p.66 p.108 p.

34
_ Supercomputers _ Tony Fadell Gets _ Behind the Scenes of
and Killer Storms Back at Silicon Valley Stranger Things, Season 2

p.80
in the Time of

When
androids
behave
just

how
will
humans
behave
with
each
other?

by Alex Mar
november 2017
| it's uncanny
 25.11
LAUNCH

HE HAS ALREADY CHOSEN

THE NEXT MONSTER.

PAGE 66

NOV 2017 DAN WINTERS 0 0 3

 25.11
FE ATURES

108
Payback Time
Tony Fadell created the iPod
and Nest, then lost control
of them. His next project could
be his most ambitious yet:
taking on Silicon Valley itself.
BY ADAM FISHER

80
Love in the Time
of Robots
Hiroshi Ishiguro builds
androids. Beautiful, realistic,
uncannily convincing human
replicas. But his true quest
is to untangle the ineffable
nature of connection itself.
BY ALEX MAR

98
Invisible Forest
For years, timber barons
in the Amazon have
sent lumber to the US by
the shipload. But many
of the groves they harvested
from were pure fiction.
BY RICHARD CONNIFF

NOV 2017 NADAV KANDER 0 0 5

 CONTENTS

25.11
24 Whats the Deal
Cracking the
construction code GADGET LAB
3 Launch 24 Angry Nerd 49 Fetish: Switch Blades
Noted by the editor Taylor Swift is a lizard person Stone Ageinspired slicers

10 Release Notes 50 Head-to-Head: Cyber Chefs

Behind the scenes of this issue 26 Ready to Rock
The director of Thor casts himself App-controlled induction burners

12 Comments
Reader rants and raves 28 Just Google It 52 Gearhead: Rich Pour
A short history of a newfound verb Essentials for a perfect cup of joe

30 Infoporn: Data Leaks 54 Fetish: Cool Whip

AALPHA The rise of hacking and phishing The best immersion blender ever

32 Mapping the Future 56 Top 3: Temp Workers

Cartography stages a comeback Instant-read kitchen thermometers

15
58 Gearhead: Upper Crust
34 The right tools make baking your
own pizza as easy as pie

60

Argument Benchmark: Saran Wrap

On the moral failings of Twins Speak From WWII plane protector to
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook The Duffer brothers on the return microwave staple
BY VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
of Stranger Things

62 Too Many Ingredients

18 Past Master 38 Our Selfies, Ourselves Ready-to-cook meal kits are conve-
Meet tech archivist Leslie Berlin An analysis of social media nient, but the recipe needs tweaking
self-portraits

20 Invasion of the Food Bots

One robo-ramen, coming right up 38 How to Finsta
Tips for your fake
Instagram account FILE: //
22 40 The Moon or Bust 66 Into the Vortex
The Martians Andy Weir on his new The quest to build computer
novels lunar colony models of massive superstorms
BY BRANTLEY HARGROVE

42 Mr. Know-It-All
Should I confess my internet stalking
to my date?
BY JON MOOALLEM
SIX BY SIX
44 Grain, Elevated
A defunct silo becomes an amazing 118 Stories by Wired readers
new museum

The Feline Gaze 46 Antisocial Media

A cat of Instagram makes Not every message has to go viral ON THE COVER
his MoMA debut BY CLIVE THOMPSON Sculpture for Wired by ELASTIC

0 0 6 NOV 2017
 RELEASE NOTES

face were so gentle,

says Mar, author of
the occult explora-
tion Witches of Amer-
ica. A lab assistant
spoke through it in a
very sweet voice,
and I was completely
sold. In Japan, she
Rebecca says, people laugh
Flint Marx off the American fear
Are selfies the prod- that robots will over-
uct of a self-obsessed throw ustheyre
generation? Rebecca actually more likely
Flint Marx, who got to become our com-
into them before panions, and in the
camera phones were course of her report-
even a thing, doesnt ing, Mar began to
necessarily think so, accept the idea of
and in Our Selfies, human-android rap-
Ourselves, on page port. We think were
38, she explores so unique and that
(with the help of a we require human
selfie semiotician) beings to interact

PHOTOGRAPHS BY REBECCA FLINT MARX (FLINT MARX); LAUREN JOSEPH (MURROW); HEIDI HARTWIG (MAR); HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES (THE KISS)
what celebrities from with, she says. That
James Franco to may not be true.
Amber Rose are
really saying when
they put pictures of
themselves on social
media. Sometimes

selfies are just a
show of shallow
Wireds David Moretti vanity, says Flint
(center) at Elastic with
the production stu- Marx, who also
dios art director Max writes about
Ulichney (left) and cre- food-serving robots Lauren Murrow
ative director Andy Hall. on page 20. But Senior editor Lauren
sometimes they are Murrow edits fea-
ALMOST HUMAN a way of asserting tures that are 6,000
your identity and words long and
who you want to be front-of-book stories
portrayed as. that are 600 words
long. She also has an
eye for micro-fiction:

L
Each month, she sifts
through thousands
OVE IN THE TIME OF ROBOTS (page 80) grapples with a robot- of submissions to
pick a six-word story
icists lifelong questboth timeless and ultramodernto (the form dates back
truly understand another person. For the accompanying to a famous piece
cover, the first image that came to my about baby shoes,
generally attributed
mind connecting man and machine was Alex Mar to Ernest Heming-
Robby the Robot holding a human fig- When Alex Mar vis- way) to be illustrated
ure on the movie poster for the 1956 film ited legendary on Wireds back
android maker Hiro- page. Her advice?
Forbidden Planet, says creative director shi Ishiguro (Love in Be original, unex-
David Moretti. So he called Elastic, the Santa Mon- the Time of Robots), pected, and a little
ica, California, production studio behind the title she at first found his weird. Think youve
toddler-sized robot got six words of
sequences for HBO shows like Game of Thrones and the stuff of my worst literary genius burn-
Westworld. Moretti and the Elastic team didnt nightmares. But as ing a hole in your
just take inspiration from iconic images of robots, she cradled the bot brain? See page
in Ishiguros lab, her 118 for next months
thoughthey also drew from classical depictions resistance melted. assignment and
of human connection, like Auguste Rodins The Kiss. Its movements and start micro-writing.

0 1 0 ANNA GOLDWATER ALEXANDER NOV 2017

 COMMENTS @WIRED / [email protected]

From an online
onliine reflected
refl
flected in the
exchange regarding current productivity
Robopocalypse statistics.
KEEP CALM AND INTERNET ON Not, James Suro Kevin Drum, writer,
wieckis essay MotherJones.com
arguing that auto
mation wont take Id want to see
away all our jobs. more evidence of
WIRED has always been optimistic about the future. But we know Its true that pro job displacement
ductivity growth coming from the
things can get scary. In the September issue we looked at what we is low, and its information tech
called the Great Tech Panic of 2017 to put our anxieties into perspec also true that this nology we already
tive. James Surowiecki marshaled economic data to cut through the means AI isnt havemuch of
taking away jobs which can simulate
fear of AI replacing workers. Nicholas Thompson chronicled Insta right now.Thats our analytical capa
grams attempts to make its platform kinder, and Virginia Heffer
Heffer because AI doesnt bilities just fine
nan meditated on how to escape from the uncanniest of valleys, the exist yet. My best before I believe
read of the evi that AI will replace
internet. In confronting fear, we swear by hard numbers, clear analy dence is that well [all human skills]
sis, and respectful debate (and maybe some controlled breathing). see the first glim and the jobs that
mers of true AI in rely on them.
about 10 years Ezra Klein, founder,
so of course its not Vox.com

Re: The Confessions: What if your secrets became public?

WE WOULD BECOME IMMUNE

smallest state pop
ulations. A few bad
apples can really

TO IT QUICKLY AND WOULD BE

skew the data.
Michael on
wired.com

FURTHER DESENSITIZED.
Marley Mane on Facebook
Youre absolutely
right; thats some-
Re: Trolls Across thing we mention in
America: Where the story when we
the toxic comments talk about the least
Re: Mr. Nice Guy: Instagrams fine, but Id worry about censor come from toxic cities. Fwiw,
Kevin Systrom wants to clean up ship. How confident is Instagram The data showing almost twice as many
the &#%$@! internet that its algorithms will encour Vermont to be the comments come from
Systroms got a point, but I also age the activity they are trying to state with the most Vermont than from
think unsavory comments have promote? Im glad theyre trying internet trolls is due, taciturn North Dakota,
become an expected part of the to make social networks better in part, to the old which has a larger
internet. As long as users can places, but at what cost? percapita challenge. population. Sarah
block unwanted comments, its Conrad Fickett on Facebook We have one of the Fallon, articles editor

0 1 2 NOV 2017
ARGUMENT

THE RECKONING
WHOLL TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
FOR FACEBOOK? ALPHA

by Virginia Heffernan

JUST AFTER THE collapse of the

World Trade Center in 2001, Les-
lie E. Robertson, the twin tow-
ers chief engineer, plunged into a
period of moral reckoning.
As a young hotshot in the
1960s, Robertson had defied
the engineering establishment
to erect the iconic skyscrapers.
Now, at age 73, he brooded. Over
and over, observers suggested
that the arrogant silhouette of
the towers was their undoing.
Robertson seemed surpassingly
sad. He emailed a colleague in
verse: It is hard /But that I had
done a bit more / Had the tow-
ers stood up for just one minute
longer / It is hard. As The
Wall Street Journal reported,
when asked at a public forum if
he wished he had done anything
differently, he wept.
But Robertson also conducted
a careful audit of his work. The
blueprints, the physics, the math
came in for close review. He knew
he had designed the buildings
expressly to brook the impact
of an airliner. But flaming jet fuel
had brought them down. He con-
cluded that inoculating the tow-
ers against those all-consuming
fires would not have been fea-
sible. You could always
prepare for more and more

NOV 2017 DOUG CHAYKA 0 1 5

 ALPHA

FACEBOOK IS A
NEW WORLD ORDER
extreme events, but there has to be a risk
analysis of whats reasonable, Robertson
troll operations with a wide range of phony
ads designed to fan the flames of American WITHOUT ANY KIND
told a Newsweek reporter. In his reckoning,
Robertson managed to avoid the twin seduc-
racism, anti-LGBT sentiment, and fervor for
gunsas well as to build opposition to Clinton.
OF MAGNA CARTA.
tions of defensiveness and self-savagery Zuckerberg announced that the ads had been
and took responsibility for his work. turned over to Congress, and he intimated that
Mark Zuckerberg, an engineer in another an internal investigation at Facebook would
key, has also seen his magnum opus breached, likely turn up more such ad deals: We are
with a force that may yet shatter it. Over the looking into foreign actors, including addi- stewardship in making its wheels turn. The
past two and a half years, Facebooks integrity tional Russian groups and other former Soviet sheen of placidity is an effect of software
as a place that helps you connect and share states, as well as organizations like the cam- created by the same mind that first launched
with the people in your life has been all but paigns, to further our own understanding of Facemasha mean- spirited hot-or-not
laid to wasteas it has served as a clearing- how they used all of our tools. comparison sitebut then reinvented it as
house for propaganda, disinformation, fake The statement sounded more like fact- Facebook, an online directory, to prevent
news, and fraud accounts. More serious still: finding than soul-searching. Zuckerberg anyone from shutting it down. The site was
Facebook may not just have been vulnera- seemed to be surveying a different Facebook designed to make the libertarian chaos of
ble to information warfare; it may have been from the one that allowed possibly Kremlin- the web look trustworthy, standing against
complicit. backed entities to target people who like the interfaces of kooky YouTube and artsy
But Zuckerberg has been unaccountably hate speech with racist propaganda. A Face- Myspace. Those places were Burning Man.
slow to make earnest amends. In November, book like that would need a gut renovation; Facebook was Harvard.
fresh off the US election, he rejected as crazy Zuckerbergs Facebook just needed tweaks. Siva Vaidhyanathan, whose book about
the idea that fake news on Facebook had influ- Facebook is indeed a new world order. It Facebook, Anti-Social Media, comes out next
enced the race. When President Obama report- determines our digital and real-world behav- year, describes Zuckerberg as a bright man
edly urged Zuckerberg to take seriously that ior in incalculable ways. It does all this with- who would have done well to finish his educa-
Facebook could be exploited by hostile pow- out any kind of Magna Carta except a vague tion. As Vaidhyanathan told me, He lacks an
ers intent on undermining democracy, even hypothesis that connectivity is a given good. appreciation for nuance, complexity, contin-
then Zuckerberg shrugged. And yes, its largely unregulated, having styled gency, or even difficulty. He lacks a historical
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg whistled in the itself as nothing more than a platforma sense of the horrible things that humans are
dark, lighting off on a 50-state walkabout Switzerland pose that lets it seem as benign capable of doing to each other and the planet.
dense with Insta opportunities. It looked for as its bank-blue guardrails, which stand as a Zuckerberg may just lack the moral frame-
all the world like he was running for president kind of cordon sanitaire between Facebook work to recognize the scope of his failures
himself. That impression was bolstered when and the rest of the unwashed internet. and his culpability. Like Robertson, he was
he later hired Joel Benenson, a former cam- In 2006, a college kid talked me off Myspace a defiant hotshot when he launched Face-
paign adviser to Obama and Hillary Clinton. and onto Facebook by insisting that Facebook book. Maybe he still is. Its hard to imagine
As the summer wore on, it became unmis- was orderly while Myspace was emo and he will submit to truth and reconciliation,
takable that Facebooks problems ran deeper messy. That kid was right. Facebook is not or use Facebooks humiliation as a chance
than fake news. In June, Facebook officials passionate; its blandly sentimental. It runs to reconsider its place in the world. Instead,
reportedly met with the Senate Intelligence on Mister Rogers stuff: shares and friends and he will likely keep lawyering up and gun it
Committee as part of that bodys investiga- likes. Grandparents and fortysomethings are on denial and optics, as he has during past
tion into Russias election interference. In not spooked by it. Like the animated confetti litigation and conflict.
August the BBC released an interview with that speckles Facebooks anodyne interface, To be sure, unlike on 9/11, there are no mass
a member of the Trump campaign saying, our lives on Facebookthe bios and posts casualties; theres no flaming wreckage. But
Without Facebook we wouldnt have won. seem to belong to us and not to the companys that may only heighten how important it is
At last, in September, Facebook broke its massive statehouse, which looks on indif- for Zuckerberg to take responsibility. Because
silence. The company admitted it had received ferently as we coo over pups and newborns. there are 2 billion of us on Facebook. Were
payments for ads placed by organizations (Or is it a penal colony? In any case, it keeps all inside his tower. And, heaven help us, we
likely operated out of Russia. These were order.) Facebook just is the internet to huge have nowhere else to go.
numbers of people. Voters, in other words.
But that order is an illusion. Nothing
about Facebook is intrinsically organized
or self-regulating. Its terms of service change
Virginia Heffernan (@page88) wrote about fitfully, as do its revenue centers and the ratio
the internets uncanny valley in issue 25.09. of machine learning to principled human

0 1 6 NOV 2017
 ALPHA

FROM THE
VALLEYS
VAULT:

LUNCH GOALS
Eating off-campus once
promoted cross-industry
pollination, Berlin says.
Todays in-house kitchens
have their benefits, but I
do wonder what is lost.

MIXED FEELINGS
Now, tech is a big critic of
big government. But after
facing competition from
Japanese manufacturers
in the 80s, the microchip
industry was saved only
by tariffs and legislation.

THE STARTUP MYTH

The Valley has always
had huge companies,
not just scrappy startups.
They bring in all the
engineers and then they
all leave. Thats where
startups come from.

PAST MASTER
WHO: Leslie Berlin, SILICON VALLEY job perks are
project historian mythic. Self-replenishing snacks.

HAIR AND MAKEUP BY SARA CHESTNUTT-FRY; ILLUSTRATIONS BY LEANDER ASSMANN

for the Silicon
Unlimited vacation. A pile of

TECHS ARCHIVIST
Valley Archives
at Stanford Uni- stock options. But as much as
versity these professional entrapments
might seem like a dotcom-era
LAST BOOK: The Man Behind
the Microchip: phenomenon, the practice of sweetening the deal for tech employees dates back to the 70s
Robert Noyce as a way to ward off labor unions. Happy workers, explains Stanford historian Leslie Berlin,
and the Invention
are less likely to agitate for better conditions. That insight is just one of many in Berlins
of Silicon Valley
(2005) new book, Troublemakers. While piecing together a timeline of the Valleys early history
picture end-to-end sheets of paper covered in black dotsBerlin was amazed to discover a
NEW BOOK: Troublemakers:
period of rapid-fire innovation between 1969 and 1976 that included the first Arpanet trans-
Silicon Valleys
Coming of Age, mission; the birth of videogames; and the launch of Apple, Atari, Genentech, and major VCs
told through such as Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital. I just thought, What the heck was going on
profiles of seven
in those years? she says. Another surprising reveal? The (relative) lack of sexism. Con-
key pioneers
trary to assumptions that Silicon Valley has always been hostile to women, Berlin points
to a highly publicized push in the late 60s to make tech more inclusive. If even the tiniest
fraction of the terrible stories were hearing about today are true, she says, then the indus-
try is moving backward. Sexism is not inherent in the Valleys DNA. Maybe not, but its
now as synonymous with modern-day company culture as free snacks. Nitasha Tiku

0 1 8 AMY HARRITY NOV 2017

 ALPHA Coffee Maker

Avoid barista side-

INVASION OF THE
eye by getting your
coffee from a six-axis
robotic arm named
Gordon. Built by Mit-

KITCHEN BOTS
subishi, Gordon has
been steaming and Dorm Droid
pouring espresso
drinks in a glass- Leave it to a bunch
enclosed San Fran- of MIT students to
BURGER FLIPPERS, pizza tossers, and latte frothers, watch cisco kiosk, Cafe X, upgrade their din-
since January. Its like ing hall options by
your backs: Gordon, Sally, and Kona are coming for you. Over a java ATM, minus designing a fully
the past few years, a growing army of efficient cost-cutting overdraft fees. automated mini-
robots has arrived to automate food prep tasks, from mak- restaurant. At Spyce
Greens Goddess Kitchen, the robot
ing ramen to spicing curry. R e b e c c a F l i n t M a r x
chef needs less than
Launched by Red- five minutes to cook
wood City, California, meals such as jam-
startup Chowbotics balaya or chickpea
in April, Sally is an coconut curry. Noth-
Automat-style box ing is served on a
filled with 21 canisters plastic tray.
of chopped ingredi-
ents. She can whip Noodle Duo
up over 1,000 salad
combinationspre- Ninety-second
sumably while pon- ramen doesnt have
dering the gender to come in a micro-
politics of whoever wavable cup. Since
decided to name 2015, twin robots
a calorie-counting Koya and Kona have
salad robot Sally. been concocting
made-to-order bowls
Pizza Machine at Toyako, in Shang-
hai. The pair can boil
At Zume Pizza in water, cook noodles,
Silicon Valley, robots ladle broth, and dole
prep dough balls out veggies, meat,
into thin-crust pies, and eggs in less than
dispense and spread two minutes.
the sauce, and trans-
fer pizzas to and Burgermeister
from 800-degree
ovens. The pizzas are Robotics company
delivered in trucks Momentum Machines
outfitted with doz- has built a fully auton-
ens of smart ovens omous beast capable
to keep the pies hot. of grilling 400 burg-
The secret sauce? ers an hour. Though
Predictive analytics. Momentum has yet to
open its first location
(slated for San Fran-
cisco), expectations
are highand the
buns are brioche.
JARGON WATCH ILLUSTRATION BY LEON EDLER

JARGON brug n. / 'brug / A bug thats a drug. An intestinal bacterium in the Prevotella genus,
often lacking in people with multiple sclerosis, has been shown to suppress the disease

WATCH
if given orally. Its proof that gut flora can fight diseases outside the gut. 1-D printer
n. / wun-d 'prin-t r / A device that makes robots by bending a length of wire (with in-
'
line motors) into fancy shapes. Tell it you need, say, a camera bot that can shimmy up
a pipe and itll design and build one in 15 minutes. angel particle n. / 'n-j l 'pr-ti-k l / A sub-
atomic particle that is its own antiparticlematter and antimatter all at once. The spooky speck,
recently detected in a lab test, could help make quantum computers viable. JONATHONKEATS

0 2 0 GABRIEL SILVEIRA NOV 2017

 Instagram
comments on
Oscar!!!
@janetbordeninc: Oscar
and an Emmy!
@greedeepeedee:
Gmork!
@ojaiphoto:
@neilmarcello: Right
from Stephen Kings Pet
Sematary!
@dodgemedlin: Theres
your Platonic ideal of a
lunatic cat right there.
@janet.escalona4431:

@jasonreinhold: Gold
@gracefullyweird: Made
my day
@marlinseigman:
Classic.
@gabibobu: If that isnt
the very illustration of
DRAMA, I dont know
what would be!
@seanwelchfoto: Great
and slightly horrific.

ALPHA

THE FELINE GAZE

E WAS an Instagram
STEPHEN SHORE
artist way before
r there was Insta

GRAMS AT MOMA
gram. He shot to prominence in
f
the 70s with carefully composed
snapshots of parking g lots,
l pancake
breakfasts, and camping ing trips,
beautiful banalities that future Instagrammers would try to emulate. Now that Shore e is
PORTRAIT COURTESY OF STEPHEN SHORE

actually on the platform, he averages a post a dayand a retrospective of his work, open
@stephen.shore
ing at New Yorks Museum of Modern Art in November, shows off three years worth of his
grams. Including (obviously) a portrait of his beloved Himalayan cat, Oscar. Visitors will scan
Followers
Shores feed on iPads, preserving the social media experience of the fingerflicking scroll and
97.5K
the luminous screen. Oh, and dont compare his animal photography to your own. When I
take a photo of my cat, Im well aware that there are millions of cat pictures on Instagram, Po s t s

he says. The image has to be strong and not depend on it simply being a cat picture. In this 1,145

moment with Oscar, the light was just right to highlight the deep pools of his eyes and the Exhibition Dates
ferocity of his gaze. Shore assures us his cat doesnt look this scary IRL. AnnaVlasits November 19 to May 28

0 2 2 STEPHEN SHORE NOV 2017

 ANGRY NERD

NOT ... READY

FOR IT

ALPHA

WHATS THE DEAL

CRACKING THE
CONSTRUCTION CODE Taylor Swift, pop cultures perfect
princess, is a member of the ser-
pent race. She knows this, Reddit
knows this, the Trilateral Com-
SILICON VALLEYS LATEST AXIOM: Move fast and build things. VC firms expect to mission knows this. I couldnt
invest $375 million in construction tech this yeara 420percent increase from care less. What does make me
2014. Its one of the last massive industries to be disrupted, says Darren Bechtel, squirmy, however, is that she has
stopped trying to conceal her
founder of Brick and Mortar Ventures (and kin to the eponymous construction true slithering self from the pub-
giant). Investors like him envision streamlining a process that has traditionally lic. Once, there was denial: Just
required teams of contractors to build a single house. The so-called constructech last year, when internet truthers
filled her Instagram with snake
industrys unlikely darling, Katerra, builds homes by controlling every step of the emoji, Taylor had the platform rid
process, from fabricating walls to installing doorknobs. Despite the fact that the her feed of snakes, Saint Patrick
founders have never worked in the building industry, the startup secured a $130 style. Mirage, maintained. But
now? Shes coming out. Teasers
million Series C round earlier this year. Katerra CEO Michael Marks, former head for her November album, Repu-
of Flex and Tesla, argues that it takes an outsider to shake things up: Amazon tation, began with the image of
didnt come from within the retail industry; Airbnb didnt come from the hos- ::shudder:: a flickering serpent
head. Look what you made me
pitality industry. Construction software startups are seeing similar enthusi- do, she hisses repeatedly in the

WHATS THE DEAL ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM AVERY; ANGRY NERD ILLUSTRATION BY ZOHAR LAZAR;
asm: Procore, which creates project management systems for contractors, hit lead single, the video for which is
seething with snakes. Sweet Tay-

BLACK FRIDAY ILLUSTRATIONS BY WREN MCDONALD; BLACK FRIDAY SOURCE: CATCHPOINT

unicorn status in late 2016, and VCs including Andreessen Horowitz and Google
lor, she declares, is dead; Snake
Ventures have invested nearly $40 million in Flux, a data-sharing platform tai- Taylor is ascendant. This, fellow
lored to architects, engineers, and contractors. Now, if only the new constructech mortals, is a violationand not
crew could bring down the price of California real estate. Jake Bullinger just of her dark kinds long-kept
anonymity. In unzipping her skin-
suit to reveal the lizard innards
within, Taylor threatens to expose
the gross, skin-crawly secrets of
brand-building in 2017. Her songs
and image are now so self-refer-

BLACK FRIDAY BLACKOUTS: LAMEST EXCUSES ential, so meta, that they might as
well be a set of Russianly nested
Ouroborosian snake dolls. There
ANNOYING ENRAGING is venom in this world, people,
BEST BUY (2014) PAYPAL (2015) and sugary pop music, with its
SITE FAILURE: 2+ hours SITE FAILURE: 1.5+ hours
EXCUSE: Were sorry. Site EXCUSE: [504 error message]
wholesome exteriors and man-
is currently unavailable. ufactured chemical simplicity,
NEIMAN MARCUS (2015) MACYS (2016) is the antidote. We must, for our
TARGET (2015) SITE FAILURE: 30+ hours SITE FAILURE: 6+ hours
SITE FAILURE: 40+ minutes E XCU S E : Were currently EXCUSE: Back in a few.
sanity, buy into it. Yet Tay, evil
EXCUSE: Please hold tight. making improvements to Were getting a makeover. hyperintelligent xenobeast that
So sorry, but high traffics your shopping experience. she is, is forcing us to confront
causing delays.
EXPRESS (2016)
the terrors withinimperiling the
SITE FAILURE: 3+ hours blissful ignorance so necessary
EXCUSE: As soon as a
spot opens up well put you for our survival. As a species.
right through. JA S O N K E H E

0 2 4 NOV 2017
 ALPHA

READY TO ROCK
THOR DIRECTOR BETWEEN ALL THE superheroes and supervillains, direct-

SUITS UP
ing a Marvel movie takes an effort that verges on the
superhuman. But when he was making Thor: Ragnarok,
Taika Waititi had to do more than wrangle Thor, Loki,
and the Hulk; he also cast himself as Korg, the stone-
man gladiatorial fighter who becomes Thors new mate.
I usually put myself in my films, says Waititi, who played
Tall Order a vampire in his 2014 horror spoof, What We Do in the
Because Korg is Shadows. Turning into Korg, though, required more
nearly 8 feet tall, than fangs and makeup. In addition to a mo-cap suit, he
Waititi had to pretend also had to lug around a camera rig, battery packs, and
as though he were
towering over his Korgs face, all while acting (and joking) alongside Chris
scene partners, while Hemsworths God of Thunder. Did he ever have to call
they had to play to Cut! on himself? All the time, Waititi says. And yet
a Korg cutout loom-
ing a foot and a half that couldnt have been as awkward as directing super-
above Waititis head. stars in a skintight onesie. Angela Watercutter

Head Gear

Not only did Waititi

have dozens of
sensors on his face,
he also wore a helmet
with a selfie cam so Pajama Party
postproduction could
map his expressions A mo-cap suit let
to Korgs. Waititis movements
be tracked so they
could be re-created
in CGI. You have
Maxi-Me these pajamas on,
and youre covered in
A lot of the scenes tiny Ping-Pong balls,
with me and Chris he says. Luckily for
[Hemsworth] were his dignity, he wasnt
improvised, Waititi alonecastmates
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JASIN BOLAND/2017 MARVEL STUDIOS

says. The more we and the stunt crew

messed around on were often clad in
set, doing voices and gray leotards too.
things, the more we
cracked up at this
character who was
just a version of me. Slower Motion

Im not a method
actor, so I didnt cover
myself with rocks,
Waititi says. But he
did learn to rein in
his hand-waving to
appear more stone-
warrior-like. Even so,
his gestures had to
be slooowed dooown
in postproduction.

0 2 6 NOV 2017
 ALPHA

product of Google and would be nothing with-

out the companys decision to recognize it as
Googleable, rank it in the algorithms esoteric

JUST GOOGLE IT
hierarchy, and incentivize its renovation so
it might make itself prettier to Google. To
Google something, therefore, is to accept

A SHORT HISTORY OF
the fiction that Google is both the whole infor-
mation worldand the only path through it.

A NEWFOUND VERB
What a racket. How did we ever start
believing that a highly limited set of visual
and symbolic datawords, numbers, and
images without depthmake up the entirety
of the worlds information? You cant Google
A BRAND REACHES its apotheosis when it slips into the taste, scent, or touch; sound searches are janky.
vernacular as a generic nounBand-Aid, Kleenex, even Google engages barely two of the five human
Dumpster. Anyone elses dad still say Dempster Dump- senses and tells us thats the whole world.
ster, for the brothers who patented it in 1939, and alas, Chinas search engine, Baidu, while
arent around now to copyright Dempster Dumpster Fire? benighted by censorship, nonetheless has
To become a verb is even less common. To Hoover for to vacuum the far better name. Baidu derives from
comes to mind. To Skype, meaning to make a video call, shows mod- Green Jade Table in the Lantern Festival,
est promise, but since video chatters need to agree on software, its a Song dynasty poem by Xin Qiji about the
unlikely Skype can ever stand in for FaceTime or WhatsApp. The rare annual festival during which maidens left their
tech company to achieve verbal dominion over a whole category of houses to be seen and courted. The poems last
digital experience is of course Google, with to Google. line is, Hundreds and thousands of times, for
Early on, Larry Page used the verb form two months before the her I searched in chaos / Suddenly, I turned
company launched in September 1998. The cutie-pie locution showed by chance, to where the lights were waning,
up on a listserv for Google-Friends when the search engine lived at and there she stood.
http://google.stanford.edu/. (Dont bother; its too late to join Google- As the Baidu corporate site explains, the
Friends.) After a brief update to his new product, Page signed off to companys name evokes the search for a
his merry crew, Have fun and keep googling! His companys search retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour.
index is now more than 100 million gigabytes. Evidently, we did. Organizing the worlds information sounds
And thus for insiders, to Google started as an intransitive verb; ambitious. On the other hand, searching for
a pastime without an object; search for searchs sake; a Sunday drive retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour
through cyberspace. But by 2002 we layfolk had gotten our mitts partakes of the romance that the frayed old
on it and knew what Google was really forforensics, stalking, the internet once used to suggest. But it some-
transitive stuff. Have you Googled her yet? Willow asks Buffy in the times seems we have organized and Goo-
final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Shes 17! cries Xander, find- gled that romance out of existence. And the
ing some nice prurience in the word. Corrects Willow: Its a search beauty we once searched expectantly for has
engine. The next year, the American Dialect Society named Google, retreated for all time.
transitive verb, the most useful word of 2002. The Oxford English
Dictionary minted it in June 2006.
Google, verb, did instantly seem like a fragment of verse wed needed
since the information superhighway of the 1990s first threatened us
with vertigo. Supplying the illusion of order to the jerry-built tubes
and their effluvium has long been the role of the big commercial tech
companies. Googles mission is to organize the worlds information.
Its Faustian. But to Google, of course, does not mean to organize;
it means to submit to Googles organization while pretending youre
blazing a bespoke passage through the information
Schwarzwald, over the information Rockies, and
around the information Horn.
Part of the shared pretending done by Google
By Virginia Heffer- and anyone who uses it is to act as if information
nan (@page88), on the web already existed in some kind of natu-
the author of Magic
and Loss: The Inter- ral state prior to Googles mission to organize it.
net as Art. Instead, information in its present form is, in fact, a

0 2 8 BEN WISEMAN NOV 2017

 ALPHA

INFOPORN

THE EVOLUTION
THE WAYS THAT bad guys take our digi-
tal stuff are constantly changing: Com-

OF DATA LEAKS
panies have gotten smarter about how
they secure information, but hacking
and phishing are risingfast. Based on
data from CyberScout and the Identity
Theft Resource Center, we created a series of contour lines showing how frequently organizations
were compromised by various methods over time. Areas with shallow slopes mean things are hov- Relative Data
Breach Volume
ering around the status quo. Color bands that are close together mean the type of attack is quickly
getting more (or less) frequent. So, dont be the weakest link: Enable two-factor authentication,
use a password manager, and never, ever click on that random attachment. Seth Kadish FEWER MORE

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

THESE ATTACKS DOUBLED

FROM 2015 TO 2016.

Hacking, Skimming, and Phishing

SYS ADMINS: REMEMBER TO REVOKE

PRIVILEGES FROM FORMER EMPLOYEES.

Insider Theft

2017 NUMBERS ARE PROJECTED. SOURCES: CYBERSCOUT, IDENTITY THEFT RESOURCE CENTER
FIRMS INADVERTENTLY RELEASED
PERSONAL DATA ONLINE 109 TIMES IN 2015.

Weak Corporate Internet Security

BETTER SECURITY PROTOCOLS MEAN THAT

STOLEN OR LOST DEVICES STAY LOCKED.

Data Breached from Lost/Stolen Devices

ANY TYPE OF BREACH COULD EXPOSE THE DATA

OF THOUSANDS (OR MILLIONS) OF PEOPLE.

Leak by Outside Vendor

0 3 0 NOV 2017
 ALPHA
CHARTGEIST
by jon j. eilenberg

MAPPING THE FUTURE

Google Stamp
Yet another row
of stuff above your

CARTOGRAPHY
A M MAKES
KES
search results
Engaging
swipe-based
storytelling

A COMEBACK
M

Wait ... is
this Snapchat?!

Appropriateness
of Platform for Chronicling
Family Thanksgiving

Snapchat Twitter
Memoirs Verrit
Legal
Filings Instagram

Therapists Facebook
CARTOGRAPHY IS THE new code. Increasingly, everything from your takeout delivery Couch
to your UberPool route is orchestrated not just by engineers but by cartographers.
Between 2007 and 2015, the number of grads earning masters degrees in cartog-
raphy increased anually by more than 40 percent on average. And as advanced Reasons
satellites, digital mapping tools, and open source geographical software progress, Were Excited for
the demand for cartographers is projected to grow nearly 30 percent by 2024. Justice League
Modern cartographers are as much data analysts as they are map producers.
Flagship GIS systems by software companies like Esri have been democratized
by an explosion of open source alternatives like Carto and MapBox. We are
absolutely inundated with volumes of geospatial data, says Mike Tischler,
director of the US Geological Surveys National Geospatial Program, but with
no means to effectively use it all.
Which is why, as tasks from house-hunting to solving public health crises
depend on sophisticated map integration, cartography grads are being snapped
up by Silicon Valley. Ten years ago someone with geospatial expertise may have
been siloed from the engineering team, says Grubhub CTO Maria Belousova.
Today a huge portion of our team works on spatial search and route optimi-
Gal Gadot back as
zation. Data-savvy mappers are charting that digital frontier. Matt Jancer Wonder Woman

0 3 2 TIM ENTHOVEN NOV 2017

 ALPHA

ROSS DUFFER: SWEATER BY A.P.C., JEANS BY A.P.C., SHOES BY NEW BALANCE, WATCH BY TUDOR. MATT DUFFER: SHIRT BY A.P.C., TROUSERS BY BILLY REID, WATCH BY TUDOR IN HERITAGE BLACK BAY S & G ON BROWN AGED LEATHER STRAP
STYLING BY ANNA SU/ART DEPARTMENT, ASSISTING BY ANDREA MEHEFKO; GROOMING BY SIMON RIHANA /ART DEPARTMENT; PROP STYLING BY WARD ROBINSON
Q&A

TWINS
SPEAK
STRANGER
THINGS
COEN. WACHOWSKI. DUPLASS. There are a lot of famous siblings making movies and TV
together, but right now theres only one name in the identical-twins category: Duffer.
That would be Matt and Ross, the 33-year-old North Carolina natives who pitched

RETURNS Netflix the eight-hour Spielberg movie otherwise known as Stranger Things. One year
and 18 Emmy nominations later, the writer-directors are heading into season two of
the pulp-culture sleeper hit with more on their minds than finding an 80s-shaped
stone they havent yet overturned. Were trying to introduce concepts and ideas that
can sustain us for at least a few more seasons, says Matt. (Hes the one with longer
hair.) Theres still plenty of Reagan-era nostalgia on deck, from Ghostbusters to Drag-
ons Lair, but the cast is deeperand the Upside Down upside-downier than ever.
Were dealing with another dimension, Matt says, so anything is possible.
Anything, it turns out, but delaying puberty in your teenage stars. PeterRubin

0 3 4 JOE PUGLIESE NOV 2017

 ALPHA TELEVISION

The internet loves MATT: Its getting work show would.

Stranger Things dangerously close We were joking about
and it has sugges- to where Winona leaving her there
tions. How do Ryders character but then suddenly
you shut out that will be able to that cliffhanger felt
chatter when its watch herself! right to us.
time to write?
ROSS: Lucas came There are a lot
MATT: Im so tired of out in 1986. of writing partner-
talking about Barb! ships in entertain-
[Laughs.] MATT: We do have ment. There arent
her watching a a lot of twins.
ROSS: I dont go on Michael Keaton
Reddit, because I movie this year, so Im MATT: Weve been
know thatll be quick- happy about that. making movies since
sand and I wont the fourth grade,
be able to get out. It seems impossible so it feels pretty nat-
Thankfully, Netflix for shows to sneak ural. Our taste is so
had green-lit a writ- up on people nowa- identical that we
ers room before daysyet Stranger can just share a look
we officially got Things did just that. and communicate
renewed, so most of Did you have any quite a lot.
writerdirectors: Matt and Ross Duffer age: 33
the beats of season anxiety going in that hometown: Durham, North Carolina best known for: TV
two were figured out it was going to sink? ROSS: Up through sseries Stranger Things less known for: 2015 horror flick
ahead of time. college, we saw Hidden binge-watch recommendations: Friday Night Lights,
MATT: Theres so every movie The Last Airbender, Freaks and Geeks, Big Little Lies, Rick
Those kids are much content out together. We have and Morty 80s references in season two: Ghostbusters,
growing fast. Did there, even good the same life, many Gremlins, Escape From New York, Temple of Doom, Poltergeist
you have to work shows get lost. Netflix of the same life expe- scariest horror creation of all time: Pinhead. Hellraiser
scarred us. favorite food to stress-eat on set: Bojangles
around that? isnt spending movie- riences, so were
fried chicken biscuits
level marketing
ROSS: Sometimes moneythey want MATT: as synced
I forget until I look people to find this up as you can possi-
back at season one stuff through word bly be. That doesnt
they were so little of mouth. mean we dont have
and adorable. Like major disagreements.
Gaten Matarazzo, ROSS: Its even worse
who plays Dustin, now. Im glad we ROSS: Because MATT: It helps you ROSS: Not that were MATT: but first, we
looked like a little came out last sum- someone is wrong catch issues before more difficult, but we actually gave in and
muppet. But now, and mer, because now about something you start spending a push harder for the took out all of the
even more so into theres something occasionally. ton of money mak- things that we want. bad language, and
season three, these new every week. ing it. There was one the kids got really
are full-on teenagers. Does that mind meld sequence in season MATT: Were a big upset. Then I wrote
How does Netflixs have its limits in the two where I felt we pain in the ass. Netflix saying Ive
MATT: The scary all-at-once release creative process? messed it up in the got this army of 11-
thing is youre shoot- model affect the writing stage, and What kinds of things and 12-year-olds and
ing for half a year way the storyline MATT: The writing for we went back and are you pushing for? theyre pissed off that
and season two takes unfolds? us is the hardest, but redid it. But you really we cut all the lan-
place over the course also the most import- need to not do that. MATT: Its been much guage. At least let us
of, like, a week, so MATT: Weve written ant. You want to get [Laughs.] easier this year, but shoot alternate takes.
you cant have some- for network televi- to the next part of it, just getting profanity That was, like, the
one have some sion, where you have to production, but it So how do you top into the show was a day before we started
major growth spurt. to worry about hitting doesnt matter how season one? big argument. shooting. And then
Youll hear changes these ad breaks, you beautifully made it is Netflix said OK.
in their voice, but have to worry about if somethings wrong MATT: Before this, we ROSS: When Netflix
you cant do much 42 minutes and 10 with the story arc. had never really done saw the first two ROSS: Theyre much
about puberty. Except seconds exactly. anything that any- episodes, they real- more foulmouthed
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

maybe shift the pitch. ROSS: Thats the best body seemed to care ized this is fine, its in season two than
ROSS: With episode thing about having about. So its like, OK, not going to turn off in season one, but in
Youve said you five in the first sea- someone elseits we can do something families real life its far worse.
want the show to son, when Nancy like a constant bull- that people like, and Im like, I cannot
run four or five sea- goes in the tree, I shit filter. that gives you con- believe that came out
sons. Where does remember being like, fidence. But then it of your mouth.
that leave us? its not satisfying to also gives you a little
have her saved at the bit of ammunition to
end, the way a net- push for things.

0 3 6 NOV 2017
 ALPHA

OUR SELFIES, OURSELVES

SELFIE OR USIE? Mayfair or Lo-Fi? Bathroom mirror or drivers seat? In her
new book, The Selfie Generation, writer Alicia Eler combines memoir, cultural
criticism, and historical analysis to explore the phenomenon, from its roots in
self-portraiture to its current position in the zeitgeist. The selfie is grossly misun-
derstood, Eler says. Critics like to use it as evidence that millennials are stupid
and narcissistic, but they fail to contemplate the versatility of the form. We asked
the selfie semiotician to interpret these celebrity shotsthough can anyone ever
really understand whats going on with James Franco? Rebecca Flint Marx
HOW TO FINSTA
If youre sick of overthinking your
Instagram, what you need is a fake
account. Its called a finsta, and its
a second feed only for your clos-
est friends. You know, so you can be
your unfiltered, spontaneous, truly
authentic self. J U ST I C E N A M A ST E

Instas Finstas

Take 100200 No plandids,

photos to find not ever. Post
the ones that a photo of

PHOTOS
look effortless yourself mid-
Samuel L. Jackson Lindsay Lohan January Jones and natural sneeze.
aka planned
candids, aka
This is a typical usie or This is a classic meta If you look at Jones other plandids.
groupie photo. A celeb selfie: The reflection in selfies, youll notice the
who constantly posts her sunglasses lends a tilt-shift filter is her thing.

PHOTOS BY @SAMUELLJACKSON; @LINDSAYLOHAN; @JANUARYJONES; @JAMESFRANCOO; @AMBERROSE; @LENADUNHAM;

selfies might be accused heightened visual aware- Its slightly manipulative
of being lonely or self- ness. The car selfie is less in that it gets you to focus Short and witty. Free-associate.
CAPTIONS

absorbed. Here, Jackson deliberate than the bath- on her face. And yet the Stoop to taking Rant. Describe
is showing hes social room selfie in that its usu- photo implies a certain photos just to a rock. Cry.
fit your clever Average length
with a capital S; hes mes- ally taken out of boredom. casualnessmessy hair,
caption idea. is six sentences.
saging that he knows But the car can also be a no makeup. Shes saying,
how to have a good time. class-related signifier. Hey, Im just like you.

Unless youre Post four times

Insta-famous, before noon
POSTING
RATE OF

limit yourself to or not at all for

one post every two months.
few days (and Whatever.
only during high-
traffic hours).

If half an hour Theres no

MANAGING

passes and you minimum

LIKES

have < 40 likes, but its nice if

erase the post. a few friends
acknowledge
your brilliance.
FINSTA ILLUSTRATION BY KUOCHENG LIAO

James Franco Amber Rose Lena Dunham

Franco has been called This reminds me of early She doesnt take selfies
FOLLOWERS
NUMBER OF

the king of selfies. Celebs Renaissance paintings because she wants you No limit. Who cares!
Scrounge for
use I woke up like this like Vanity by Hans Mem- to desire her. Shes say- more.
selfies to convey authen- ling, in which a naked ing Fuck it and embrac-
ticity, but hes using white woman is looking in ing imperfection, which is
Instagram to re-create a a mirror. Such depictions radical in the context of
RAUNCH

teen idol archetype. He are now seen as misogy- celebrity branding. Peo- Dont post Definitely post
doesnt reveal anything: nistic. But this is a multi- ple are often unsettled by pictures of your pictures of your
butt. butt.
Its all meant to capitalize racial woman projecting a selfies because theyre
on James Franco. position of power. jarring to social norms.

0 3 8 NOV 2017
 ALPHA

On picking a setting
thats more realistic
than Mars:
I wanted to choose

THE MOON
GOOGLE CANT RESIST a moon shot, but this the most likely loca-
tion for the first off-
one is literal: A decade ago, the company Earth settlement. You
announced the Google Lunar X Prize$20 can have shipping

OR BUST
million for the first private firm to build a and trade with the
moon, as well as
robot that can soft-land on the surface of the tourism. Traveling
moon, travel 500 meters, and beam hi-def there would be like
Andy Weir going from Europe to
video back to Earth. Now, after multiple extensions and a couple of flameouts, five on His New North America in the
teams are racing toward the March 2018 launch deadline, and the cutest contender Lunar Colony 1800s: Its a trek, but
might be the MX-1E, an R2-D2shaped lander designed by space startup Moon Express. realistically the jour-
At roughly the size of Danny DeVito, the MX-1E fits inside a launch vehicle from part- ney only takes about
In Elon Musks a week.
nering company Rocket Lab; once the craft detaches and shoots moonward, its engine fever dreams, were
and thrusters slow it down so the moons gravity can help gently guide its descent. Bob already looping On oxygenating the
Richards, a self-described space entrepreneur and Moon Express cofounder and around the moon Artemis colony:
in spaceships. Eighty-five percent
CEO, envisions a future in which the moon is mined for resourcesnot necessarily And possibly even of the rocks on the
for export back to Earth but to power further space travel, using Luna as a launching vacationing in an surface of the lunar
point. (Moon water could provide the hydrogen and oxygen needed to make rocket elaborate lunar highlands are anor-
colony like the one thite, which contains
fuel, for example.) As for full-on lunar colonies? I love the thought of kids looking Andy Weir imagines aluminum as well as
up and seeing lights on the moon, Richards says. Guess you cant have a moon shot in his new novel, a massive supply of
without a little bit of cheese. Justice Namaste Artemis. Being oxygen. Smelting alu-
Weirhe of the minum in the quan-
According to WIREDs resident physicist, Rhett Allain, even by nearly doubling the value of platinum (one meticulously tities necessary to
of the moons most valuable metals) miners would need to export more than 23 million kilosthe weight researched space- construct and main-
of 55 International Space Stationsto break even. See WIRED.com for his full analysis. survival thriller tain Artemis would
The Martianyou produce so much
know he just had excess oxygen
to science the shit eight atoms for every
out of it. J.n . two of aluminum
that they would be
constantly venting it.
2.5 FT

On travel costs:
Lets say, based on
my calculations, it
costs $7,020 to get
a human body to the
orbital space station,
4.4 FT Telescope including luggage.
But for every kilo-
gram of payload, you
need an additional
3.73 kilos of fuel. So a
551 LBS Solar panels one-way ticket to the
moon comes out to
about $33,000.

On moon food,
Used for Hydrogen since potato farming
landing, these peroxide as isnt practical:
legs also a fuel source If all food had to
help the craft means the
MX-1E could be imported from
hop across
the moons theoretically Earth, theres no way
surface. refuel with low-income workers
moon H2O2. could afford to eat.
So my solution was
gunk. Gunk is primar-
ily chlorella, an algae
ILLUSTRATION BY RUTH GWILY

that can be grown in

baths. Its nutrient-
Engine parts rich and grows by
are 3-D doubling. Not nec-
printed out
essarily delicious,
of the heat-
resistant though, so I created
superalloy different flavorings,
Inconel. like tandoori chicken.

0 4 0 CRISTIANO RINALDI NOV 2017

 ALPHA

Have you ever been to Florida? I happen

to love it. Sure, the state is still heavily
mythologized, owing largely to the inter-
nets fascination with tawdry, meth-heavy
#FloridaMan memes. But no one, whatever
they think of Florida, still reflexively pic-
tures a landscape of gamboling unicorns or
hog-faced sea dragons. Nor, Im guessing, did
most early American settlers arrive there
expecting to find such beasts. Instead, visitors
have successively managed to recognize the
many actual, sublime wonders of the place
for themselves: My list includes a memory
of plaintive oaks lining a country road in the
Panhandle, the Its a Small World ride at
Disney World, Angela Bassett, citrus.
My point is not just that information
gleaned from afar is often wrong. Its that we
canif we want tocompartmentalize infor-
mation of questionable credibility and stay
MR. KNOW-IT-ALL
open to learning the truth firsthand. We can

: BEFORE A DATE, I LIKE TO DO A resist marrying ourselves to prior knowledge,

and instead let it pique our sense of adven-

LITTLE ONLINE RESEARCH ON THE

ture and discovery, our sense of romance.
I think most reasonable people understand

PERSON. IF I FIND INTERESTING

this. So first off: Yes, I think its OK to bring
up your exploratory Googling on a date.

STUFF, SHOULD I BRING IT UP?

The truth is, we move through life pre-
ceded online by a disjointed, sometimes
ungracefully translated travelogue of where
by jon mooallem weve already been. Id argue that playing it
cool, and pretending you hadnt bothered to
glance at any of this material before a date, is
odd and maybe even a little insulting.
Sir John Hawkins was a British slave trader who voy- Of course, I assume you are decent and

A: aged through what is now Florida in 1565. The landscape

Hawkins traversed was murky, disorienting, wilda
kind and know how to bring up your discov-
eries in good tastetreating what youve
new world that no European could easily comprehend. read delicately, using it to open a meaningful
Hawkins tried his best to make sense of what he saw. But in addi- conversation and not just hammering your
tion to being a morally despicable trafficker of humans, he was counterpart with their most mortifying social
also, apparently, a moron. For example, when he saw animal horns media deep-cuts. And I also assume you know
being worn around native peoples necks, he decided they must that your Googling does not make you more
be unicorn horns. From there, Hawkins employed his own spe- of an authority on this person than the per-
cial brand of extrapolative idiot-logic to deduce that there must son themself. (Duh.)
be lions in Floridabecause, as the historian Andrea Smalley Insteadand please, let me have this one
writes, the enmity between lions and unicorns was well known, little spasm of optimism and romanceyou
and no beast could exist without its enemy. Hawkins was only understand that every date is a voyage. When
one of many explorers groping boneheadedly through America you come ashore at the noodle house or caf
and transmitting their awestruck, staggering wrongness back to or bar, you hope to finally glimpse the sec-
the societies from which they came. (Another early traveler named ond, heretofore-missing hemisphere of your
Job Hortopeven the guys name sounds preposterousreported world. Naturally youll have read up a little
catching a 23-foot-long, porcine-headed aquatic dragon by baiting first. Because you were excited. Because you
a fish hook with a dog.) Still, if you were living in Europe and curi- couldnt wait to discover it all for yourself.
ous about the entirely new-to-you second half of the planetwhich: Write to [email protected].
of course you wereyou had little choice but to wade through this
kind of intelligence gathered by egregious, hooey-slinging buffoons.

0 4 2 NISHANT CHOKSI NOV 2017

 ALPHA

DESTINATIONS

GRAIN, ELEVATED
ART IN THE ROUND
POETS SEE THE WORLD in a grain of sand. Futurist architect Mat Cash
found inspiration in a grain of corn. As group leader at Heatherwick
Studiothe avant-garde design firm behind Googles upcoming Moun-
tain View and London campusesCash was tasked with transform-
ing Cape Towns century-old grain silo complex into the new Zeitz
Beneath the Skin Carving Concrete
Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. The building, shuttered in 2001,
was once the tallest in sub-Saharan Africa, its 100-foot bins capable The complexs Excising interior sec-
of storing 30,000 tons of grain. Cashs design winks at the facilitys 42 silos had been tions of the grain
original purpose: He carved a kernel-shaped cavity into its heart using painted yellow in silos threatened the
the 80s, rising from structural integrity
a 20-ton hydraulic breaker. The resulting cathedral-like atrium is the landscape like of the building. Engi-
now a celebration of art instead of agriculture. Ashlea Halpern giant sticks of butter. neers reinforced
Cashs team restored each tube with a new
the concrete facade. concrete sleeve.
It felt like archaeol-
ogy, scraping away Now on View
100 years of skins to
reveal something The museums 100
beautiful, he says. galleries showcase
the work of contem-
porary African art-
ists such as Kudzanai
Chiurai of Zimbabwe
and Wangechi Mutu
of Kenya.

W H I L E I N C A P E T O W N / / E AT : S A M P L E WAG Y U B I LT O N G A K I N D O F FA N C Y S O U T H A F R I C A N B E E F J E R K YAT T H E T E S T K I T C H E N , LO C AT E D I N A N O T H E R
R E P U R P O S E D B U I L D I N G , T H E O L D B I S C U I T M I L L . / / S T AY : R E T I R E T O O N E O F T H E S E V E N G L E A M I N G A I R S T R E A M T R A I L E R S PA R K E D O N T H E R O O F
O F T H E G R A N D D A D D Y H O T E L . / / D O : A D M I R E T H E W O R L D S F A S T E S T C AT S AT C H E E TA H O U T R E A C H , A S A N C T U A R Y F O R T H E E N D A N G E R E D F E L I N E S .

0 4 4 IWAN BAAN NOV 2017

 ALPHA

With txt.fyi, Beschizza was trying to play-

fully push back. I wanted something where
people could publish their thoughts with-
CLIVE THOMPSON out any false game of social manipulation,

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA
one-upmanship, and favor-trading, he says.
This is what I found so interesting about his
creation. Its antivirality doesnt necessarily

NOT EVERY MESSAGE

prevent a post from becoming wildly popu-
lar. (A txt.fyi URL shared on, say, Facebook
could perhaps go viral.) But its design favors

HAS TO GO VIRAL
messages to someone, not everyone.
So, does antivirality actually affect what
people do and say? Beschizza isnt sure.
Out of pro-privacy principle, he doesnt
regularly look at the logs of his service. But
once, during some debugging, Beschizza
RECENTLY, ROB BESCHIZZA a coder and the managing editor discovered someone using txt.fyi to write
of Boing Boingreleased a stripped-down blogging tool called letters to a deceased relative. It was touching
txt.fyi. Write something, hit Publish, and voil: your deathless prose, and weirdly human, precisely the sort of
online. But heres the thing: txt.fyi has no social mechanics. None. unconventional expression we used to see a
No Like button, no Share button, no comments. No feed showing lot more of online. But today we sand down
which posts are most popular. Each post has a <meta> tag telling those rough edges, those barbaric yawps, in
search engines not to index it, so it wont even show up on Google. the quest for social spread. Even if you dont
The only way anyone will see it is if you send them the URL or post want to share something, Medium or Tumblr
it somewhere. txt.fyi is a tool for putting stuff onlinebut with- or Snapchat tries to make you. They have the
out the usual features to help something become a pass-around will to virality baked in.
hit. I call it antiviral design. Most platforms work in precisely When you think about it, the very met-
the opposite fashion. Theyre casinos of quantification, designed aphor of going viral suggests bleak side
to constantly tell us whats blowing up and what isnt. We peer at effects. In the physical world, it means an
our feeble posts on Twitter or Instagram or LinkedIn and pray for infectious payload spreading uncontrollably.
likes, for hearts, for a big-smile emoji. Our attention is magneti- Smallpox, Ebola, avian flu: super viral con-
cally drawn to anything with a huge share number beneath it tent, dude! Reframe virality like that and
what psychologists call the social proof: If lots of people are paying you start to understand the emergence of
attention to something, we figure its worth our notice too. This white supremacy online or the hot-zone dog-
lust for virality deforms how we think in public. What do you get piling of Gamergate. If social networks are to
if you mentally focus-group every utterance before you post it? eliminate hate on their platforms, theyll have
Stuff thats panderingly dull (best not to offend anyone) or that to fight the exquisitely gameable mechanics
leans into the kabuki hysteria of a sick burn (offend everyone!). of virality they themselves built.
Posts designed specifically to hack the attentional marketplace. Now for the caveats. As Beschizza admits,
txt.fyi is just a tiny experiment. (There are
a few others like it, including SaidSo.me.)
Its hard to make a service like this go big,
because you cant easily make ad money on
an un-metricked platform. And hey, there are
healthy, nontoxic reasons were interested
in whats popular online: Some great social
good (like Black Lives Matter) has relied on
the viral spread of online posts.
Nonetheless, Id love to see some of
Beschizzas principles injected into our
socialmedia ecosystem. A bit of antivirality
could be precisely the inoculation against
extremism that our culture needs.
Write to [email protected].

0 4 6 ZOHAR LAZAR NOV 2017

 Edge of
Belgravia
Ceramic
Onyx Knife
Set and
Black
Diamond
Block

COOK

FETISH
THE KEY TO SUCCESS in the #paleo lifestyle is consuming a great many meats,
and the perfect implements for carving roast beast are these Stone Age
inspired slicers. The lightweight construction makes them easy to command,

SWITCH
and the soft, graspable handles wont punish your paws during marathon cubing
STYLING BY DANIELLE SELIG

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chefs to the santokuwill hold an edge far longer than steel, so youll be able
to shred through entire steers between sharpenings. Designer Christian Bird

BLADES
says the handsome implements borrow their angles from ancient flint tools,
so its fitting that he also created a gorgeous sculpture-cum-knife block evoc-

$298
ative of a boulder to keep up to 11 blades on free-floating display.
Your prehistoric ancestors would be proud. C A I T L I N H A R R I N G TO N

NOV 2017 ROBIN STEIN 0 4 9

 COOK
GADGET LAB Hestan Cue

HEAD-TO-HEAD
BEST FOR: Dedicated
chefs du home

The well-designed you wont scorch your

CYBER CHEFS
11-inch saut pan has caramel or vulca-
a secret: a built-in nize your mango-chili
temperature sensor, shrimp. After you get
allowing the app, pan, the hang of the app-
and induction burner guided recipes, go
to communicate. And freestyle and punch
Let these app-controlled smart induction burners since the pans sen- in the exact tempera-
give you an in-home cooking class. JOE RAY sor monitors the heat, ture you want.

$500
Tasty One Top

BEST FOR: Food-porn

addicts

Tastys smart kitchen

appliance ties in with
its app, which mimics
the companys mes-
merizing recipe vid-
eos, slicing them into
easy-to-follow steps.
An on-burner sensor
and a probe ther-
mometer allow for
precise cooking, from
searing to sous vide.
Youll need your
own induction-ready
pan, but the low price
makes that add-on
purchase easier
to swallow.

$175

0 5 0 NOV 2017
 GADGET LAB
COOK

GEARHEAD 1

RICH POUR
Java fanatics know that absolute control is key to
crafting the perfect cup of coffee. JOERAY

1 2

Baratza Virtuoso Acaia Pearl Scale

Pro baristas will tell Keep close tabs on

you that burr grind- the weight of beans
ers are the way to and the amount of
go for a uniform grind. water you pour with
Baratzas conical this smart scale thats
crusher excels accurate to within
at producing a wide a tenth of a gram.
range of grind sizes, Connect with the
and it cuts down on Acaia Coffee app to
fines, the powdery look up appropriate
bits that can make bean-to-water ratios
your brew bitter. and brewing times. 2

$249 $150

December
Dripper

Most pour-over drip-

pers lack moving
parts. The Decem- 3
4
bers cone twists
so you can control
the flow, modulat-
ing between three
speeds or cutting
it off completely by
opening and closing
the holes in the base.

$55

4 5

Heath Ceramics Fellow Stagg

Stack Mug Pour-Over Kettle

Sip from a mug Gorgeous to look at

thats a winner on and lovely to hold,
two fronts: The the Stagg kettle has
space-saving stack- an analog thermom-
able design is eter that monitors
timeless, and the water temperature.
hand-glazed ceramic Together, the swan-
vessel is made in necked spout and
California by workers weighted handle
who get health and allow for a smooth
5 retirement benefits. and steady pour.

$30 $69 and up

0 5 2 NOV 2017
 GADGET LAB
COOK

FETISH
COOL WHIP Braun
MultiQuick
9

YOU MUST WIELD A
wicked scepter
to rule the Land of
Smoothies. With
its 700-watt motor,
Brauns latest immer-
sion blender blows
through foodstuffs
that lesser sticks cant
crackice cubes,
raw potatoes, or even
a peeled avocado
with pit (if you crave
those bitter tannins).
Below the soft grip
is a compression
zonepush down
and the spinning
slicer moves closer
to the bottom of your
vessel, ensuring
every last bit of basil
and garlic becomes
pesto. Squeezing
the trigger speeds
up the blades and
takes your mix from
chunky to smooth.
No apron? No prob-
lem. Those funk-
ily shaped feet are
designed to keep
splatter to a minimum.
MICHAEL CALORE

$150

0 5 4 NOV 2017
 COOK
GADGET LAB 2

TOP 3
Etekcity
Lasergrip 1080

Is that skillet hot

TEMP WORKERS
enough to properly
sear your sous vide
filet mignon? With
an infrared thermom-
1 eter, youll always
know. Point this guns
Assess any sauce, sugar solution, or saut pan in seconds with a OXO Good Grips red laser at any sur-
cool instant-read kitchen thermometer. MICHAEL CALORE Thermocouple facebe it grill, pan,
or pizza stoneand it
The circular hinge can accurately gauge
on this contortionist the temperature to
lets the probe pivot the tenth of a degree
up to 225 degrees from 14 inches away.
so you can use it with
your right or left $21
hand. The center but-
ton allows for rota- 3
tion of the hot poker
1
without singeing ThermoWorks
your skin. Flip the ThermoPop
orientation and the
screen auto-flips for The ThermoPops
right-side up display. thin 4.5-inch probe
is long enough to
$100 slide deep into the
thickest rump roasts
to ensure the center
is a perfectly pink
135 degrees Fahren-
heit. With the press
of a button, the dis-
play rotates for easy
reading when you
have to pierce the
beast sideways.

