What does it mean to be a creator at a time when creativity is completely commodified? We’ll talk about the status of the author, and how audiences have idealized artists while also celebrating the so-called death of the author and rise of the reader. We’ll talk about how AI converts our minds into apps, and also why the intentional fallacy blew up the literary world in the 1940s! Later in the episode we’re joined by Mary Anne Mohanraj, an author and professor of literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who tells us about using AI in the college classroom. Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

We've learned so much about the planets outside our solar system in the past ten years, and we're poised to learn even more. What kind of life could live on eyeball Earths, and other types of tidally locked worlds? To find out, we asked Aomawa Shields, astrophysicist and author of the science memoir Life on Other Planets. Plus Aomawa talked to us about why burnout is such a huge problem for Black women in STEM. Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Tech companies love to trumpet about how their products are free speech machines. But how can we have free speech when we don't have freedom? That's what we're asking in today's episode, the latest in our Silicon Valley vs. Science Fiction series. We take a deep dive into 1984, the science fiction novel that started a lot of today's discourse about speech and authoritarianism. And of course, we talk about the company formerly known as Twitter, and much more! Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

People have been paid for labor for at least 5,000 years, but the modern 'workplace' is a pretty recent invention. We look at how science fiction  has dealt with the transformation of labor — plus we talk to Alan Henry, author of the new book Seen, Heard and Paid. Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

We've all been feeling like something is wrong with the timeline. In this episode, we ask what alternate history, fake history, and secondary world history can teach us about the present. Does exploring the past in fiction help us learn from history or are we doomed to repeat it? History-obsessed authors Connie Willis (Blackout, Doomsday Book) and R.F. Kuang (The Poppy War) offer their thoughts too. Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes