Microbes, Robots, and Ambition - Robin Sloan on His Novel Sourdough

Audiobook Innovation with Machine Learning

• The Sourdough audiobook is the first to include creative output generated by a machine learning system, specifically a fictional alien language and music described in the novel.
• Producer demand to avoid simple recitations of the text drove the search for a distinct audio experience, as the budget precluded hiring custom language inventors (e.g., for Game of Thrones or Star Trek).
• The author utilized the open-source tool "sampleRNN" (written in Lua/Torch by Richard Sasse) to synthesize the audio from a corpus of Klapa, a Croatian acapella folk music genre.
• The model processed MP3s over several days on a local deep learning rig, generating a "weird and lovely" generalization that captures the essence of the source material while failing in interesting, non-mimetic ways.
• Input data for the model consisted of the author's personal collection of Klapa recordings, which inspired the fictional music in the book.

Technical Research and "The Egg Problem"

• The author relies on self-education via technical journalism, YouTube tutorials, and reading rather than formal technical advisors, aligning with the creative freedom sought by shows like Silo (explicitly refusing advisors to avoid being "bounded by reality").
• The novel features a robotic arm cracking eggs, a scenario based on the real-world "Egg Problem" in robotics, where unstructured kitchen environments pose significant challenges due to chaotic variables and unique shapes.
• The author notes that while restaurant kitchens (like McDonald's) are modular and robotic-friendly, home kitchens remain "impossible" for automation due to their organic, unbounded nature.
• The protagonist, Lois, learns to perform tasks like cracking eggs by watching YouTube videos, reflecting the author's own experience learning to crack an egg with one hand.

Philosophy on Tech, Craft, and Genre

• The author rejects the adversarial framing of "old vs. new" media, characterizing the convergence of technology and traditional crafts (e.g., bread making, print publishing) as a "glorious crash" where new layers accumulate atop old ones.
• Work is categorized as "puzzle fiction" or "sci-fi inflected literary fiction," aiming for positive satire and character-driven narratives rather than dystopian tropes like Black Mirror.
• Direct inspiration for Sourdough's "runaway food" themes includes the "runaway mutant food" subgenre of children's literature (e.g., Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Strega Nona) and modern scientific scholarship on the microbiome and microbial communication.
• The author's narrative approach favors characters who are likable and missable after reading, countering a literary trend of "broken human" protagonists.

Digital Artifacts and Preservation

• The author deleted all past tweets regularly, viewing Twitter as a "cafe conversation" that should fade into the night rather than a permanent record or congressional transcript.
• Reflections on digital preservation highlight the instability of software compared to print; the author's 2000s app, Fish, is lost to modern iOS versions (11+) due to lack of source code and the shifting nature of OS APIs.
• Long-term digital preservation strategies discussed include hosting content across multiple servers and submitting to the Internet Archive, though the author notes museums increasingly resort to air-gapping old hardware (e.g., Mac SE, OS 7.2) to run legacy art.
• The 280-character expansion on Twitter is viewed positively, allowing space for dialectical thought (e.g., "I used to think X, now I think Y") rather than just simple declarations.

Historical Context of "Epic 2014"

• Epic 2014 was a 2003–2004 Flash-based "faux future documentary" created with Matt Thompson to predict media consolidation and the rise of blogging, designed to counter the skepticism of the traditional newspaper industry.
• The project relied on Flash for bandwidth efficiency before video streaming was viable, achieving viral status among news professionals through a distributed "United Nations" of mirrors hosted globally.
• The creators rejected offers to remake the project decades later, fearing it would lose the "guileless" spirit of the original experiment.

Current Creative Outlook

• The author is currently working on a new novel intended to integrate machine learning text generation as a core stylistic tool rather than a gimmick.
• Development of "instruments" for AI, rather than raw code, is prioritized; the author built an Atom editor plugin to allow real-time, curated text generation within a writing environment.
• The author observes a cultural shift in Silicon Valley's narrative tone from the "magical wonderland" optimism of 2012 (Penumbra) to a more critical, nuanced exploration of power and labor (Sourdough).
• A specific line from Sourdough regarding the desire to "be sorted" (referencing Harry Potter) became a viral social object, illustrating how books function as social currency on platforms like Instagram.