$29

0 5 6 NOV 2017
 COOK
GADGET LAB Dreamfarm Scizza Pizzacraft
Pizzeria Pronto
Stovetop Oven

GEARHEAD
Getting clean cuts on
your sausage-topped
slices can be a frus- Cramped kitchen
trating task. Ditch keeping you from tak-

UPPER CRUST
the flimsy wheel and ing your crust to the
wield some sturdy next level? Fuhged-
scissors instead. The daboutitplop the
Scizzas lower blade Pronto onto your gas
includes a nonstick, stovetop and youll
nylon spatula tip that have a 600-degree
The right tools will make baking your own from- slides underneath pizza oven. Just
scratch pizza as easy as pie. JORDAN MCMAHON the crust as you snip add dough and your
making it a breeze favorite toppings and
to lift and serve once you can delete that
your slice is free. Dominos app.

$30 $180

Tillman 50
MIG Gloves

Pizza is greatburn-
ing your hands while
preparing it is not.
Avoid skin grafts and
pick up gloves that
can take the heat.
The Tillman 50s are
made for welding, so
they provide valuable
digital dexterity and
can certainly with-
stand searing crusts,
scalding sauce, and
sizzling cheese.

$20

Tilit Color Joseph Joseph

Block Apron Twist Grater

Youll be slinging The cheese you

flour, olive oil, and require comes
sauce, so youll need in blocks. (Preshred-
an apron. The waxed ded cheese is a
canvas and selvage crime against human-
denim Color Block ity.) Toss the old box
will protect your grater and get a tool
street threads and that will help you
make you look and do the job right. The
feel like a real chef. Twists twist is its han-
Plus, chest and side dle, which pivots on
pockets keep all an angle to assume
your essential gear a superior position for
close at hand. grating formaggio.

$85 $18

0 5 8 NOV 2017
 COOK
GADGET LAB WHEN THE U.S. NAVY was shipping fighter planes overseas
during World War II, it protected its birds from saltwater

BENCHMARK
corrosion by spraying them with a new plastic film. Made
out of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) and dubbed Saran
by its manufacturer, Dow, the wrap resisted moisture and

WRAP GENIUS
chemical decay. Its tight molecular bonds even sealed in
odors, a quality that led the Army to coat soldiers stinky
boots with PVDC. But peacetime left Dow without a regu-
lar buyer. After aborted efforts to use Saran in car seats
How a WWII plane protector evolved into the ideal product for static buildup shocked drivers buttsengineers found
an age of microwaves and leftovers. JONATHONKEATS a way to eliminate its plasticky scent and unappetizing
green tint, repackaging Saran as a food-friendly cling
wrap. PVDC could be stretched over the top of any con-
tainer, keeping meals fresh and preventing them from
stenching up the fridge. But PVDC was feared to be an
environmental toxin, so beginning in 2004 Saran Wrap
underwent a chemical makeover. Now made out of a
chlorine-free polyethylene, its not as clingy as the orig-
inal and may not stick to airplanes, but its still admira-
bly odor-resistant. Perfect for keeping tonights carrot
cake from smelling like last nights garlic-artichoke dip.

$3

Saran Wraps tight

molecular bonds block
pungent odors.

0 6 0 NOV 2017
 GADGET LAB
COOK
like rejected Lucky Charms marshmallows.

TOO MANY
Blue Aprons IPO this summer, along with
Amazons entry into the field and its pur-
chase of Whole Foods, show that meal kits

INGREDIENTS
are likely headed for the mainstream. The
allure is understandable. I tested four services
and found that almost every meal was a hit,
and I was cooking dishescurries, soups, a
Ready-to-cook meal kits are the epitome of internet-fueled maple-glazed tempehthat I almost other-
convenience. But the recipe still needs tweaking. JOE RAY wise never made at home.
But there is a problem: While meal kits
RECENTLY, SOMEONE ASKED me if I thought people were cooking at may be convenient, their near-brazen anti-
home less frequently than they used to. I bristled at the query, prob- environmentalism should make your stom-
ably because I was worried that it might be true. Wasnt everyone out ach ache. Inside the cardboard box youll
there watching cooking shows then turning off the TV, getting out their typically find insulation, goopy ice packs,
mason jars, and whipping up Alton Browns watermelon rind pickles? and a bunch of tiny plastic bags and boxes
Anyone fretting over Americas culinary decline can attempt to and jars for, say, four sprigs of parsley, a
find solace in the burgeoning popularity of meal kits, those boxes tablespoon of vegan butter, and a shot of
that arrive on your doorstep filled with every ingredient you need mirin. While many purveyors use some Earth-
for (typically) three meals for two. Just unpack, follow the cooking friendly packaging, and Blue Apron will pro-
instructions, and youve got a fresh, healthy repast, no grocery store vide shipping labels for sending back certain
trip necessary. Less than a year ago, meal kits had cultlike cachet. items, all that stuff had to be produced in the
The startups offering these dinners-in-a-box sported aspirational first place. To be sure, as long as you eat all
names often involving the word chef; other monikers sounded the vittles, food wasteestimated by the
USDA to be in the tens of millions of tons each
yearis practically nil. But the rise of meal kit
services leaves us with a dilemma, weigh-
ing personal convenience against adding to
already overflowing landfills.
There are some promising efforts that could
go a long way toward alleviating this problem.
National chains such as Kroger and (surprise!)
Whole Foods have test-marketed kits that you
can pick up in a ready-to-go bag that requires
less packaging. Perhaps AmazonFresh Pickup
will follow suit, making it easy to order a meal
kit right before you leave work and grab it on
the way home at the most convenient pickup
location, which could now include any Whole
Foods in the country.
Hopefully the waste issue gets solved,
because meal kits can be a potent gateway
drug. By using them, we might realize that
we enjoy standing in front of a stove, prepar-
ing a nice weeknight meal, and spending time
together. We could open a bottle of wine from
the shop around the corner. Then we could
light a candle, relax, and appreciate the food
we made for each other. Sounds lovely, doesnt
it? We might even decide to forget the meal
kits altogether and start preparing things
ourselves from scratch.
Joe Ray (@joe_ Maybe wed actually
diner) writes get around to making
about food and
kitchen technol- those watermelon rind
ogy for WIRED. pickles after all.

0 6 2 NOV 2017
 FROM MILD TO MONSTROUS
Since 2007, US scientists have used the Enhanced Fujita
scale to rate six classes of tornadoes, each one more
FILE://WEATHER intense and destructive than the last. C H E L S E A L E U

A rare photograph of a supercell,

the enormous, rotating breed of
storm known for dropping tornadoes.
EF-0 EF-1
Wind speed: 6585 mph Wind speed: 86110 mph
Total fatalities, 200716: 3 Total fatalities, 200716: 31
Likely damage: Tree branches snap Likely damage: Tree trunks uprooted
Average frequency: 678/year Average frequency: 378/year

0 6 6
EF-2 EF-3 EF-4 EF-5
Wind speed: 111135 mph Wind speed: 136165 mph Wind speed: 166200 mph Wind speed: 201+ mph
Total fatalities, 200716: 111 Total fatalities, 200716: 246 Total fatalities, 200716: 332 Total fatalities, 200716: 327
Likely damage: Houses shift Likely damage: Walls collapse Likely damage: Houses destroyed Likely damage: Use your imagination
Average frequency: 110/year Average frequency: 34/year Average frequency: 9/year Average frequency: >1/year

Into the Vortex

Storm chasers,
megacomputers,
and the quest
to understand the
extreme weather
thats battering
the world.
by brantley hargrove

A MONSTER WAS
coming to central Oklahoma.
Early in the evening of May30,
2013, Cathy Finley and her
partner, Bruce Lee, were driv-
ing along a back road near the
small town of Guthrie, Oklahoma,
30miles north of the states capi-
tal, when they spotted Tim Sama-
ras and two members of his crew
leaning against a white sedan and
looking out over the low hills.
Samaras, an old friend of the cou-
ples and one of the most famous
storm chasers in the country, was
in the area for the same reason
as Finley and Leethey were all
severe-weather researchers, and
a tornado was on its way.The
three friends had known each
other for almost a decade,
and in 2007 they helped
found Twistex, a group

MITCH DOBROWNER
 FILE://WEATHER STORM CHASERS

dedicated to gathering atmo- ers down crowded streetstoo and possibly much higher, about student from the University of
spheric data to better under- dangerous, too hard to collect the fastest on record. And its Northern Colorado, where he
stand tornadoes. Whenever a good data. They decided to pack main funnel rode the southern and Finley used to run the small
storm threatened to spin up a up their gear and head home to rim of its parent storm for nearly meteorology department. His
twister, the Twistex team would Minnesota, leaving Samaras and 40 minutes, moving back and voice shaking, the man said he
gas up the chase vehicles and crew to chase the storm. forth along a wide, wobbling arc had it on good authority that
assume familiar roles: Samaras During the long drive back the like a menacing grin. Knowing three bodies found on a desolate
would try to get as close as pos- following day, Finley followed Samaras as well as she did, Finley Oklahoma back road belonged
sible to the funnel to deploy his the storm on her laptop through guessed he was having the time to Samaras, his 24-year-old
measurement probes, and Finley son (and videographer) Paul,
and Lee would slice through the and meteorologist Carl Young.
storm in sedans outfitted with Finley heard a curious tenor
roof-mounted weather stations, in Lees voice from the bedroom
gathering data that radar and and came to his side. Shes a tall
weather balloons miss. A reputa- woman from western Minnesota
tion for fearlessness landed the farm country with almond eyes,
Twistex team a spot on a real- and she and Lee were unsure
ity show called Storm Chasers, whether they should grieve or
which featured their exploits wait for confirmation. Night gave
for three seasons until Discov- way to day, and as the windows
ery Channel canceled the show began to pale with the approach
in 2011 due to low ratings. Fund- of dawn, they got a call from
ing for Twistex dried up, and another former Twistex col-
the members went their sep- league confirming the worst.
arate ways, meeting up when- In the days that followed, Fin-
ever serious wind threatened to ley retreated to her neglected
blow through the plains. garden, where she took her
When they reunited on the anger and grief out on the weeds.
back road near Guthrie, all three Meanwhile, Lee pieced together
wanted nothing more than to what happened: Samaras had
take on the coming tornado been driving his Chevy Cobalt
together the way they used to. hundreds of yards north of the
But with no source of cash to tornadoand at times much,
field an entire chasing team, this much closerlikely thinking
season was a no-go. Besides, he was tracking parallel to the
the most recent forecasts indi- twister at a safe distance. But
cated that the next days storm something caused the funnel to
would reach peak intensity once swing fast toward the vehicle,
it entered the Oklahoma City engulfing it. Samaras might have
metro area during rush hour, thought he had studied enough
and Finley and Lee had long tornadoes to guess this ones
Bruce Lee, along with Cathy
since sworn off pursuing twist- Finley, drove through storms movements, but whatever signs
collecting data on tornadoes. or signals he typically relied on
to anticipate a twisters path (its
heading, the stage of its devel-
opment, the direction of the
radar tracking and live footage of his life right in the thick of it. wind) had failed him. He may
from spotters and news heli- Back at home in Minnesota, have thought he had the right
Superstorm copters. Forecasters had been as Saturday turned to Sunday, information, but he didnt.
soundings are wrong about one key detail the phone rang around 1 am, Based on radar measure-
the tornado let loose in wide- rousing Finley and Lee from a ments, the tornado had
very rare: Its open farm country, about 25 deep sleep. Lee, rangy and well- EF-5-level wind speeds. The
hard to take miles west of the city. It mea- muscled, slipped out of bed and Enhanced Fujita scale assigns
measurements sured about 212 miles across, padded across the house toward every tornado a number from 0
easily the widest anyone had the kitchen. The phone went to 5 based on how much destruc-
when all hell is ever seen. Its peak wind veloci- quiet, then rang again, and he tion the wind speeds inflict. The
breaking loose. ties registered at least 290 mph answered it. It was a former damage from an EF-0 could just

0 6 8 NARAYAN MAHON NOV 2017

 FILE://WEATHER

as easily be accomplished with ity of any single storm. They ras and the other chasers were Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
a strong wind gust. An EF-5, on only know that they have to fig- a second family to thema The 88,000-square-foot glass-
the other hand, in which winds ure out what creates and sus- storm family, Finley says. covered facility looks like a fancy
exceed 200 mph, leaves behind tains these storms, fast. Better, And storm chasing, she adds, convention center, and its sur-
scenes of devastation reminis- richer data and more powerful is about watching each oth- rounded by a black steel fence
cent of razed Japanese cities. computers would help forecast- ers backs. Samaras and his strong enough to stop a speed-
Asphalt gets scoured off roads. ers build ever more predictive crew died, Lee says, because ing Mack truck. Past a retina
Vehicles get tossed the length storm models. They could tell there was nobody watching scanner and through a heavy-
of a football field. The EF levels those in a tornados path not their backs. Because there gauge steel door resides a com-
in between account for vary- puter named Blue Waters. Its
ing degrees of destruction, and bigspanning 10,000 square
despite decades of research, sci- feetand its made up of 288
entists still dont understand matte-black rack towers that
exactly how the air we breathe house the 27,000 nodes that are
can suddenly strip a home down the key to its power. Each node
to its concrete slab. Weve put a holds two microprocessors, not
man on the moon and unlocked unlike a stripped-down PC but
the secrets of the atom, but the faster than anything youll find
inside of a tornado is, in many at Best Buy.
respects, still a mystery. Since powering up in 2013,
What scientists do know is Blue Waters has been one of
that extreme storms like the the few computers in the world
one that killed Samarasand capable of processing the biggest
the hurricanes that ripped of big data sets, encompassing
through Texas, Florida, and the everything from the evolution of
Caribbean this summerare the universe to the global spread
likely to develop with greater of flu pandemics. Its also one of
frequency and intensity. Accord- the only machines in the world
ing to a recent study in the Amer- that can model the staggering
ican Journal of Climate Change complexities of a supertornado,
that analyzed 42 years worth which is exactly what an atmo-
of tornadic atmospheric indi- spheric scientist named Leigh
cators, the supertornado that Orf spent the better part of 2013
killed Samaras should occur in a failing to do.
stable climate, on average, once At the time Orf was chair of
every 900 years. But when the the Earth science department
researchers accounted for fac- at Central Michigan University,
tors such as atmospheric insta- a school in the small town of Mt.
bility and warming oceans (both Pleasant. Weather has always
associated with climate change), been on my radar, so to speak,
they confirmed what the rest of Orf says today. The fascination
Cathy Finley, a storm chaser
us already know from watching and a founding member of began in the early 70s, just after
the news: Once-in-a-millennium Twistex. bath time in his boyhood home
storms no longer require 1,000 in Ludlow, Massachusetts, when
years to recur. No scientist can a concussion ripped through the
say for certain whether climate house with the ferocity of a pipe
change is to blame for the sever- only that a monster is coming, was nobody, and nothing, to bomb. The wall in his sisters bed-
but what kind. Warnings would tell them where the great storm room was blown outpaneling
be longer, more precise, more was headed next. everywhere, insulation smok-
urgent. Lives would be saved, ing, wires red-hot and glowing.
families left intact. It scared the living shit out of
Brantley Hargrove
For decades, Finley and Lee me, he says. Orf wouldnt enter
(@BrantHargrove) had lost themselves in the vast- AT THE EDGE OF the room for months. He was 5,
is the author of ness of the plains, immersed in emerald fields of corn and soy- and he has been obsessed with
The Man Who Caught the puzzle of mesoscale weather beans sits the National Peta- weather ever since.
the Storm, a biogra-
patterns, part of something far scale Computing Facility, the A dozen or so years later, when
phy of Tim Samaras,
coming soon. larger than themselves. Sama- crown jewel of the University of he arrived at the University of

NOV 2017 NARAYAN MAHON

 He needed
STORM CHASERS
a massive
supercomputer,
one that hadnt
WisconsinMadison and fell struction, one of those connec- Service stations all over the been invented
in love with coding, he learned tions, Bob Wilhelmson, a pioneer country release weather bal- yet. So he
about the community of scien- of storm modeling who taught at loons to gather yard-by-yard
tists who had been using com- the U of I, reached out to Orf. With accounts of how pressure, tem-
waited.
puters to simulate storms since Wilhelmsons help, Orf got nine perature, relative humidity, and
the 1970s. In the earliest render- months of access to Blue Waters wind speed change from the
ings, most computers couldnt to create what no researcher surface to altitudes as high as
re-create any features of a tor- ever had: a simulated EF-5 tor- 20miles in the sky. This collec-
nado that were less than a kilo- nado that could be studied, and tion of data, to the untrained eye, result in a CM1 simulation, at
meter wide or tall, meaning they least in theory. And Orf would
could re-create the broad con- then be able to manipulate cer-
tours of a storm but none of its tain parametersincreasing and
important details. Over time, decreasing the amount of fric-
driven in part by advances in tion from the ground, tweaking
microprocessing power, scien- the way the model handles tur-
tists gradually sharpened the bulenceto determine which
resolution from 1 kilometer to factors are most critical in build-
500 meters and eventually to 100 ing, sustaining, and driving a
meters, the storm and the tor- supertornado.
nado steadily coming into focus. Processing all the data in a
Not focused enough for Orf, sounding and creating a sim-
though. After spending the early ulation could take Blue Waters
2000s studying what he con- anywhere from a few hours to
siders low-resolution simula- a few days, depending on the
tions (with features rendered amount of data being crunched,
within 250 to 500 meters), Orf and Orf didnt want to waste
came to believe that the only any time with unnecessarily
way to understand how and why complicated soundings. The
a supertornado forms was to first sounding he uploaded
re-create one in superfine res- was synthetic, a simple com-
olution30 meters, meaning posite built by scientists that
it could render any detail of a contained all the atmospheric
storm so long as it measured ingredients believed to cause
at least 100 feet long or wide. tornadoes. As Orf began to play
Compared to the 1-kilometer with the synthetic atmosphere,
resolution of early simulations, though, Blue Waters would only
thats the difference between the produce what he calls wussy-
blocky pixelation of Atari and the ass tornadoes. He spent days
eerie verisimilitude of Xbox One. adjusting different variables
To achieve that level of detail, it decreasing the evaporation rate
would take Orfs personal com- of rain, for examplebut nothing
Leigh Orf had nine months
puter a decade to simulate a sin- with a supercomputer to worked. Whatever it is that cre-
gle stormand thats only if it simulate an EF-5 tornado. ates a supertornado isnt found
could handle the data and mem- in synthetic soundings, and after
ory load, which it couldnt. He months of trial and error Orf
would need a computer that knew he needed to do some-
could process hundreds of tera- maybe even reverse-engineered, looks like an Excel spreadsheet thing different. Screw this,
bytes of data, over and over and revolutionizing our understand- filled with numbers. To translate he remembers telling his wife.
over again. A supercomputer, ing of storms that have otherwise these raw numbers into a digi- Im going to Mother Nature.
really, only one that hadnt yet defied comprehension. tal storm, Orf would use CM1, a A friend from the Univer-
been invented. So he waited. On his first day of access in program that uses the meteoro- sity of North Dakota offered
He spent the next decade forg- December 2012, he logged on logical data in any given sound- Orf a sounding from a real-life
ing connections with scientists from his office in Michigan, keyed ing to simulate a near-infinite EF-3. Yet even the real thing,
at research facilities around the in a PIN to access the encrypted combination of weather con- when uploaded into the model,
world. And when the $360 mil- network, and prepared to upload ditions. An environment that spawned nothing more than
lion Blue Waters system came a trove of data known as a sound- produces a tornado in the real what Orf calls spin-ups, tran-
online after two years of con- ing. Every day, National Weather world should spark a similar sient tornadoes he has little

0 7 1
 FILE://WEATHER STORM CHASERS

THE SIMULATED SUPERTORNADO

Leigh Orfs detailed storm simulations allowed him, Cathy Finley, and Bruce Lee to spot a
never-before-seen feature of a tornado: a helix-shaped tube of air racing around the central
funnel. Theyve dubbed it the streamwise vorticity current, and it could be a breakthrough in
understanding how the worlds worst twisters work. C H E L S E A L E U

THE VORTEX:
This thick column
of orange stuff is a
bunch of swirling air
that forms the vortex
ANTICYCLONIC VORTICES: The chaotic air around
of the tornado.
a tornado is filled with many smaller vortices, some
of which eventually get absorbed into the growing
funnel. In Orfs simulation, these are color-coded by
the direction the air is rotatingblue indicates that REAR
the air is spinning clockwise; red, counterclockwise. FLANK

FORWARD
FLANK

STREAMWISE VORTICITY CURRENT: COLD POOL: A region of cold

This spiraling river of air flows upward from the air beneath the storm, formed
tornados forward flank into the core of the storms by evaporating rain, that feeds the
updraft, and the researchers believe that the low streamwise vorticity current.
pressure helps sustain and drive the tornado.

interest in. Orf would alternate 2013, with just a few weeks left drilling rig three times. It was nated units of time, called time
between genuine and syn- before his time with Blue Waters an EF-5. Orf loaded the sound- steps, that Orf could increase and
thetic soundings over the fol- ran out, Orf got an email from ing into CM1, and even before it decrease in CM1 as needed. The
lowing months, never spinning Lou Wicker, a scientist at the formed a tornado the simulation lower the time step, the faster
up anything close to a super- National Severe Storms Labo- went haywire, depicting wind the wind speeds possible in the
tornado. With each day bring- ratory and a former student of speeds in the storms updraft programs simulation. A lower
ing him closer to his Blue Waters his mentor, Wilhelmson. Wicker that had never been documented time step also meant longer
deadline, he realized that if he heard about Orfs project and in nature. processing times, meaning Orf
intended to simulate a beast, he wanted to help, and his email Orf suspected the problem would have fewer opportunities
needed to find an EF-5 sound- included a file, a warning, and a wasnt with the data in the to run simulations during his
ing. But superstorm soundings winking emoji: Be careful with sounding but with CM1 (or at precious remaining days with
are exceedingly rare, since mea- this sounding, Wicker wrote. least the way he was using CM1). Blue Waters.
surements must be taken near It could damage the machine. For the clouds and rain and wind Orf took the risk. He first short-
the twister as it forms, and thats The storm happened on to swirl in the virtual world as ened the time step to 0.3sec-
a little tricky when all hell is May24, 2011. Like the one that they do in nature, Blue Waters ond, uploaded the sounding, and
breaking loose. There is also no would kill Samaras two years had to communicate the move- let Blue Waters run. Two hours
COURTESY OF LEIGH ORF

centralized database stocked later, its winds ripped through ment of air between its 27,000 passed and the system failed.
with ready-made superstorm the plains at more than 200mph. nodes, which acted like an inter- He then shortened the time step
soundings, even at the National Along its 63-mile path it killed connected grid. These nodes had to 0.25 second. Thirteen hours
Weather Service. nine people, injured nearly 200, to talk to each other and pro- went by, and it failed again. Then,
Then, at the end of August and rolled a 1.9 millionpound cess the data in single, coordi- shortly before 10am on Septem-

0 7 2 NOV 2017
 FILE://WEATHER STORM CHASERS

ber 16, 2013, he initialized the last ready to show his storm to the could never see out on the plains. putingand the transition from
simulation he would be allowed public and enlist other scien- It makes for hypnotic viewing, silicon toward carbon nanotubes
to run on Blue Waters. He set a tists to help him analyze it. as though Orf had peeled away and chips made from gallium
time step of 0.2second, and since Thats when he ran into two the skin of the supertornado to nitride or graphenewill offer
Blue Waters would require the familiar faces: Finley and Lee. reveal its viscera and sinew. She processing times magnitudes
better part of the day to process The world of severe-weather and Lee can now release digital faster than the petascale comput-
the data, Orf logged off and tried science is small; everyone knows trackers into the simulated tor- ing at Blue Waters. That means
to think about anything other everyone. Orf hadnt seen Lee or nado, a little like injecting con- resolutions impossible just a few
than tornadoes. When he logged Finley since the death of their trast dye to image blood vessels years ago. Five meters, maybe
back on at 6 pm, he expected friends in Oklahoma the previ- on a CT scan. They could zoom even less.
to find that the simulation had ous year, and he told them how in on where most of the activity It could also mean the power
blown up again. relieved he was that they hadnt takes place throughout a torna- to capture and analyze the inner
It hadnt. chased that day. He then pulled dos evolution. And their dis- workings of hurricanes like
The model appeared sta- them aside, turned on his iPad, coveries will help guide storm Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria.
ble, and he saw something big and showed them what he had. chasers on the ground as they Whereas the widest tornadoes
and exceptionally violent on Their jaws hung slack. The way try to measure and track storms measure 2 1 2 miles across,
his screena tornado. As CM1 the rain curtains slid around the from a safe distance.Were going storms such as Harvey and Irma
translated the EF-5 sounding, the tornado, the way the funnel rode to be able to target our observa- are 100 times as wide. Thats a
tornado kept getting wider.The the edge of the storm like a col- tions to see if we can see in the lot more meteorological data to
intensity, path length, dura- umn made of cloud and dust: Lee real world what Leighs team is process and analyze, and once
tionit all matched the char- and Finley had seen all this in seeing in their simulations, says the next generation of supercom-
acteristics of the real storm. nature but never in a simulation. Jeff Snyder, a research scientist puters comes online, scientists
Orf had just simulated the first Twistex had spent years gather- at the Cooperative Institute for might finally have the processing
high-resolution EF-5 tornado ing snippets of data from storms, Mesoscale Meteorological Stud- power to create something with
along with its parent supercell but their work was like shining a ies who knows Finley and Lee the richness and detail of Orfs
thunderstorm, and anything penlight into the pitch black of a from storm conferences. EF-5an operational model that
researchers had ever wanted to cavern. The pieces didnt form the One of their discoveries calls spans the entire globe, produc-
learn about how a supertornado big picturethe grand schematic into question a central assump- ing hi-res simulations of ongo-
is born, and how it maintains its of a supertornados internal and tion of many storm researchers. ing hurricanes.
size and strength, was inside largely inscrutable machinery. For years Finley and Lee studied But thats all on the horizon.
it. All he needed was someone This was the big picture, and a downdraft at the rear flank of In the meantime, Finley, Lee, and
to help him make sense of it all. they asked Orf to replay the video tornadoes, and like most of their Orf are focused on Blue Waters,
half a dozen times. They knew colleagues they believed it played and Orf has already chosen the
they were seeing a simulated a crucial role in perpetuating the next monster to fire across its
storm as no scientists had ever twisters life cycle. Their simula- nodes. This sounding was buried
FIVE MONTHS LATER, done before, and when Orf asked tions, however, suggest that most inside archives used by govern-
on February 1, 2014, Orf flew to for their help analyzing the simu- of the action during the genesis of ment forecasters and research-
Atlanta for the annual meeting lation, they jumped at the chance. a tornado happens near the front ers, and Orf only discovered it
of the American Meteorolog- On a chilly afternoon this past of the storm, with a spinning riot two years ago. It took place on
ical Society. With an iPad full winter, Finley peered into the of air, or what theyve christened the late afternoon of May 31,
of vivid video clips of his simu- guts of the supertornado Orf had a streamwise vorticity current, 2013, near El Reno, Oklahoma.
lated supertornado, he paraded first shown her three years ear- that pushes air upward more It killed Samaras, his son Paul,
through the halls of the Omni lier, her face washed in the glow forcefully. Its a theory they still and Carl Young. For however
Hotel. After years of toiling of the monitor. School had let out need to prove, but if it holds up long it takes, Orf, Finley, and Lee
underground, he was at last for the holidays, and the halls to further testing and observa- will study the simulated super-
of Saint Louis University were tion, Finley says, weve been tornado from the safety of their
mostly empty. Since that day in focusing on the wrong thing all laptops, breaking it down and
Atlanta, Finley and the others this time. building it up and searching for
had reoriented their lives around It will take Finley, Lee, and Orf answers in a storm of code.
the simulation. Orf is now at the years to fully understand this
University of Wisconsin, and the particular EF-5, and they plan
No scientist folks at Blue Waters have granted to simulate an ensemble of dif-
had ever seen him an additional two years of ferent supertornadoes, hoping
a simulated accessas close as one gets to to draw out their common fea-
carte blanche. tures. Theyll soon benefit from
storm like In her office, Finley let her eyes even greater computer power.
that before. roam over all the currents she The coming age of exascale com-

0 7 4 NOV 2017
 FE ATURES | 25.11

friederike hantel 0 7 9
081

BY
ALEX
MAR

PHOTOGRAPHS
BY
CAIT
OPPERMANN

HIROSHI
ISHIGURO
BUILDS
ANDROIDS.
BEAUTIFUL,
REALISTIC,
UNCANNILY
CONVINCING
HUMAN
REPLICAS.
ACADEMICALLY,
HE IS USING
THEM TO
UNDERSTAND
THE MECHANICS
OF PERSON-
TO-PERSON
INTERACTION.
BUT HIS TRUE
QUEST IS TO
UNTANGLE THE
INEFFABLE
NATURE OF
CONNECTION
ITSELF.

THIS
ARTICLE IS A
COLLABORATION
BETWEEN
WIRED AND
EPIC MAGAZINE.
It is summer 2002, mid-morning in a university research lab on the edge
of Osaka, Japan. Two girlsboth dressed in pale yellow, with child-puffy
cheeks, black shoulder-length hair, and bangsstand opposite each other
under fluorescent lights. More precisely: One is a girl, 5 years old; the other
is her copy, her android replica. They are the same size, one modeled on
the other, and they are meeting for the first time. The girl stares hard
into the eyes of her counterpart; its expression is stern and stiff. It seems
to return her gaze. A man is videotaping the pairhe is the father of
one, creator of the otherand from off-camera he asks, Would you like
to say something? The girl turns to him, disoriented. She turns back to
the android. Talk to her! he says. Hello. The girl repeats the word,
quietly, to her robot-self. It nods. Her father feeds her another line:

Lets play.
The android wiggles its head. Her father chuckles behind the camera.
But the girl does not budge. She simply stares at her double, the look on
her face one of focus and perhaps concern. Each member of this pair
continues making the barely there gestures that serve, through reflex
or ruse, as signs of life: Each blinks at regular intervals; each tilts her
head from side to side. One is processing, in the raw, sensory-overload
manner of a human child; the other is performing a series of simple
movements made possible by the servomotors installed inside the sili-
cone casing that is its skin. Is it difficult to play with her? the father
asks.His daughter looks to him, then back at the android. Its mouth
begins to open and close slightly, like a dying fish. He laughs. Is she
eating something? The girl does not respond. She is patient and obedi-
ent and listens closely. But something inside is telling her to resist.Do
you feel strange? her father asks. Even he must admit that the robot
is not entirely believable. Eventually, after a few long minutes, the
girls breathing grows heavier, and she announces, I am so tired. Then
she bursts into tears. That night, in a house in the suburbs, her father
uploads the footage to his laptop for posterity. His name is Hiroshi Ishi-
guro, and he believes this is the first record of a modern-day android.

ALEX MAR (@_alex_mar) is the

author of Witches of America.
This is her first article for wired.
 of creating artificial general intelligencea As for me, when I first visit Ishiguro, my sit-
machine brain that can intuitively perform uation is this:
any human intellectual taskbut why would I am 23 months away from what had seemed
we choose to interact with it? like the start of a serious relationship but was
Ishi guro believes that since were hard- not. I am 15 months away from a rebound rela-
wired to interact with and place our faith in tionship that lingered too long. I am 13 months
humans, the more humanlike we can make a into a period of spending long stints in a small
robot appear, the more open well be to shar- town in upstate New York for the sake of pro-
ing our lives with it. Toward this end, his teams ductive quiet. Im readying a book to go to the
are pioneering a young field of research called printerswork that, for me, is all-consuming
In the 15 years since, Ishiguro has produced some human-robot interaction. and necessary. And lately, when I step back from
30 androids, most of them female. They have HRI is a hybrid discipline: part engineering, the manuscript for an afternoon or at night, I
included replicas of a newscaster, an actress, part AI, part social psychology and cognitive feel it: isolation. This isolation is not completeI
and a fashion model. These androids have made science. The aim is to analyze and cultivate our have my close friends, a wider circle of less-
numerous public appearancesin cafs and evolving relationship with robots. HRI seeks close friends, my familybut it is the absence
department stores, singing in malls, perform- to understand why and when were willing to of intimacy. Nothing romantic, no sexual life.
ing in a play. Mostly, though, Ishiguros brood of interact with, and maybe even feel affection This absence has been, in part, a choice; cer-
pretty women is used for his academic exper- for, a machine. And with each android he pro- tain men have always been curious about me.
iments, many of which are conducted at two duces, Ishiguro believes he is moving closer to But what I miss more than sex is the feeling
locations in Japan: the Advanced Telecommu- building that trust. of closeness with another person, something
nications Research Institute International in In a secluded room at IRL, a collection of Ive never believed could be conjured up. And
Nara and the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory androids is stored and maintained: his hardest though the sensory deprivation has become a
on the campus of Osaka University. workers. Arranged in this space today, with its little extreme, most of the timecan I put a per-
The lab, known as IRL, is embedded within blackout curtains, thin corporate carpeting, centage on it? Is it as high as 80 percent?I do
a maze of austere, gray university buildings. and shelves cluttered with cables and monitors not think about it. I am semi-radically indepen-
In one of these industrial boxes, about 30 stu- and an array of wigs, is a pair of his replicas of dent and some kind of artist and in many ways
dents and assistant professors work in a series grown women. They are models of the Geminoid an unconventional liberal type. However alien-
of near-silent computer pods and observation F series. The name is a play off geminus (Latin ating, for me this is a time of deep creativity. Its
rooms. Teams of young men shuffle down the for twin), a reminder that their human coun- that additional 20 percent of the timethats
long, linoleum-lined hallways in sweatshirts, terparts exist somewhere in the world. when I feel dizzy.
pace the research rooms in their socks, or hover At any given time, students and staff may This is where Im at when I fly 17 hours to
over laptops in rows, heads down, subsisting be testing, measuring, and recording the meet Ishiguro. And as a result, if I am honest
mostly on Red Bull, crackers, and Pocky Sticks. responses of dozens of volunteers to the with myself, my time abroad feels particularly
(Women do not seem like a natural fit here. As androids at their disposal. What about its fraught. The very concept of human connec-
if to underline this fact, a sign by the restrooms behavior or appearance, its specific facial tion has never felt so enigmatic to me. It makes
reads, watch out for male strangers in expressions and minute body movements, do sense that someone would be trying to measure
the ladies toilet.) they find alienating? What draws them closer? it, to weigh it, to calculate its dimensions. To be
Presiding over this disheveled scene is These androids are used to find answers to able to replicate the sensation of human inti-
Ishiguro-sensei. He is immediately recogniz- an ever-growing list of research questions: macy would be to control the very thing that
able, looking just as he does in promotional How important is nonverbal communication confuses us most and eludes so many.
photos from recent years: perfectly mod in to establishing trust between humans (and,
slim-fitting black with matching leather back- therefore, between human and android)? Under
pack and fanny pack. He wears tinted hexagonal what circumstances might we treat an android
glasses and styles his jet-black hair into a mop like a human? In this way, Ishi guros collec-
top that swoops across his forehead. This is his tive of labs is dedicated to the engineering of
department: Ishiguro, 54, is a distinguished human intimacy.
professor at one of the countrys top universi-
ties, with two labs, partnerships with a dozen
private companies throughout Japan, a recent
$16 million grant from the government (one of
its most generous in science and engineering, This is how Ishiguro remembers his childhood:
he says), and seven secretaries to manage it all. His family lives in the town of Adogawa, on
Today, the technical ability to produce a robot the western shore of Lake Biwa, from which a
that truly looks and moves and speaks like a river flows through Kyoto into Osaka Bay. At
human remains well beyond our reach. Even fur- school, in a classroom of disciplined children,
ther beyond our grasp is the capacity to imbue Hiroshi doesnt listen to the instructor. Its as
such a machine with humannessthat ineffable Over the several months we are in contact, Ishi- if he doesnt notice she is speaking at all. He
presence the Japanese call sonzai-kan. Because guro will share information that strikes me as spends the day making drawings that have noth-
to re-create human presence we need to know deeply personal: He has contemplated suicide ing to do with the lesson. His mother worries
more about ourselves than we doabout the twice in his life; though he has a family, he con-
accumulation of cues and micromovements that siders himself a lonely man. I will hear him use
trigger our empathy, put us at ease, and earn that word to describe himselflonelyabout
our trust. Someday we may crack the problem half a dozen times.
 SEAT.
AT ONE

HIS OWN
TO LOSE

OCCUPY-
ALREADY
PERHAPS

ING THAT
BEING IS
TRACK OF
POINT, MY

BECAUSE A
DAD SEEMS

SYNTHETIC
IDENTITY

A CONVERSATION IS A KIND OF ILLUSION, ISHIGURO SAYS. I DONT KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR BRAIN. ALL I CAN KNOW IS WHAT IM THINKING.
that there may be something wrong with him. Once there, Ishiguro continues his careless
Hiroshi rarely sees his mother or father as approach to his studies, finding more pleasure
schoolteachers they are as consumed by their in the string of odd jobs he takes to pay the
work as their son will one day become. Instead, billshe works as a cook, the supervisor of a
his grandparents are raising him. His mothers childrens after-school program, a door-to-door
father is a farmer, a devout Buddhist with fixed, textbook salesman (that one lasts a week), and,
traditional ideas about how to behave like a most lucrative of all, a professional pachinko
Japanese man. He shows the boy the proper way player. He finds himself on the fringes of student
to use chopsticks, to pray, to prepare the house life, rejecting any semblance of mainstream
for the New Years celebration. Unlike at school, Japanese ambition.
Hiroshi has the patience for these lessons: His At the same time, he is fashioning himself
grandfather is not telling him how he should into that most romantic of outsiders: an art- In 2000, Ishiguro, as an associate professor at
think; he is teaching him to aspire to perfection. ist. Always in a black leather jacket, he skips Kyoto University, produces his first humanoid
They live at the foot of the Hira Mountains, classes, packs his pads and pencils, and rides robot: a mechanical-looking contraption that
and Hiroshi likes to comb the mountainside for his Yamaha chopper into the nearby country- moves on a wheeled platform, waving its jointed
snakes and insects. Maybe a stag beetle, glossy side to sketch the landscape. This is his focus: steel arms. But he has started to think that a relat-
black and segmented, nearly 3 inches long, with the strange, organic shapes of the trees, the able, humanlike appearance is essential if peo-
a pair of antler-shaped mandibles emerging peach blossoms that appear in the springtime. ple are going to form real attachments to robots.
straight from its head. He fixes new parts to its He produces drawings and oil paintings, and Its about a decade into his marriage (to a pia-
body: razor blades, found pieces of metal. It is manages to sell a few. nist he met through a university friend), and he
an improvement. The insect may continue liv- But in his third year, Ishiguro abruptly gives asks his wife if he can make videotapes of her
ing like this, if the glue doesnt kill it. These are up painting. Unless he can become a great art- sitting, breathing, responding to random stimuli.
his earliest cyborgs. ist and a tremendous public success, he sees no He is trying to determine the nuances of human
One of Hiroshis close friends is a boy who point in it. (He blames, in part, his color blind- behavior, to isolate the physical signals that read
lives in a poorer community, down by the water, ness: He is drawn to landscapes, but the entire to us, consciously or unconsciously, as human.
and his parents collect and prepare the bodies spectrum of green eludes him.) He has lost what One minor revelation: Humans never truly sit still.
of the recently dead for burial. Hiroshi does not little direction he had. On his darker days, when Ishiguro is aware of resistance to the concept
yet understand that these people are consid- he takes his motorcycle on a steep and winding of an androidat least in the West, from which
ered to be lesser than his family, because they road, Ishiguro imagines giving in to the impulse many Japanese researchers take their cue. Some
have a job that, according to local prejudice, is to not make the turn. To drive straight ahead, fly are worried that consumer revulsion to a human-
tainted. For this reason, when Hiroshis mother right off the edgewhat would that feel like? like robot (the so-called uncanny valley effect)
discovers the friendship, she asks that her son Then a path presents itself. Yamanashi offers would be too great to overcome and that a failed
break it off. He will remember this moment for courses in the new field of computer science, android project could undercut public support of
the next 40 years. and Ishiguro begins to wonder what relation- robotics. Ishiguro, too, is worried that pushing
Hiroshi is a delicate child. He has suffered ship computer graphics and computer vision ahead with an untraditional approach might cost
from extreme skin allergies from the time he was might have to the visual arts. These are the him his academic career. But he cant resist. And
born; his back and chest and arms are covered in early days of the PC, and programming seems so when the company he has partnered with on a
itchy, ugly rashes. His only comfort comes from wildly creative. Feeling he has little to lose, he new robot insists on hiring a respected designer
constant touch: Every night, his grandparents switches majors. that makes it look, in Ishiguros opinion, like
take turns sitting beside him and scratching his Almost immediately, certain elements in his an insect, he loses his patience. With his next
back until he is able to nod off. Every week his brain click into place: Ishiguro realizes he can project, he decides to go rogue. He will create an
doctor gives him three painful injections to try continue to think like a painter in this unpo- android to convince them.
to cure the conditionto no effect. (When he is liced field, but with different tools. He falls in Ishiguro believes that his first android should
about 12, steroids will finally help, requiring him love with the new vocabulary: Assembler, Pas- be the same height as the insect (about 3 feet
to keep the drug on hand to this day.) His own cal. The students are relegated to working in a tall), for purposes of comparison. In other words,
body will always be alien to him. single room kept bitterly cold, loud with the hum it will have to be modeled after a human child.
of the huge computersconditions designed And given the painstaking production pro-
for the comfort of machines, not humans. He cessa model must spend hours encased in
works alone, on software development, but he plaster to cast an accurate replicathere is
is learning to communicate with a systema only one child he can possibly get permission
system that responds to his commands. They to use: his own.
have entered into a dialog. A few years earlier, Ishiguro became a father
Ishiguro soon gives up his rides through the to a daughter, named Risa, and he now turns to
country for entire days spent in the lab. And as his wife to explain his plan. She agreesshe is
he becomes more fluent in this new language, in charge of raising the girl, and the experiment
more immersed in a conversation with the large would be difficult without her help. And so, in
When it comes time for Ishiguro to go to college, machines, a fantasy takes shape: Could there be early 2002, the entire family, along with makeup
he chooses a school using three criteria: It will a way to make this language more humanlike, and special effects artists, gathers in his lab on
accept an eccentric, sometimes indifferent stu- so that someday computers might understand campus and begins the two-day process of cre-
dent like himself; its somewhere he can pursue us intuitively, on our own terms? So that this ating a replica of Risa.
his drawing and painting; and its not very close dialog might become a relationship?
to home. In the fall of 1981, he lands at the Uni- This relationship becomes his singular pur-
versity of Yamanashi, near Mount Fuji. suit, his dream.
 In the lab, Risas mother helps her to undress. She takes
Ishiguro will alter his human form to match his off the girls clothes and stands her up on a small wooden
platform. Together her father and an artist smooth a layer
doppelgnger. He opts for laser treatments and of pale-green paste over her torso and upper thighs; over

