the one thing they don't have is this context of being human. And this is why listening to those nonsensical clips of robots creating text from scratch, they don't make any sense because the robots don't have a higher context. They don't have any life to draw on. Instead they're drawing on the output of human beings. Symbols that have been written on paper. But they're blind to the function that took a human life and then turned that into those symbols, if that makes sense.

AMT: But can we use technology on another level to make art better?

DANIEL H. WILSON: I absolutely think we can. I think right now, the AI is useful on kind of a simplistic scale. Am I using too many adverbs? Did I use the word "furtively," [laughs].

AMT: How many times have I put raven here? [Laughs].

DANIEL H. WILSON: You could also imagine classification algorithms that would tell you there's probably too much action or there is not enough, or start to recognise more complex issues. And honestly I would love it if we could go the other direction and if I could have an algorithm that says, "Hey you're being sexist here," or point out these things. What I do right now, I have lots of different human beings who read everything I write. People with different cultures, different backgrounds, different genders, different religions, and then they help they tell me when I'm being an idiot. I try to go through and be as little of an idiot as I can.

AMT: Well I mean that's about lived experience. Can you plug that into a system with different views? Couldn't you do that?

DANIEL H. WILSON: Absolutely. I think that you could train an algorithm for certain perspectives. That's one thing that kind of bothers me a little bit about Steven's algorithm that took 50 different stories from 50 different authors. If you think about low level aspects of writing science fiction, yes you should have short clear sentences. There are things that all of those others did that they had in common, but on a high level, it's going to conflate a [unintelligible] sense of otherness with sort of Bradbury’s textural cornfields. There's no reason that those patterns should be combined together. Those higher level patterns that are unique to each author. You kind of think of those as the fingerprints of that author. And they're all getting confused together and I don't think that's necessarily a recipe for success with your higher level aspects of this story.

AMT: As technology becomes a bigger part of our lives are we going to stop caring about how our art is produced? Whether it's produced by technology or humans, as long as we can appreciate something in the end.

DANIEL H. WILSON: I really see it going the other way around. I think that the more the machines encroach on our creative abilities the more we're going to appreciate humans and human experience. Right now you look at how we entertain each other and I feel like we're being trained as a society to fall back on being human solely as a means of entertainment. You think of Facebook and Twitter which really just democratize the ability to entertain other people. And it's like if a robot wrote that, 'I eat this for breakfast', nobody cares. If a human writes it, very few people care, but some people do care. And it's usually because those people are your children.

AMT: They have the human connection.

DANIEL H. WILSON: And without that human connection there's no basis for really caring. And so you look at all of these Twitter posts and all of these Facebook posts - the billions of these things that are pouring out every day - and the only thing that makes them worthwhile is that a human being experienced those things and then wrote about them. And if you automated that and had machines do it, it would just be meaningless. It would just be atoms smashing together you know. [30.6]

AMT: That's a very wise way to end this [laughs]. Thanks very much.

DANIEL H. WILSON: It is my pleasure.

AMT: Daniel H. Wilson is an Artificial Intelligence and robotics expert. He's the author of Robopocalypse and its sequel Robogenesis. He joined us from Portland, Oregon. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Actor David Harbour never expected the cult following Stranger Things gained or the doors that would open for him after playing the leading role on that show. He'll tell Ali Hassan what it's like to work with the rag tag - a gang of kids and how his life has changed since that Netflix hit. Remember you can take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app free from the App Store or Google Play. I'm Anna Marie Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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January 3, 2018 Episode Transcript

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