INTERVIEW:
Question 1
Can you tell us something about how you became a cyberfiction writer?
Answer
I don't think my life is very interesting. I have interesting ideas, but my life is very
dull. You can sum up my life by saying: he was born, he read a lot of books, he stared
into a computer screen, he died. It's very simple. I think my ideas are quite bizarre.
Question 2
Can you tell us something about the origin of the word "cyberpunk"?
Answer
It was invented by a science-fiction literary critic, a man named Gardiner Deswell, who is
the editor of a magazine called "Asimov", a science-fiction magazine. He was the
first to use this term, and he used to refer it to myself and William Gibson and some of
our colleagues in a newspaper called "The Washington Post". This was back in the
early Eighties...
Question 3
Do you agree with the definition of "cyberpunk" applied to your work?
Answer
Well, I don't really mind. It's a fait accompli, isn't it? I did a book called
"Mirror-shades", a cyberpunk anthology. When I'm dead, on my tombstone it will
say: "Bruce Sterling lies here. He was a cyberpunk"! But I was a science-fiction
writer before this term was ever used, and if the term goes out of vogue, I'll just keep
on writing books. I suppose there is a certain amount of justice in it.
Question 4
Why was computer crime identified with cyberpunk?
Answer
That's a hard question. I think it was popularised by computer crime journalists or
analysts. They wanted a term for young people who were breaking into computer systems -
for no particular criminal reason, just in order to do it, as a kind of anti-authoritarian
gesture. They thought cyberpunks had a good, nasty ring to it. I don't think they were
really aware that there were cyberpunk people around who were authors, writers,
journalists. I remember when I first met Katie Hafner, who wrote a book called
"Cyberpunks outlaws and hackers on the computer frontier". I said: "I'm a
cyberpunk science fiction writer". She was quite shocked, she said: "Oh my God,
he's here!" It was very odd. The world of computers has brought a lot of people who
were formerly light-years apart socially into contact with one another, and suddenly we're
all living in each other's laps.
Question 5
What does computer crime mean to you?
Answer
I think you have to make a distinction between crime and just high-spirits or unusual
social behaviour. You don't really have genuine crime until there are means, motive and
opportunity. There has got to be money in it. If somebody's behaving in some peculiar
fashion, making a nuisance of themselves, they are not a criminal, they are just a
nuisance. Then there are things which are technically illegal, but not really of very much
merit. And then there are situations where people are in organised groups, exploiting
innocent human beings, and lining their own pockets with millions of dollars of illegal
money. That's crime.
Question 6
Do you think hackers are necessarily computer criminals?
Answer
No, certainly not. I think the word "hacker" is very elastic, it covers a lot of
different people. I know people they call themselves "hackers" who are
millionaires and have never broken a law in their lives, they're just inventive
computer-intelligentsia people. And then I know people who call themselves
"hackers" who are basically scum. And they really shouldn't even be allowed to
call themselves "hackers", but it can't be helped. Nobody polices the use of
these words.
Question 7
What do you think about copyright, information and market goods?
Answer
I am very concerned about intellectual copyright issues. We cyberpunk types have a slogan:
"Information wants to be free", which was not in fact coined by a
science-fiction writer, it was coined by a Californian gentleman named Stewart Brand, who
is a publisher, journalist, author and millionaire. I am concerned about comodifying every
aspect of human existence. I really question whether things like software ought to be sold
as property. Or whether books, even and ideas are property. I think there is something
peculiar about the idea of intellectual property. Information isn't an item like this
chair I'm sitting on, it is more like a tree. Somebody built this bench, but in the case
of information, it tends to simply grow. For instance, I'm a writer and I make money
selling my books, but I didn't invent languages, I didn't invent words. I may have
invented three or four words, like "Protoplastic". I have to look up some of my
weird neologisms, it has been a while since I've combed my work.
Question 8
Do you think that the idea of copyright in itself may encourage computer piracy? Do you
have any proposals for regulations?
Answer
I think that we have to treat networks not as property, but more like languages. Language
is something which exists and that people use for one another. Nobody owns the Italian
language, there is not a chief executive officer for the Italian language, there's not a
board of directors. There are professors of the Italian language, and there are people who
teach the Italian language. You make money from the Italian language, you can exploit it,
you can develop it, but you don't copy-right it. I don't have to ask your permission to
conjugate a verb in Italian. So I think we need to make certain distinctions, we need to
be careful where we take money from the stream of information. Information is something
that enables us to do things more efficiently. These are old ideas. Ideas, for example,
that libraries are good for people. And what are libraries about? That is something that
the government supports, so that people can go in and read information without having to
pay for it. I am an author. I could say: "Libraries are stealing my life's
blood!". Everyone who goes in a library to read my book is not paying me! I could
stand up and I could demand that anyone who goes into a library should be made into an
intellectual criminal. I could say the same about second-hand bookstores. I get no
royalties from these books, these people are going in the second-hand bookstores and
stealing my property! I could demand that their homes be raided. I could demand that I
have the right to burst into people's homes and make them prove where they got those
books. That is the way software is handled. And that is the way the software publishers'
association and their friends think software ought to be dealt with. But in the world of
publishing we have come to terms with these issues a long time ago. I don't think
librarians are my enemies. I am not worried that people haunt second-hand bookstores. If
you read my novel and you give it to your friend, be my guest. You don't have to proof
anything to me about where you got the book, I'm not an intellectual property fascist.
Question 9
On your shelves, at home, in your library, which are your favourite authors?