the injection of his own blood cells into his

that, they apply wide swatches of fabric dipped in plaster,
asking her to hold very still as it dries. Then the 5-year-old
girl, wrapped in a pink towel, her scalp covered in a rubber
cap and her ears plugged with cotton, is laid down on a table-
top, her head fenced in with Styrofoam and packing tape. An
artist lifts a plastic bucket and pours the paste in until it rises
to cover her ears, as father and mother try to reassure her:
Dont worry! and Youre fine! At last they position the girl Three years later, in 2005, Ishiguro unveils
to sit up against the wall for the final part of the mold: her face. Repliee Q1 Expo to the public. Modeled on a grown
Through a video cameras viewfinder, Ishiguro watches woman (a popular Tokyo newscaster) and pro-
the rigid expression on his small daughters face as her duced with better funding, this version can move
mother and an artist slowly cover it in thick paste. Once its upper body fluidly and lip-synch to recorded
were done, her father says, you can eat anything you like! speech. Ishiguros lab conducts several studies
They slather it across her forehead, around her chin, and with it; the results are featured in a major Japa-
down the front of her neck; they apply it thickly on her cheeks nese robotics journal; the lab is filmed for televi-
and across her nose, then subsume her entire mouth, her sion; he hears about a copycat android in South
mother laughing, keeping the mood light. Keep your eyes Korea. As a growing audience is drawn to Ishig-
closed. Like youre going to bed Good night! The whole uros simulated human, his instincts are validated.
time, remarkable for a child her age, she does not move or But he now wants something more. Twice
make a sound. And then the paste closes in on her as they he has witnessed others have the opportunity,
smooth it over her eyelids, and within moments her face however confusing, to encounter their robot
is layered in the creamy stuff, which has already begun to self, and he covets that experience. Besides, his
harden. Her entire face is undersave her nostrils: a single daughter was too young, and the newscaster,
hole left clear for breathing. though an adult, was, in his words, merely an
Youre OK, the artist says. Just a little bit longer ordinary person: Neither was able to analyze
Then Ishiguro, from behind the camera: Risa, youre totally their android encounter like a trained scientist.
fine If youre feeling sleepy, if your head feels heavy, you A true researcher should have his own double.
can just lean back. Just like sleeping Flashing back to his previous life as a painter,
They press a square of plaster-soaked fabric over her face Ishiguro thinks: This will be another form of
(again, a hole for breathing) and it begins to stiffen. And per- self-portrait. He gives the project his initials:
haps the professor is now concerned, because he loses the Geminoid HI. His mechanical twin.
shot, tilting the camera up to point at the wall. Risa, if you Ishiguro has hundreds of photos of the Gem-
can breathe properly through your nose, please squeeze inoids assembly. Here is his assistant wrap-
my hand ping the facsimile of his then-43-year-old face
Risa, her mother says, make sure you dont cry, because around the machine head and zipping it up the
itll block your nose. Anyway, theres no need to cry! Be patient back, its bald scalp studded with sensors. Here
Its OK to sleep. Go to sleep is the Geminoid seated upright, a padded vest
When, months later, the package arrives at the lab, Ishi- in place of its torso, its mechanical biceps vis-
guro and his team open the crate to reveal the full-body ible, its arms only flesh below the elbows, as
silicone-skin casing of his daughter: Risa, bald, naked, made if it were wearing elegant gloves. The hands
of rubber. They stretch the skin around foam-padded machin- have veins and sunspots and the faint wrinkles
ery and prop it up in the lab. His wife has donated one of their that gather around the wrists; the nails have
daughters sundresses so it has something to wear. Ishiguro cuticles, pale and precise. Here it is dressed, in
names it Repliee R1R for Risa. a fitted black shirt identical to Ishiguros. His
The results of the experiment are mixed. Ishiguro has to assistant raises its arms, one by one, to tug down
admit that the low-budget android, with its limited, stutter- the sleeves, as if dressing a complicated child.
ing movements, is more zombie than human. And though It also wears fitted black slacks, like Ishiguros,
he shows the project only to a trusted inner circle, word of and black sneakers stuffed with prosthetic feet in
the daughter android spreads, becoming a weird legend. matching socks; a black wig, styled like the hair
face.

(In describing it, one roboticist I speak with uses the word of its maker, is fastened onto the androids scalp
crazy, another strange and a little bit scary.) But Repliee with snaps. Here is the machine that pumps air
R1 gives Ishiguro the confidence to move forward. into its chesta series of cables runs from its
As for his daughter, Ishiguro rewards her with several tailbone into a metal boxas the professors dou-
Hello Kitty dolls. But still, he says, she cried. To this day, ble sits at attention and speaks for the first time.
-

theyve never spoken about the incident. This android is a step forward, but it still falls
well short of verisimilitude. Its hands, at rest on
its lap, are rubbery to the touch; its eyes have a
surprising intensity, not unlike Ishiguros, but
they are clearly made of a hard, bright plastic.
Lean in close and you can hear the soft hum of a hes set an unexpected trap for himself through she goes through a range of facial expressions,
hidden motor; a gentle click is audible each time his image. He poses beside his android, in press a spectrum of subtle emotions, as if reacting
it blinks. At times, its overall effect, and that of photos and TV appearances, in ways that accom- to some text she has just received. Its a clever
its sisters, is of a human-sized puppetlike the modate the Geminoid, setting his face to mir- ploy: By not interacting much with her onlook-
animatronics in a Disney World display. But the ror its expression. (At one point at the research ers, the simulation maintains the appearance of
Geminoid is also unsettling. Because, somehow, institute, Ishiguro notices me photographing a human likenessafter all, real people spend
all these elements work in concert to simulate him in front of his android and reflexively drops a lot of time willfully ignoring their surround-
a sympathetic interaction with a human. The his smile to match the robot at rest.) ings. But occasionally, when you approach, she
viewer cannot help but assign an entire range Soon his students begin comparing him to the looks up at you and smiles, and for a moment this
of emotions to its face: melancholic (mouth GeminoidOh, professor, you are getting old, feels like an encounter with a pretty stranger.
downturned), upset (eyes squinted shut), skep- they teaseand Ishiguro finds little humor in it. Some days, Ishiguro stands across the aisle, by
tical (a sideways glance), pensive (the tilt of A few years later, at 46, he has another cast of the main entrance, and watches the people who
its head to the left). When its eyes meet yours, his face made, to reflect his aging, producing a stop in front of her. He likes to imagine what they
motion sensors detecting your position, just second version of HI. But to repeat this process believe she is thinking.
for a moment you feel that itthis he, this every few years would be costly and hard on his As complex as we assume ourselves to be, our
Ishigurois aware of you. vanity. Instead, Ishiguro embraces the logical bonds with one another are often built on very
This replica, Geminoid HI, brings Ishiguro the alternative: to alter his human form to match little. Given all the time we now spend living
recognition he has longed for. Using his double, that of his copy. He opts for a range of cosmetic through technology, not many of us would notice,
he and his team publish dozens of studies, ana- procedureslaser treatments and the injec- at least at first, if the friend we were messag-
lyzing the participants range of reactions to tion of his own blood cells into his face. He also ing were replaced by a bot. And humans do not
him and his doppelgnger. (The studies involve begins watching his diet and lifting weights; require much to stir up feelings of empathy with
operating the android remotely and wirelessly: he loses about 20 pounds. I decided not to get another person or creatureeven an object. In
teleoperation.) Side by side, he and his Gemi- old anymore, says Ishiguro, whose English is 2011 a University of Calgary test found that sub-
noid make appearances on TV shows across excellent but syntactically imperfect. Always jects were quick to assign emotions and inten-
Asia and Europe. Ishiguro also begins giving lec- I am getting younger. tions to a piece of balsa wood operated with a
tures around the world without leaving his lab in Remaining twinned with his creation has joystick. In other words, we are so hardwired for
Osaka, teleoperating and speaking through the become a compulsion. Android has my iden- empathy that our brains are willing to make the
android, which is carefully transported abroad tity, he says. I need to be identical with my leap to humanizing a piece of wood. Its a level
by an assistant. (Its legs and torso are checked android, otherwise Im going to lose my iden- of animal instinct thats slapstick-hilarious and
with the luggage; its head is carry-on.) Ishi- tity. I think back to another photo of his first a degree of vulnerability thats terrifying.
guro-sensei becomes a source of fascination; doubles construction: Its robot skull, exposed, But as the object of our attention moves closer
he is transformed from a researcher to the man is a sickly yellow plastic shell with openings for in appearance to human, our expectations of
who made his copy. Invitations for conferences glassy teeth and eyeballs. When I ask what he them grow far more complex. The uncanny val-
and festivals stream in. was thinking as he watched this replica of his ley effect kicks ina huge drop-off in the graph
The success of this particular android is due, own head being assembled, Ishiguro says, per- of our empathy as we sense were encountering
in part, to how it seems to operate on several haps only half-joking, I thought I might have something both familiar and not quite right. The
levels. It is, like its predecessors, a circus trick: this kind of skull if I removed my face. same year as the Calgary test, having recently
Look at the human, look at his copy! Try to tell Now he points at me. Why are you coming developed his first-generation Geminoid F, Ishi-
them apart! It is also Ishiguros bid at solving here? Because I have created my copy. The work guro and the University of California at San
an existential dilemmaa striking attempt by is important; android is important. But you are Diego published a study of neurons associated
the maker to master himself, to make of himself not interested in myself. with empathy. The team used an fMRI machine
something more enduring. At the same time, it to scan the brains of 20 people in their twenties
has created a new predicament. and thirties as they watched separate videos
Ishiguro has discovered unexpected conse- of one of Ishiguros female androids, the same
quences of living alongside his own replica. Hes android with its machinery revealed, and the liv-
been dressing in black since his grad-school ing human that the android was modeled after.
years, and now this has become both his and The subjects saw each in turn wave its hand,
the HIs official uniform; he was thrilled to real- nod, pick up a piece of paper, wipe a table with a
ize this clearer vision of himself. But now he cloth. Of the three videos, it was while watching
must keep his (naturally shifting, aging) human the humanlike androids motions that the pari-
body corralled within the androids static limits. etal cortex of the subjects brains would light
He finds himself accommodating his android, On a winter day in 2012, a crowd clusters up mostin particular, the areas that connect
measuring himself against it, being defined by around a large glass case in Tokyos Takashi- our detection of bodily movement with our
it, his worth determined by it. In this way, his maya department store. Perched inside is a so-called empathy neurons. The researchers
android makes him both painfully conscious of Geminoid F in an elegant silk day dress, long believe this revealed that the smallest ges-
his aging body and more physically confident brown bangs parted like curtains around its tures can create perceptual contradictions in
than hes ever been. face. Valentines Day is coming soon, and she the brain, sparking the uncanny valley effect.
Ishiguro is multiple myths simultaneously. sits, as if waiting for someone, before a back- Ishiguro returned to the lab and redoubled his
With his female androids, he is Pygmalion, bring- drop of gift boxes wrapped in rose-patterned focus on the androids most minute movements:
ing his Galatea to life. But with his own replica, paper and large red bows. the precise tilt of the chin, the rotation of the
he is Narcissus, staring into his reflection for She spends her days staring at her smart- head, the restraint of the smile.
hours. Unlike Narcissus, of course, Ishiguro is phone and mostly ignoring the thousands of vis- Around the same time as the department
conscious of the situation he has created, but itors who press close to the glass. All the while, store display, Ishiguro managed to use the Gem-
 inoid F to generate a bond between two humans. Tettchan, In other words, he can only imagine using
Our longing to connect, to bridge this divide, is then a game designer based in Tokyo, was recently divorced conversation with others as a means to better
when he met Ishiguro in 2012, and he mentioned that he understand himselfand nothing is more press-
was curious about the possibility of a romance with a long- ing than that. He turns to the conversation the
time friend named Miki. Ishiguro invited them both to his two of us are having. We dont know how much
believes will someday be satisfied through research institute in Nara, where hed asked his students to information we are sharing, he tells me. I am
have a female android ready for teleoperation. He placed always guessing, and you are always guessing,
Tettchan at the teleoperation desk and closed the door; he and through our conversation patterns we can
took Miki into the other room to meet the Geminoid F. Then he believe that we exchange information. But I
a driving human desireone that Ishiguro

invited Tettchan (who was listening in) to talk to him and Miki cannot access your brain directly.
through the robot. As Tettchan spoke, his voice computer- What is connection? he asks. Other per-
altered to sound female, the androids lips moved in sync son is just a mirror.
with his words, the tilt of her head and her long human hair On some fundamental level, we understand
in rhythm with his own movements. Its like a real female, each others immediate intentions and desires
Ishiguro told Miki, enjoying himself. This is not Tettchan, of course, we do; how else would we function? But
this is a new woman, really cute and beautiful. Hiroshis view, though stark, seems sadly right:
And so they played, making small talk, Tettchan trying There are entire planets of intimate information,
out his new female incarnation. He made Miki and Ishiguro our most interior level of consciousness, that we
laugh, and watching Mikis face through the monitor, he could will never fully be able to share. Our longing to
see a change. That was when Ishiguro, knowing Tettchans connect, to bridge this divide, is a driving human
complicated feelings for Miki, said to her, OK, you should desireone that Hiroshi believes will someday be
kiss her. And Miki, looking hesitant, leaned in toward the satisfied through humanlike machines. He is con-
androidthe android inhabited by Tettchanand kissed it vinced that human emotions, whether empathy or
on the cheek. The feeling, Tettchan said, was like thunder. romantic love, are nothing more than responses
Any boundary between them suddenly vanished. to stimuli, subject to manipulation. Through the
Not long afterward, Tettchan and Miki decided to live fluid interplay of its pneumatic joints, the arch of
together. Tettchan is still not exactly sure how Ishiguros its mechanical brow, the tilt of its plastic skull,
machine worked on them, but he remains convinced that it the many subtle movements achieved through
made them into a couple. years of research studying the human template,
the android becomes more able to span that gap,
to form a perfectly engineered bond with us. An
elaborate metaphysical trick, perhapsbut what
does that matter, if it fills a need? If it feels real?
I think of the gentle look on the face of Gem-
inoid F as she glances down at a smartphone
humanlike machines.

that she cannot read. He wants us to imagine her

reading notes we have sent her, to imagine her
loneliness, to love her. Every time we project our
own feelings onto herimagine a shared expe-
Over dinner with Hiroshi: rience, a connectionhis work inches forward.
He has spent a lot of time talking to himself through his Hiroshi says little about his personal life,
androids, testing them, imagining their effect on other people. but, with his constant travel and self-imposed
Hiroshi (who by now has asked me to call him by his first 16-hour workdays, I understand that he and his
name) tells me hed like to record himself saying I love you wife lead fairly independent lives. We have
and then program an android to repeat it back to him in a some simple rules. She never asks about my
female voice. He is kidding when he says thisbut maybe job, I never ask about her hobbies.
its another of his half-jokes. At the very least, he believes Quickly, he brightens uphe has found a way
the need for such an exchange exists. It would be, he says, a to return, in his mind, to the work. I want to
real conversation. A conversation with himself. know the meaning of love. Do you know the
A conversation is a kind of illusion, he says. I dont real meaning? What is love?
know what is going on in your brain. All I can know is what I think for a moment. It changes all the time
Im thinking. Always I am asking questions to myself, but in my mind.
through conversations. Over the years of operating his Thats good! he says, surprised. You are
androids, communicating through them or with them, he like a scientist. I am always changing too. I am
has found that he isnt really concerned about the other having different hypotheses every year. Before
persons thoughts. Always I am thinking of myself. I need I pass away, I want to have a better understand-
to understand your intention, but it is not priority. Before ing about love.
that, I want to make clear something in my brain. Otherwise, Hiroshi now tells me of the two times he has
-

what is the motivation to talk? seriously considered suicide: first at 36, when
one of his top students bested him at a computer-
programming challenge (his focus at the time),
and again 10 years later, when another student
proved to be a sharper, more prolific writer of
 GEMINOID F TRAVELED THE WORLD PERFORMING IN A STAGE PLAY CONCEIVED WITH IT IN MIND. IT ALSO PLAYED A COMPANION ROBOT IN THE 2015 FILM SAYONARA.

