Robert Snyder

Evidently many writers, like the great Robert Jordan, have the ability to construct and outline their novels up front. I don't have that ability; I have to wing it. I figure it out one day at a time, which is what makes it so much fun. Often, when I fall asleep unhappy with a particular scene or episode, it's all been figured out by the time I wake up. Perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson was correct, and we're all part of a common mind that's opened to us from time to time.

People of Metal envisages a world in which intelligent machines do literally everything that has to be doe, leaving nothing that people need to do or be responsible for. It's a timely issue that's sparked serious concerns in the tech world.

Some would address those concerns by providing a guaranteed income to workers displaced by advanced technologies. But author Kai-Fu Lee warns that this alone might not be enough to sustain the will to live of people who have lost their sense of purpose. That is the theme of my novel.

The moral of the story is that the future of the human race will likely depend on its success in managing technology so that it stops short of rendering our human successors obsolete.

A sequel, People of Metal II: Just Smart Enough will be released on February 20, 2020.