Answer
I read a lot of non-fiction these days. I am really interested in history. I think history
has a lot of lessons. If you don't understand the past, you're not going to understand the
direction in which we are going. I like Freeman Diesen, I think he is a great visionary
writer: he's an American physicist, works at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. I
read a lot of people who are computer visionaries, Alan Kay. I spend a lot of time reading
e-mail, these days, huge amounts of words on the Net. Sometimes is not even clear who
wrote them. They are just alive, they are in digests, things like risks digest, computer
underground digest, they really keep me and abreast of what is going on. I read magazines,
I subscribe to about 50 magazines. I think magazines are the most interesting medium
around today. To me a magazine is far better value for the money than say a CD-ROM disk.
In terms of immediacy and relevance to your interests, it is very hard to beat a magazine.
Question 10
The hypothesis of the development of the information society is generally positive.
However, much science-fiction writing is very negative about the future. Why?
Answer
We cyberpunk types have a slogan: "always look at the underside first". There
are many people in our society who are very well financed and very well organised, whose
business it is to sell us machines, sell us gadgetry and force technological progress down
our throats. It is their business to make us accept, and to generate money by making us
buy ever newer and supposedly more clever things. But a few "minor" literary
intellectuals like myself and my science-fiction writer friends are a bit sceptical about
this. We think this is a healthy development. I mean, compare us - ten, twelve people - to
the legions of corporate public relations people, with their vast advertising budgets,
everyone of them trying to selling us Sony Walkmans, portable computers, cellular
telephones, shoulder videocams. There are armies of these people, throwing these things
off the back of a truck in the middle of our society. So, if a few of us say: "Wait a
minute, what does this mean ?", that is a legitimate question to ask, I think.
Question 11
Information technology may transform the communication process, and improve it. But in
your opinion, could this technology make communication worse, reducing it to mere noise?
Answer
I think we already have a really awful telecommunication technology in place: television.
What could be worse? At least this is an alternative, and it is a way for individuals to
grip the screen, to make the screen do their bidding, instead of just having to sit there
passively watching things parade by. We have got a lot of experience of communication
technologies, this is not something entirely new. And it seems a lot more promising. It is
a lot closer to the level of the individual. It gives people more room to follow their own
promptings, their own ideas, it's not paralysing, it's not one-to-many, it doesn't easily
play into the hands of centralised, tyrannical organisations, the way television does,
radio did. So I feel relatively optimistic about the prospects for telecommunication, but
if you think that this is going to solve all our political problems, obviously you are
living in a fool's paradise. And machines are going to complicate our politics.
Question 12
In your book, "Islands in the Net", that you wrote in 1987, there is a strange
coincidence with what's happening now in Italy. You talk about information piracy, and you
know what has happening recently with ADS-KRONOS. You said that Italy is the first country
in the world, in terms of information piracy.
Answer
It is certainly a bizarre development, almost without precedence. I think people around
the word are paying a lot of attention to it. I would not be tremendously surprised if
next week some youngster comes forward and says: "Well, I'm really sorry, I'm only
fourteen, I though it was a clever idea". Stranger things than this have happened. It
is a coincidence, but it is not really that strange. I am a science-fiction writer, I get
a lot of my ideas from reality, things I read in newspapers or see in magazines. You just
distort them, extrapolate, intensify them somewhat. As time goes on, if you are ahead of
your time, time catches up with you. I wrote a book in 1987, it is not particularly
surprising that 1994 would be a lot more like this than it was when I wrote the book. It
is a natural thing. It is scary, it's not a pleasant business but it's not weird, almost
to be expected.
Question 13
With your friend of Palo Alto, Pavlov Curtis, you said that in 2010 there will be one
computer for each citizen of the world. What do you think our way of life will be like?
Answer
I own three computers. It's like asking how many electric motors you have. The only answer
is "I have no idea!", but if you go in your house, looking for electric motors,
you will probably find thirty of them. I have a computer here on my wrist - you wouldn't
even recognise it as a computer, but it is certainly a computer by any definition. But it
is hidden, you didn't even know it was there. You're going to see a situation of what
Alvin Toffler calls "ubiquitous computing". It's like asking: "Do you have
a telephone in the house?". Telephones are so present now that if you don't have one,
you are an eccentric. Somebody comes into your house and they ask: "Where is the
telephone?", they don't ask: "Do you have a telephone?". The same will be
true about computation.
Question 14
I know you have a small child... What future would you wish for her ? What fears do you
have for your child?
Answer
I would be happy for her to have a shirt on her back and a roof over her head. This has
been a long, dark century, and judging by our historical experience, she'll be lucky if
she doesn't end up in a mass grave. My primary worry is the greenhouse effect, in term of
the magnitude of what could go wrong. If she lives to be eighty or ninety years old, maybe
even fifty or sixty, the planet could overheat. Even if she has every computer in the
world, it's not going to help if it doesn't rain, or if it is too hot to go outside the
house.
Question 15
You have said that high-technology communication, like that in your book, can help us to
have a better quality of life. Did I understand correctly?
Answer
I think it can. I think you have to have a basic level of trust and confidence in human
beings. You have to assume that if people are given the chance to do things, that they
will do good things. You can assume that people are evil, and that therefore if you give
them anything that helps them they will only use it to hurt themselves, that's an
authoritarian frame of mind. You have to make the assumption that there's somebody better
than most people, who can tell them what to do with their lives, and I don't think that's
the case. I think we have seen many societies where a small self-appointed elite decides
that they are the only ones who know the truth and the rest of the population is not ready
for it yet. That never works; it is always awful. If any human being is stupid and awful,
and that human being is in the government, he is going to be ten times as stupid and
awful. Here we have the chance to actually let individuals try and understand things, get
a better grasp of what is happening to them. I can only regard that as positive.
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