0
0
0
0
0
0
HUMAN EMOTIONS, FOR ISHIGURO, ARE NOTHING MORE THAN RESPONSES TO STIMULI AND ARE THUS SUBJECT TO MANIPULATION.
0 0 0
0
0
0
THE TELENOIDS DELICATE FEATURES SOMETIMES APPEAR FEMININE, SOMETIMES LIKE THOSE OF A SMALL BOYBUT ALTOGETHER TOO KNOWING FOR SOMEONE SO YOUNG.
technical papers (something Hiroshi took great he asks, to want to kiss a robot? To want to kiss ness, for companionshipfor comfort when
pride in). Both times, he swerved out of the that rubber, not-human flesh? There are people youre far from home, maybe on the other side
depression by finding a new angle on his work. who have those kinds of desires. Imagine if you of the planet, on assignment for weeks at a time.
But those instances heightened his dread that could run heat through its skin so that it feels not And if someone provides you with a salve, why
he might not be able to prevent the slow, natural like cold rubber but warm to the touch? There not take it? Most of us already allow technology
deterioration of his mind. He is already certain are people who want to try things with that. to mediate what was once simple, direct human
that his concentration is not what it once was. Human sexual and romantic relationships are interactionwhat really is the difference? And
Developing dementia as he ages is his worst unavoidably messy, he says, and many people is that difference so essential to the experience
fear. Without being able to generate new ideas, would like to keep their lives simplein which of being human that it must be preserved?
probably I cannot find any reason to survive in case a relationship with an android might be Back on campus, we pass the few students who
this world. I dont like to imagine that. a solution. I think this is the future, he says. are still sequestered in the lab, working late, and
We are quiet for a momentthen he leans Sex is arguably the ultimate physical act of hide out in Hiroshis office. There he slides back
in again. human connectionbut it can also be merely his whiteboard to reveal a hidden liquor cabinet.
Do you know what is the soul? he asks. Soul that: an act, a simulation of intimacy. Sex can He pours us some excellent local whiskey, and
is not so personal. In Japan, when we pass away, be thought of as something that transcends the we sit back and listen to his collection of music,
our soul goes back to the same place, back to the purely physical, but in reality it is often an expe- everything from Japanese pop ballads to Simon
mountain. So now we are living individually, like rience thats mostly physical, not as intimate as & Garfunkel. Weve all had a few. Hiroshi tells us
thishe motions to the two of us sitting on mats. we pretend it can or should be. Looked at in this about how, from the moment he started expos-
We have our own souls. But when we pass away, light, a whole range of sexual experience, at least ing people to his androids, a shift took place: The
were going to share something. Soul is going back in theory, could be replicated with an android. androids, he says, seemed to unmask the humans
to the place where souls are coming together. On Sorbellos recommendation, I later read around them, to reveal a desire theyd carefully
Soul is not lonely, he says. Soul is not alone. Love and Sex With Robots, a 2007 book by AI been hidingfor connection, for touch. There
expert David Levy. In it he proposes that we are was the expected: Men who leered at the female
not far from a time (he suggests roughly the year androids during industry showcases, men who
2050) when humans will desire robots as friends, had to be watched closely, for fear theyd try to
sexual partners, even spousesa premise he kiss and grope the robots. But something more
seems unnervingly OK with. It all comes down complicated was also taking place.
to our willingness to believe in the robots emo- Shortly after the android of his daughter was
tional life and desires. Designed with the phys- completed in 2002, Hiroshi had his students at
ical proportions that its human owner prefers, Kyoto University use it to test the differences in
the preferred voice timbre and eye color and human response to a mechanical-looking robot
personality type, and the ability to recall and riff and one that was humanlike. When not in use,
On a Saturday night, I meet up with Hiroshi and on its owners personal stories and little jokes, the android was left in the middle of the lab, and
Rosario Sorbello, a robotics professor from android will captivate human. soon a few students complained that they were
the University of Palermo who makes a couple Levy takes Alan Turings famous claim that having trouble working in front of it. They felt
of pilgrimages to Hiroshis lab each year. He the convincing appearance of intelligence (in it looking at them. (From then on, they made
often sends his students to study there, and he AI) is proof of intelligence, and he expands that a habit of placing it with its face to the wall.)
arranged for Hiroshis android play to be per- into the emotional realm: If a robot behaves as Things were further complicated when Hiro-
formed in Sicily. For a tall man in a well-tailored though it has feelings, can we reasonably argue shi was informed that one of the students had
suit and fine leather shoes, Sorbello is boyish, that it does not? If a robots artificial emotions become attached to his daughters replica.
and he clearly relishes his access to Hiroshi prompt it to say things such as I love you, surely During the day, this student would run the
he reminds me, twice, that Hiroshi is a very we should be willing to accept these statements experiments, but late at night, when he thought
important person. at face value Why, if a robot that we know to he was alone in the lab, he would serenade the
We meet in Minami, one of Osakas hectic be emotionally intelligent, says, I love you or I android with his flute and then chat with it,
shopping districts, and have an evening of street want to make love to you, should we doubt it? asking what it thought of his playing. It was as
food: huge bowls of ramen and batter-fried balls Human emotions, he argues, are no less pro- if he felt he could only reach out for compan-
of octopus. (Hiroshi used to come here a lot in grammed than those of an intelligent machine: ionship this way, in secret.
his days as a poor grad student.) After red-bean We have hormones, we have neurons, and we This incident made Hiroshi realize that these
dessert soup, served by a woman in a ruffled are wired in a way that creates our emotions. androids could have unexpected emotional
apron, Hiroshi makes a decision: Rather than In other words, Levy argues, our inner lives impact. That was the first android, Hiroshi
head to a bar, he says we should go to the bar in are essentially algorithmic, much like an AIs. says. We did not know what would happen.
my office. En route, we stop at a fluorescent-lit, A few decades from now, he writes, the differ- He moved the android to Osaka University and
24-hour convenience store to pick up drinking ences between human and android may be no assigned another student to oversee the work.
foodwasabi peas, octopus jerky, chocolate greater than the cultural differences between He also laid some ground rules for how it could
Pocky Sticksbefore boarding the train back peoples from different countries or even from be used: not late at night and not alone.
to the university. different parts of the same country. As for the When he then created the first replica of a
As Hiroshi scrolls through his phone, Sor- actual sex, Levy believes that it will become not grown woman, he was a little wary of what his
bello talks about the desire for intimacy with only a recourse for the socially isolated but also students might do with it in the lab. Would they
androidssomething hes clearly thought a lot an accepted outlet for the sexually adventurous want to sleep holding her in their arms? Hiroshi
about. Can you imagine what it would be like, or for someone whose partner is sick or traveling. witnessed how one staff member, whod been
These are pretty radical ideas about human closely involved in the Geminoids production,
nature and intimacy, and yet I recognize the desire became visibly flustered in front of her. Hiro-
some might have to turn to an android for close- shis theory is that a friendly human woman will
 always be merely a real person, never as elegant as her When I found him that evening, at our meeting
android counterpart. We want to have some ideal partner, spot in front of a Shibuya-ku Metro station, his
and the android can be a very strong mirror to reflect your own eyes reflected back to me the thought just then
idea. In this way, a relationship with an android is like having crossing my mind: This will be a very good night.

( Evolution
Android
) a partner who is, literally, an extension of yourself.
The response of so many men to Hiroshis female androids
unsettles him. But its also one hes been cultivating. In 2014
Ive never been particularly drawn to men
who are handsome in a conventional way. But
Ethans looks are so classically handsome, it
We traced Ishiguros android
milestones on the road from he embarked on a new project that marries his personal per- seems impossible that he walks around with
Uncanny Valley to (near) Total fectionism with his ideas about female beauty: During my such a face and such a strong jawline and such a
Turing. CaitlinHarrington
visit, he and his robotics team are at work on what he refers finely shaped head. (Have I ever before thought
to as the most beautiful woman. His not-entirely-empirical about the shape of a mans head?) There is also
approach to its appearance has included speaking with a pop- the small hollow at the back of his neck and the

2002 ular cosmetic surgeon in Osaka (his own), analyzing images width of his shoulders (something about their
of Miss Universe pageant finalists, and, in the end, trusting proportion gives me a startled feeling in my
his gut. (He has reminded me a few times that he thinks more chest) and the smell of his skin and the timbre
like an artist than other roboticists.) Hiroshi worked for of his voice (deep and musical).
two 12-hour sessions with a technician to create the androids He becomes my guide in an unfamiliar city. I
REPLIEE R-1: Ishiguros first 3-D rendering. He was thrilled to discover that the slightest am led around and am much happier for it. We
android was produced in 2002 and
modeled on his 4-year-old daughter. change to its eyes or nose transformed the rendering into a drink in a white bar with sliding paper screens;
It looked human enough, but its completely different person. It feels likehow can I say? a jazz bar in which no one is allowed to laugh
movements were all machine: jerky
and creaky-gear-sounding. not my daughter, but a special person for me, he says. out loud; a space with eight seats, covered in
PHOTO: OSAKA UNIVERSITY Now, when I ask Hiroshi why he puts such emphasis on Wim Wenders film posters; a hotel lounge with
good-looking mechanical women, he reminds me that the a piano singer and 52nd-floor views of the city.
larger goal of his field is to have people accept robots into We talk about books; we talk about our fam-
their lives. And which is more acceptable to many people, ilies; we talk about the people weve thought

2005 he asks, beautiful woman or ugly woman? In a corporate

lecture I later hear him give, he sums it up like this: A beau-
we loved. We walk down the streets at night
with our arms lightly touching; we sit with our
tiful woman you dont picture going to the restroom or get- knees lightly touching; I lay my palm on that hol-
ting tired. So I think beauty is better represented by android. low at the back of his neck. And in private, we
REPLIEE Q-1: The lab installed At this point, Hiroshi stands up from his ergonomic chair, lie down in his bedroom, on a thin mattress on
pneumatic actuators in this model, as if inspiration has struck. He turns around, rummages the floor, and remove all our clothes. It has been
allowing for humanlike gestures.
To boost authenticity, they through his drawers, and produces a black zipper bag. From ages since either of us was drawn to someone
added autonomic elements like
breathingand posture shifting.
inside, he pulls out two hand-size foam mock-ups of a human- in this way, an attraction that feels like a plane-
The android debuted at Japans oid figure and offers me one as a gift. He picks up the other tary pull, seemingly outside the realm of reason
2005 World Expo.
and holds it out to me. and predictabilitythe very thing we spend so
OSAKA UNIVERSITY AND KOKORO CO., LTD
Lets make an experiment, he says. We bring them much time trying to conjure up but over which
together and we make them kiss. we have no control.
Im unsure of where this is going. OK. It is thrilling. And for me right now, immersed
I bring the face of my tiny figure to meet the face of his, and in the world of android designa heavily medi-

2006 their motionless mouths touch.

It feels funny, right? he asks. And it does. It feels just a
ated world in which soft silicone shells stand in
for human skin, in which we search for signs of
little like crossing a line. human kindness or sadness or pity in a mechan-
ical faceit is also a relief that something so
GEMINOID HI-1: The first replica simple can still happen. It is a relief because it
of its creator, HI-1 was also the
labs first android to work via tele- means that we are animals, not ideas; that our
operation: Ishiguro controlled his
doppelbot via mics and webcams. chemistry is not as cool as a set of programmed
ATR HIROSHI ISHIGURO LABORATORIES responsestheres an immediate magic to it.

2010 I return to Tokyo for a few days to meet more of Hiroshis col-
2010
leagues. And in the midst of this back-and-forth from Osaka,
GEMINOID F: The team simplified something is starting to happen: I am falling for someone I
TELENOID: Hiroshi and his team
its new model, Geminoid F, for met on the second night of my trip. stripped away differentiators like
experimental use outside the lab, age and gender to make this droid
limiting the mobility of its limbs. I was introduced to Ethan over email by my literary agent,
universal, then dispatched several
It went on to appear in numerous who knew Id been searching for helpful contacts in Japan. of them to nursing homes as
international productions of a play companions.
written with the android in mind. Hes an American (also in his thirties) who moved to Tokyo
OSAKA UNIVERSITY / ATR HIROSHI for graphic-design work a decade ago and is fluent in Japa-
ISHIGURO LABORATORIES ATR HIROSHI ISHIGURO LABORATORIES
nese. Ethan (a pseudonym) emailed me the names of fixers
and translators and boutique hotels and agreed to join me for
dinner before I took the Shinkansen bullet train west to Osaka.
To know that that instinct is not broken in me, Hiroshi pauses for a moment, and when he at night by making my replica sing karaoke while
and to be able to answer it, makes me feel like speaks again, its in a thoughtful voice. Some- they drink beer. And for the rest of timeor
a person again. day I want to have my own replicant, he says. until my silicone is no longer considered worth
Probably everybody want to have one, right? replacingthis facsimile of myself will be made
Dont you think? to do things, to say things, that are beyond my
Their own attractive robot? control, always borrowing my appearance, my
Yeah. I think so. In what must be another face, my expressions, the memory of the living
of his one-sided conversations, hes agreeing woman who was her model.
with himself. It is not just robotits almost Im not prepared to give away my likeness.
human. Its ideal.
An ideal woman?
Probably. No idea. He laughs. That is one
of the projectsthe most beautiful android.
When Hiroshi first considered building an We drive on in silence, then he asks a sur-
android, he began a search for the right sili- prising question: What would people think if
cone. He turned to Orient Industry, a company he made my copy?
that specializes in high-end love dolls, sex For whatever reason, the possibilityeven
dolls that can cost thousands of dollars. They in the abstracthas never occurred to me, and
collaborated on a trial modelbut Hiroshi soon the idea is unexpectedly intimate.
severed the relationship. As his reputation grew, I try to imagine how this would play out. I compared Hiroshi to Pygmalion, but that com-
he worried about how such a collaboration might They would encase my body in plaster, and parison is only partly right. His desire to cre-
look. The government does not want its money then my various parts would be molded and ate, that personal obsession, is driven less by
associated with love dolls. manufactured and bolted together. And a sili- romance and more by ego. In all my time with
The sex industry, however, does not need cone replica of my face, a bald and half-smiling him, I never get the sense that Hiroshiunlike
government approval to thrive. Back when not-me, would be stretched around its mechan- some of his robots fans and perhaps some of
they briefly worked together, Orient Industry ical skull. And then my parts would be deliv- his colleaguesfetishizes his female androids.
operated out of a single room; now, almost two ered to one of Hiroshis labs and unpacked and What excites him is the power of his role as Cre-
decades later, it occupies an entire building assembled and dressed in a skirt and blouse and ator, the notion that he may one day crack the
and it sells nothing more advanced than pose- a long black wig; maybe a student would take code of our emotional bonds. And he doesnt
able dolls. Human-robot sex, Hiroshi believes, a pair of heels (patent leather, slipped off an care what shape that solution takes. If he could
will definitely be part of our future, its merely older model) and place them on my feet. Eyes reduce the human form to its barest, most mini-
a question of when. He knows that his research that are not my own, but of a convincing shine mal structure, he would. What if so many of these
would be very helpful in that arena, but as a and color, would appear to stare back at the physical detailsthe precise silicone mold, the
respected academic he would require a non- gathering of researchers. perfect eyelashes and cuticleswere a distrac-
commercial, for-the-betterment-of-society Lets say Im not used in the lab at first but tion from the true nature of sonzai-kan? One way
reason to pursue that line of inquiry. Perhaps put out into the world, on display: destined to know would be to strip the android down to
for people with disabilities, he suggests. Once for a new stage play or an android opera. An something more essential.
we create a pretty good sex doll, you know, defi- assistant professor and I will travel together He has done just that. The shape came to him
nitely other people want to use it, he says. Its from venue to venue; at the end of each inter- in a dream. When he awoke, he sculpted a model
a basic desire. national stop, back at the hotel, maybe he will out of clay. The Telenoid is about 1 feet tall and
Were heading back to Osaka from Nara as crack open the valise that holds my head and ghost-white, a toddler with an alien-smooth
he says this, speeding down the highway in his talk to me about his frustrations. And eventually, face. It has stunted arms and, instead of legs,
slim black MazdaHiroshi drives the way he when this android theater comes to the end of a bulbous stumpas if, in place of genitalia,
walks: irrationally fastand eventually our talk its run, I will be retired to an observation room, the halves of the ass had continued all the way
turns to the 1982 film Blade Runner. Hes stuck stacked against the wall with my clothes and hair around to form two spheres. A stretch of silky
on the lead female replicant, whose name he stripped off and my head bowed. And the stu- white spandex serves as the lower neck, bridg-
cant remember. She looks like you! dents will sometimes entertain themselves late ing the head and the body, but it is otherwise a
continuous, jointless piece of supple plastic, as
smooth as a naked child.
In repose, the expression on its face is serene

2011 2015 enough to be unsettlingperhaps because of its

deep-set black eyes; its thin, pursed lips, ever so
slightly upturned at the corners; and its gentle,
barely perceptible brow. Its delicate, thin fea-
ERICA: The labs first fully
tures sometimes appear feminine, sometimes
ELFOID: The team miniaturized the
Telenoid and turned it into a cell autonomous android, Erica can like those of a small boybut altogether too
phone. Elfoid creates what Ishiguro hold 10-minute conversations.
calls telepresence: the sensation Voice recognition, infrared human knowing, too serene, for someone so young.
that the person youre speaking to tracking, speech synthesis, and In a research room at Hiroshis institute, his
is physically embodied in the 8-inch- natural motion generation all
long device. bolster her humanness. team shows a group of Danish visitors the latest
ERATO ISHIGURO SYMBIOTIC HUMAN-ROBOT model. Propped up on a tripod, low to the floor,
ATR HIROSHI ISHIGURO LABORATORIES INTERACTION PROJECT
the Telenoid squirms to life once activated. It
looks up at us and begins to make a play for our
attention, glancing around, wiggling its short
 arms. Its little movements are completely fluid and easy, giv- fable thing he has been trying to define: a dis-
ing it a sweet demeanor. It starts speaking to us in Japanese tinctly human presence, free of the uncanny. It
in a feminine voice, drawing a grad student named Miriam is an outsider, like its makerbut one who man-
into an animated conversation. For now the Telenoid is tele- ages to trigger our affection. While holding the
operated, but Hiroshi hopes to make it autonomous within android, it hardly matters that this humanness

child by cradling a robot with stunted limbs.

inthat someone would be left alone in their
the next few years. Its face conveys a calm authority that a is emitting from something that barely resem-
human toddler would not possess, but its body and small bles a human at all.
gestures transmit the vulnerability and neediness of a child.
advanced age to relive the joy of having a
Miriam lifts the toddler-thing to cradle its stump in the
crooks of her arms, and the two continue chatting in cooing,
affectionate tones. And at this point, after a few minutes of
It takes a moment for the horror to sink

observation, the words that come to mind are no longer repul-

sive and nightmare, but small and dear and friend. It becomes
easy to feel protective of the little alien.
As it turns out, the visitors at the lab when I visited were
there because Hiroshi was hoping to partner with a ven-
ture capital firm to install Telenoids in senior care facilities
throughout Denmark. For a couple of years, he had been trav- Today, Hiroshis daughter-android stands on a
eling there every few months. Hiroshis team and their Dan- white platform, sealed inside a glass display in
ish partners were in the final stage of their field tests; they one of his labs. Even draped in a pale-yellow sun-
hoped to have a viable business plan in place soon. Everyone dress, it is an unnerving sight. Its arms are too
was optimistic: Test subjects have been quick to connect with long, almost simian, its hands dangling far too
the strange humanoid. Media events for the Telenoid in Den- low, one posed awkwardly over the crotch, as if
mark were attended by Japanese ambassadors and the Danish to shield it. The face, with its grimly downturned
crown prince, who embraced the humanoid on-camera. He mouth, is imprinted with tension. It appears to
said the experience reminded him of holding his own child. wear the look of its inception 15 years agothe
And the video footageof elderly people in nursing homes, very human discomfort of the little girl who was
each supposedly with some degree of dementiais compel- its prototype.
ling. In one, an older woman in a colorful turtleneck sits on a Risa is now studying in her fathers depart-
sofa in a facility in Kyoto with a Telenoid on her lap. Though ment at the university, one of only a handful of
her caretakers have explained that she rarely speaks with women. The family is pleasedthough Hiroshi
them, she is shown here in excited conversation with the is a little confounded: They had never discussed
humanoid (which she may or may not understand is being his work. But this is positive, right? he asks me
teleoperated by a volunteer in Osaka). In another clip, a far with a note of vindication. Im not sure if mak-
frailer-looking woman, more than 100 years old, sits slumped ing her android was positive or negative effect
at a desk, her arms wrapped around herself. Shes depressed for her. And finally, she come to my lab, he says.
and does not talk with others, one of Hiroshis researchers I can have some excuse for people now. This
says. When a caretaker sits beside her and hands her a Tele- makes him laugh.
noid, however, she lights up, grinning and laughing. Out of For Hiroshi, Risa seems to exist in opposition to
sheer pleasure, she begins making short, clipped babylike his most beautiful female archetype: smart and
sounds: Ah-ah-ah-ah! She grips the mechanical toddler to impatient, not girlish, a free thinker. She seems
her chest, a blissful expression on her face, and starts to rock to surprise him. He sees her as a mix of typical
it slowly back and forth. female characteristics and some strong charac-
This clip is powerful evidence that a machine can conjure ter like me. Shes talented at math and physics,
up an emotional connectionbut a connection to what? Is and he has the impression that shes compet-
it a look of recognition that flashes in this century-old wom- itiveparticularly with the boys. She is very
ans face, the resurrecting of some long-ago happiness? We tough sometimes, he says.
dont know yet, exactly, the researcher says. But those who Meeting her for the first time in a small con-
love Telenoid tend to be someone who used to have a baby. ference room down the hall from her fathers
It takes a moment for the horror of this statement to sink office, I am immediately struck by Risas calm
inthat someone would be left alone in their advanced age intelligence. With the same round face and high-
to relive the joy of having a child through the cradling of a set eyes, Risa is undeniably the girl from the
robot with stunted limbs. video clips, now in a fitted blouse, eyeglasses,
More than a dozen years of progress have brought Hiroshi and wearing a crystal pendant, her hair pulled
full circle: from his young daughters android to another child back in a low-hanging ponytail. This is the girl
robotone that is blank, one that can be anyones small child. who as a toddler was already playing with her
A humanlike robot that is both terrifying in appearance on the fathers early robots, blissed out, trying to make
most primal, gut level and undeniably effective: Once its in them chase her around the lab. (He still uses this
operation, you are drawn to it, in sync with it, cannot help but footage in his PowerPoint presentations.) She
-

