Auckland Writers Festival

There are approximately three million robots working in factories around the world, and another 30 million in people’s homes. Soon robots will outnumber humans. But what happens if an autonomous AI harms or kills a person, deliberately or accidentally? It will happen. In fact, it already has. In Machines Behaving Badly, Professor Toby Walsh – Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW Sydney, and a leading advisor to the UN on lethal autonomous weapons (aka killer robots) discusses a future where machines start to shape society in ways we are not aware of. Described as a ‘rock star of Australia’s digital revolution’ he explores such questions as whether robots can have rights and if Alexa is racist with Toby Manhire. Supported by Platinum Patrons Dame Rosie & Michael Horton. SAT, 20 MAY 2023, 11:30am – 12:30pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre.

Pip Williams’ best-selling novel The Dictionary of Lost Words tells the story of motherless Esme who spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers gather words for the first Oxford English Dictionary. Over time she discovers words relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. The novel won numerous awards including the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year. In Williams’ latest novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, her talent for historical research and beautiful storytelling shines through in the story of twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. She discusses who gets to make knowledge, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld with Sonya Wilson. SUN, 21 MAY 2023, 1:00pm – 2:00pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre.

The judges for the winning 2022 Booker Prize praised Shehan Karunatilaka’s novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida for the ‘ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques’. Set in Sri Lanka during the 25- year civil war, a murdered photographer has seven days to solve the mystery of his own death. It’s a philosophical tale but at the heart of the novel is the horror of a devastating conflict. ‘Sri Lankans specialise in gallows humour. It’s our coping mechanism’, said Karunatilaka. With renewed political and economic crisis in his country, Karunatilaka discusses with Brannavan Gnanalingam how the corruption and race-baiting of the past is still having its ghostly effects on current tumultuous times. Supported by Asia New Zealand Foundation / Te Whītau Tūhono. SAT, 20 MAY 2023, 4:00pm – 5:00pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre.

The Book of Roads and Kingdoms brings to life a dazzling culture of science, literature, philosophy and adventure arising out of the flourishing metropolis of Baghdad during Islam’s Golden Age. Australian writer / broadcaster Richard Fidler recounts how medieval Persian and Arab wanderers ventured by camel, horse and boat into the unknown, bringing back tales of wonder, horror and delight. Ever curious, Fidler’s previous bestsellers have also delved entertainingly into the history of worldly places – The Golden Maze (Prague), Ghost Empire (Constantinople) and Saga Land (Iceland). The host of ABC’s Conversations – Australia’s most downloaded podcast – speaks with broadcaster Jack Tame about what he describes as a ‘crazy quilt atlas of a lost world’. Supported by Platinum Bold Patrons Joséphine & Ross Green. SAT, 20 MAY 2023, 2:30pm – 3:30pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre.

Delightfully inventive and witty, Daniel Lavery (as Mallory Ortberg) was the cofounder of The Toast, the pop-culture platform with literary depth that described its target audience as ‘librarians’. The best-selling author of Texts from Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, next wrote Something that May Shock and Discredit You, an exhilarating series of essays combining personal revelations with cultural deepdives. With chapter introductions such as ‘When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You Were the First One Home and No One Else Was Out on the Street, Did You Ever Worry That the Rapture Had Happened Without You? I Did’, Lavery hilariously toggles between his transition, his religious upbringing, and the evolving relationship with the women in his life, while riffing on the Golden Girls, Lord Byron, Rilke, Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, and the cast of Mean Girls. He chats with Claire Mabey. FRI, 19 MAY 2023, 4:00pm – 5:00pm, Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre.