Ian Watson: “There is no such thing as AI. It’s a massive theft of material, scraped and then fed into programmes that consume obscene amounts of energy.” Oct 01, 2025

Writing science fiction requires a particular way of seeing the world. Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

I see the world my own way, because I never had other people's models of how I should see it, due to my upbringing and background. To give a trivial example, I hear things differently from others. Once, on the BBC, I heard them announce that Mali was drifting towards America, now heading for the Soviet Union. And I thought: "What if that were literally true?"

Do you think science fiction can inspire solutions to today's global challenges, such as the climate crisis or the rise of AI?

First of all, I must say there is no such thing as AI, in the sense of genuine artificial intelligence, and it may never exist. What we have is a massive theft of material, scraped and then fed into programmes that consume obscene amounts of energy. The end result is not necessarily very useful, because AI is now hallucinating and filling the internet with nonsense that will destroy it. So I want to know first: what exactly do you mean by those letters AI?

As for the climate crisis, I would call it a climate catastrophe rather than a crisis. Science fiction can, and does, propose solutions. But no one in power will ever implement them, except in small ways. The Amazon is already a desert in waiting, past its tipping point. Many other things are crossing tipping points too. So yes, there are answers, and people of goodwill will apply them, but always on too small a scale, because the world's dominant ethos is capitalist exploitation and reckless growth.

"Science fiction can propose solutions to major challenges. But they will only be applied on too small a scale, because the world's dominant ethos is capitalist exploitation and reckless growth".

"Science fiction can propose solutions to major challenges. But they will only be applied on too small a scale, because the world's dominant ethos is capitalist exploitation and reckless growth."

What was it like to work with Stanley Kubrick on A.I. Artificial Intelligence? At that time, could you foresee how AI would develop?

Kubrick's idea of AI had nothing to do with today's so-called AI. His robots were meant to develop their own consciousness and emotions. While working on the film, as a director he made great efforts not to direct me at all. I was supposed to guess what he wanted, and when I did he would say: "That's it, we've solved it." But he held back from giving much direction. The film is being re-evaluated a lot these days, and I'm very interested to follow that process.

As a science-fiction writer, what did you gain from teaching in such different cultures as Japan and Tanzania?

They contributed enormously, but perhaps the most important thing was simply being there and talking to people. Far more than the actual teaching I offered, like lectures on James Joyce's short stories, which seemed a bit irrelevant to the daily lives of the students in front of me. It influenced me to write a novel in 1978 with a first-person Black female narrator. But this was decades before Afrofuturism, so nobody paid any attention. Japan was, of course, a cultural revolution for me. There I encountered the technology of the future: the bad side was polluted air, the good side was robots on rooftops. And that made me non-British. Africa did not prepare me to become European, but Japan certainly did.

Imagination is key to writing science fiction. From your experience as a professor, how can creativity be fostered in academia?

For example, by giving a wonderful prize for original fiction, as the UPC does. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! If other institutions did the same, there would be a real integration between criticism, theory and the practice of invention, creative invention.

What is the state of science fiction today, and what future do you foresee for the genre?

Science fiction is thriving, but it's really fantasy that dominates, making up about 80% of the field. Whether it's imaginary kingdoms, telepathic dragons or romance, that's what sells. I would compare it to football, with champions running and clashing like gladiators in the Roman arena. By contrast, Formula 1 is closer to rocket science, with drivers trained like astronauts, where split-second timings and precise percentages are vital for fans. When you go to a Formula 1 race with half a million spectators, you think: "Wow, this dominates the world!" But compared to football, it's nothing. And that's a bit like science fiction today: the part with science is small, overshadowed by fantasy.