feel empathy with it. The countless ways in which we judge has never seen him lecture and only recently
someone based on their appearance all evaporate in the face read his books for the first time. On the subject
of this neutral appearance, as Hiroshi calls the Telenoids of her replica, Risa is as pragmatic as her father.
blank, abstract body. And what is left in its place is that inef- I was the closest example that he was able to
find on which to model an androidI havent up ballad after ballad in Japanese. Seated on the voices. We insist on the link between us through
really thought about it more deeply than that. banquette, I watch as he takes up the mic and language: carefully scheduled phone calls, bursts
(Risa and I spoke through a translator.) sings, each song more saccharine than the one of text messages. I listen closely to his voice
Students sometimes ask Risa about her before. With the same look on his face that Ive (deep and musical); I picture him seated in that
last name. Because, I guess, my father is seen in the lab, Hiroshi takes his performanceto corner room surrounded by tall windows. I tell
famous, she says. But just as there remains me, to the empty roomvery seriously. him the stories that I save for the people I like
a clear distinction between Hiroshi and his Another number begins, and this time he best; he tells me his. We send each other music
rubber-and-steel look-alike, Risa sees Pro- extends his hand to me; I stand to take it. With and movie titles; we trade photographs, so we
fessor Ishiguro and her father as two very the microphone in one hand as he croons (in a can imagine each other better. I picture him
different (if look-alike) entities. At the univer- small, artless voice) and the other hand on my tilting his head into his phone, and that small
sity, surrounded by students and faculty, hes waist, Hiroshi leads me through a slow dance. We hollow at the back of his neck.
charismatic, a role model, drawing others dance awkwardly, like two kids in junior high We barely know each other, but something
into his work; at home he becomes himself barely touching, glancing away, focusing on our between us has been synchronized. Each of us
again, a researcher focused on satisfying his steps. The time Ive spent with Hiroshimonths carries a piece of the others presence, built up
own curiosities. A true researcher, Risa says, of correspondence and Skype calls, weeks of through touch and then the remembrance of
is someone who is trying to find out whats unbroken hours with him, poring over what he touch. A small collection of sensory memories.
interesting for himself. values most (his work)has been yet another In the week since I left, he tells me, hes twice
Though Risa has not yet declared a major, strain of choreographed intimacy: journalist and gotten up in the middle of the night, half-asleep,
she knows shes not interested in android sci- subject. The version of me that Hiroshi knows to make me more comfortableturned up the
ence. Her level of ambition, however, is famil- is a woman completely fascinated with him, a heater, pulled an extra pillow from the closet
ial: Whatever comes after the internet, she mirror that reflects his image, an echo chamber some part of him convinced I was still in his bed.
says, the next major innovationwhatever for his ideas, a conversation with himself; the I am echoing through his home, even though I
that is, thats what Id like to be a part of. She version of Hiroshi that I know is an eccentric am no longer there.
believes that being roped into her fathers work in black, the man who made his double, a valu- For a brief period of time, this feels just like
at such a young agean experience she wont able subject for my work. These models of our- falling in love.
call positive or negativehas made her bolder selves are the ones now dancing together in a
than she might otherwise have been. I was sort small black room. What connects them is a nar-
of forced to become part of my fathers project. row fascination that serves a narrow purpose.
And because I had this experience that others What sort of connection do we need most?
had never had before, I had a sense that anything How much is enoughenough to sustain us,
could be done. And since then, when other peo- to alleviate the feeling of being alone? Would
ple say No, thats not possible, we cant do that, you trade four months in a bad relationship
I think maybe I can do it. My father can do what for an hour of karaoke and a slow dance with
other people cant do, and I am his daughter. a roboticist in Osaka, Japan? Would you trade
As far as I can tell, Hiroshi has no idea that a few weeks of meaningless sex for the physi-
she talks this way. cal comfort of a Telenoid? Would you trade a
Risa was 9 when he created his own replica, couple of unsatisfying dates for an affection-
and she made a visit to the university then, to ate phone conversation with a woman you may
interact with the Geminoid, while Hiroshi teleop- never realize is a chatbot? Is the feeling of your
erated it. I didnt focus as much on the android hands on someones waist while dancing equal
as I did on my fathers voice, she says. What she to the touch of your fingertips on the most per- After this story was reported, Hiroshi Ishiguro
remembers best from that day was the presence fect silicone skin of the future? Does a dance unveiled his most beautiful woman android,
of her fathernot at her side, but in another with me have the same value as a dance with a named Erica, at Tokyos Miraikan science
room, beyond the wall, just out of sight. Geminoid? museum. It operates autonomously, parsing
When the track finishes, its time to leave. human speech and using neural network tech-
Outside, the shopping plaza is dark and dead- nology to fashion replies. Erica models are cur-
quiet. Hiroshi and I part ways. rently being used for human-robot interaction
research in three universities in Japan.

One night after a long dinner at a traditional

restaurant in Osaka, Hiroshi takes me to a kara-
oke bar. Maybe its the particular weekday or the
late hour, but the place appears empty when we My time with Hiroshi is over. I leave Japan.
arrive. Hiroshi pays the bored young attendant, My time with Ethan may also be over. Neither
who leads us to the last in a long chain of rooms of us knows whats to come. What we do know
and shuts the door. is that there are now 7,000 miles between us.
The surfaces are black formica and fake leather. And so we do what comes instinctively. As a
In the blue light of the flatscreen, Hiroshi queues substitute for physical closeness, we use our
 For years, timber barons in the Amazon have sent lumber to
the US by the shipload.
But many of the
groves they harvested BY RICHARD CONNIFF

were pure fiction.

0 9 8

I
N
V
I
S
I
B
L
E
PHOTOGRAPHS BY IAN ALLEN
F
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R
E
S
T
The
cargo ship
1 0 0

Yacu In Iquitos, the waters were too shallow for the Yacu
Kallpa to dock amid the tin-roofed stilt houses and the
brightly painted tourist boats that lined the riverfront.

Kallpa
So small workboats were ferrying stacks of lumber from
shore, to be lifted into the hold by two onboard cranes.
This was a job that could take two weeks under the best
of circumstances. The longer it took, the more time cus-

rode
toms officials had to prove that the lumber being heaved
aboard the Yacu Kallpa had no business being there at all.
As the loading crews worked, 35 inspectors from a gov-
ernment agency called Organismo de Supervisin de los

impatiently
Recursos Forestales y de Fauna Silvestre (Osinfor) were
slogging through forests all around Loreto Province. The
inspectors were armed with handheld GPS navigators
and a few batches of documents that listed the supposed

at anchor off
harvest sites and the species of trees on the ship. More
often than not, as they visited the sites listed on the paper-
work, they found no evidence that any trees had been cut
down thereno stumps, no debris, no disturbancemuch
less the trees listed on the documents. Sometimes there

Iquitos, Peru,
was no suggestion that trees ever grew there in the first
place. Theyd leave a mark in spray paint and jot a note on
a report: No existe en un radio 50m, shorthand for no
trees logged here, nor within 50 meters in any direction.
The vast scale of illegal logging in the Peruvian Ama-
zon has long been an open secret. Government officials
didnt care, and until recently there was little anyone
else could do to stop it. Local activists often died try-
ing. But for a few defiant government agents, this time
there was hope. The urgent question: Could they finally
a ramshackle city on a bend in the broad, prove that enough trees came from illegal logging sites for prosecutors to stop
turbulent waters of the Amazon River. She the ship from sending its cargo into the US market?
was a midsize ship, a tenth of a mile long, As the Osinfor inspectors pushed deeper into the Amazonian forests and
low-slung, with a seven-story superstruc- dockworkers hurried to load the ship, 30 or so staffers at the Environmental
ture in the stern and plumes of rust fanning Investigation Agency, a nonprofit organization, waited nervously in an office
down the hull from her main deck scup- just off Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. They had been developing methods
pers. She was like any other cargo ship in to tie the ship to illegal logging for four years. But at this moment, they just
the world, but with a dark history. At that had to wait and see what would happen next. It was up to government agents
moment, in November 2015, she needed to in Peru and Washington to make stick all the work the EIA staffers and forest
get out of town fast. inspectors in Peru had done. If everything went right, this would be the last
The captain and crew had a long run ahead, voyage of the Yacu Kallpa.
nearly 2,300 miles down the Amazon, then
another 4,000 miles north to Tampico, Mex-
ico, and finally to Houston, with lumber har- THE ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY GOT
vested from the Amazon rain forest. It was a its start in the mid-1980s when a trio of Greenpeace investiga-
route the ship and its predecessors had run tors became disenchanted with that organizations increasing
hundreds of times for more than 40 years, scale and incendiary tactics. The idea was that the new organization should
hauling millions of pounds of timber at a stay smalland focused on environmental crimes. Over the years, the EIAs
time, to supply lumberyards and big-box investigators have made a reputation for meticulously assembling detailed
stores across the United States with the
ingredients for the floors, decks, and doors RICHARD CONNIFF (@richardconniff) writes about wildlife and environmental issues. He
of the typical American home. has written nine books; his most recent is House of Lost Worlds.
Opening spread, left: Dock workers in Peru stack lumber cut from Amazon forests. IN 2009, WITH THE LACEY ACT
amendment in place, von Bis-
marck began trying to figure
out how to make a case with the new law.
A trade deal between the United States
and Peru was just going into effect, and it
evidence of criminal behavior, via undercover work, in some of the most dan- included new penalties for illegal logging
gerous corners of the world. and made Osinfor an independent agency.
One such investigator is a mild, studious figure named Alexander von Bis- Von Bismarck saw an opportunity. He and
marck, now 45 years old, tall and thin with close-cropped red hair retreating at Andrea Johnson, then director of the EIAs
the temples to form a widows peak. Von Bismarck grew up spending part of each forest campaign, hired a Peruvian journal-
year with his American mother in the United States and part with his father in ist named Julia Urrunaga, who had spent
Germany. He graduated from Harvard on what he calls the 12-year plan, after 15 years investigating corruption for Perus
a diversion to try his hand as a professional equestrian show jumper, another leading newspapers.
to study the demise of cichlids in Ugandas Lake Victoria, and finally a tour in Urrunaga is a happy warrior sort, 47 years
the Marines, where he trained as a scout swimmer for an amphibious landing old, just over 5 feet tall, with a great mane
unit. If his name brings to mind Otto von Bismarck, the 19th-century German of curly light-brown hair. Im a journalist.
statesman and grand European strategist, thats because he is descended from I didnt know much about forestry, she
the Iron Chancellors brother (a potato farmer, he notes). A penchant for stra- admits. She and Johnson, blue-eyed, freckle-
tegic thinking nonetheless persists. faced, and also 5 feet tall, with a degree from
In 2005, von Bismarck set out to persuade Congress to amend the Lacey Act, Yales forestry school, set off to find out
the nations chief law against trafficking in stolen wildlife. The ambition was exactly how the lumber business worked.
to include stolen forests too, making it a federal crime to import illegally har- They visited river ports, attended endless
vested plants. Von Bismarck was able to help forge what was later termed a meetings, and interviewed people about life
Baptist-bootlegger alliance with US timber producers, who were ready to push in the logging camps. Then, one day out of
for the amendment because, by their own estimate, competition from illegally the blue, an email arrived at the EIA office
imported timber was costing them $1billion a year. in Peru. It came from an Italian immigrant
As the amendment was under debate, one of von Bismarcks undercover in Iquitos named Francesco Mantuano, who
investigations revealed that new terrorism-resistant doors ordered for the said he had been duped into buying a logging
US Capitol building may have been supplied by an illegal timber-trafficking concession for what he imagined would be
network in Honduras, and the wood may have been harvested illegally from a a lazy jungle retirement. Instead, he found
Unesco World Heritage Site. The contract for the doors was quietly canceled. himself entangled with the wood mafia,
(Other doors from the same source allegedly ended up at Mar-a-Lago, accord- as he called it, in a deeply dishonest busi-
ing to von Bismarck.) The Lacey Act amendment sailed through Congress and ness that was sweeping away the rain forest
became law in May 2008. in a maelstrom of semi-slave exploitation,
Von Bismarck, who became executive director of the Environmental Inves- social and environmental changes and
tigation Agency in 2007, credits his tour in the Marines with giving him the looting of biodiversity.
operational awareness for undercover
work. He once tracked wood from a pro-
tected tree species stolen from a habitat Swaths of the Amazon forest in Peru are protectedin theory.
for endangered orangutans in Indonesia
to baby cribs being sold by Walmart in the
United States. He and other EIA agents also
went undercover in the Russian Far East
and helped prove that Lumber Liquidators
was knowingly buying hardwood floor-
ing made from illegal timber taken from
the last remaining home of the critically
endangered Siberian tiger. (Lumber Liqui-
dators pleaded guilty to violations under
the Lacey Act and agreed in 2015 to pay a
$13.2 million penalty.)
Of the logging industry, von Bismarck says:
So many of them would love to have a sys-
tem based on legal woodso many of them
feel trapped in a system that is a race to the
bottom. He pauses. Then he adds, But some
guys just need to go to jail.
 0 0 0

Julia Urrunaga had been a journalist before tracking down illegal lumber; mahogany, cedar, chestnut, and rosewood are all logged in Peru. 1 0

Urrunaga was suspicious at first. Maybe someone was sending us the perfect indigenous community lands, and other
case to lead us to a horrible mistake, she says. But she was also curious, so she protected areas.
and Johnson headed to Iquitos. They found Mantuanoa rail-thin, wildly ges- Mantuano launched an indignant letter-
ticulating Italian, Johnson sayswith a friend, an Iquitos native. The two men writing campaign to explain all this to offi-
spent their afternoons sipping coffee and smoking in sidewalk cafs, as though cials in Lima and Washington. But his efforts
Iquitos were Milan and not this chaotic frontier river city where the mufflerless produced no investigation until Johnson
moped taxis drown out anything you say whenever the light turns green, she adds. and Urrunaga showed up. Mantuanos story
Urrunaga and Johnson joined the two at their habitual caf to hear out their tales. backed up what the EIA was already begin-
According to Urrunaga, Mantuano said he had bought into a concession with ning to suspect: The logging industrys basic
large stands of trees approved for harvest by the national forest authority. But operating method was to cut down trees
when timber crews showed up, they left far too quickly to
actually have cut the trees they had supposedly purchased.
Then the timber merchants expected him to hand over tran-

The remoteness of the

sit documents for large amounts of lumber. The intent, he
gradually realized, was to launder timber that had already
been illegally cut elsewhereplaces like national parks,
 on protected lands and then produce fal- Until then, most of the government officials
sified permits, either purchased on the the two women had tried to work with had
black market or via corrupt government been very hostile, very aggressive when
officials. The permits typically listed legal the EIA team approached them about illegal
sitesbut ones that often were remote, or logging, Urrunaga says. But at a meeting with
sparsely forested, and thus wouldnt yield Rolando Navarro, the newly appointed head
big profits. Meanwhile, Perus Amazonian of Osinfor, she and Johnson laid out evidence
rain forests were being destroyed at a rate that the entire system is corrupt, Johnson
of 400,000 acres every yearan area larger recalls. He said, Youre right. Navarro had
than the city of Los Angeles. The women grown up in a river town, and he knew how
could piece together the pattern. But there loggers operated. He had worked with the
was a hitch. After a tree was cut down and World Wildlife Fund in Peru helping local
loaded onto a ship for export, there was communities find alternatives to illegal log-
no way to prove where it came from. As ging. He also knew, from Osinfor field inspec-
they compared Mantuanos documents and tions, that the documents listing the supposed
data with their own, Johnson and Urrun- harvest sites didnt make sense. The women,
aga started thinking: Why not prove where Navarro, and the Peruvian customs officials
the trees didnt come from? The key was to they were working with realized that by hom-
compare export documents detailing where ing in on suspicious exporters, theyd have a
protected species, like mahogany and cedar, better shot at making a bust.
were supposedly harvested with Osinfor Eventually, customs officials asked Inter-
inspections of those areas. pol for help, which allowed Navarros agents
It took nine months of pestering govern- to expand their investigations. That meant
ment officials in Lima, but finally the EIA they could get more documents and slog
received thousands of pages of crappy pho- through more forests. Finally, in 2015, a
tocopies, Urrunaga says. As they waded multi agency team released its report: It
through them, Johnson and Urrunaga could found that about 90 percent of the wood com-
see, for the first time, where the trees had ing out of the Peruvian Amazon was illegal.
supposedly been harvested, right next to But stopping the shipments and putting
data on the ships that had sailed away with people in prison, that wasnt happening,
that wood. Some of those areaslike the Urrunaga says. The Yacu Kallpa kept sail-
most remote parts of Mantuanos conces- ing with what seemed like its old impunity,
sionhadnt yet been inspected by Osin- making four trips in 2014 and three more in
for. Now they would just have to follow the the first half of 2015, carrying timber on its
paper trail back to the forest themselves. regular route to Tampico and then Houston.
With data from one of the ships many
voyages in hand, Johnson set off on a field
3 trip. It took her three days by boat upriver TO STOP THE SHIPMENTS

from Iquitos, then a day of hiking into land to stop the Yacu KallpaNavarro
owned by an indigenous community, and pressed for his field agents to get
another two days slogging deeper into the forest, trying to find a way around transport documents earlier, while the tim-
and then acrossa dense, almost impassable palm swamp. Exhausted, drenched ber was still being loaded, so they could
in sweat, and wiping swarms of insects from her forehead, she finally reached demonstrate there was enough of a mis-
the harvest location. Cedar trees from the site had supposedly been exported match, enough deceit, to stop it before it set
to a company named Global Plywood & Lumber, incorporated in Las Vegas, sailor at least before the timber landed
but no one had ever cut trees from anywhere around her. The remoteness of on the docks in Houston. So throughout
the place made cutting timber there about as practical as harvesting trees on early 2015, customs agents got better at
the moon. There was no way the export companies were getting their wood extracting documents from the exporters,
from sites like this one. We had set out looking for one shipment to prove the while Osinfor agents got more efficient in
wood being exported from Peru was illegal, Urrunaga says. We found 100. their field checks.

place made cutting timber there about

as practical as harvesting trees on the moon.
 Soon after the ship left Iquitos for its vested trees, Peabody swallows and shifts
August 2015 voyage toward Houston, Peru- his keys in his hand, ready for his exit.
vian officials sent word to US investigators: Do you know about the Lacey Act? the
A significant percentage of the timber aboard reporter persists.
was of illegal origin. Of course. We comply with all the require-
Back in the States, the Department of ments, Peabody says with a dismissive
Justice was just settling its illegal logging sweep of one hand. The two of them go back
case against Lumber Liquidators and was and forth for a moment longer. Then Peabody
eager to build on that success. But everyone gets into the SUV, the corners of his mouth
wanted to tread carefully, as the investiga- compressed in disgust, and drives off. (Pea-
tion into the Yacu Kallpa could affect trade body declined to speak to wired. La Oroza,
agreements between the two countries. To reached in Iquitos, denied any wrongdoing.)
complicate matters, Urrunaga had been Remarkably, the Al Jazeera broadcast did
working with an Al Jazeera reporter and not stop the Yacu Kallpa from sailing on. As
Stacks of forestry documents in Iquitos; EIA chief
Alexander von Bismarck. television crew on a story about the use of it neared Houston in September, agents from
fake export documents in Perus logging Homeland Security gathered. When the ship
trade, and in August the network aired its finally settled in port, they boarded and set
story. Prosecutors and investigators wor- about inspecting the cargo. Then they issued
ried that it could blow the case. a temporary order detaining the timber
In the Al Jazeera broadcast, a reporter denying, at least temporarily, its import into
doorsteps Kenneth Peabody, the general the US marketand put the wood in a stor-
manager of Global Plywood, at his home age facility at the port in Houston.
near San Diego. The company had been sell- A few days later, in early October, according
ing Amazon rain forest timber into the US to an affidavit from a Homeland Security inves-
market for at least eight years, in steadily tigator, a man in the dock area was directing
increasing quantities. Its business with a forklift operators to move bundles of timber.
Peruvian exporter named Inversiones La It was Peabody. Hed flown in from California.
Oroza had surged from $250,000 in 2012 to Confronted by federal agents, he told them
$2 million by 2015. Standing in his driveway, that Global Plywood owned 85 percent of the
a Honda minivan on one side and a Mercedes wood the Yacu Kallpa had just delivered, and
Benz SUV on the other, Peabody looks like a it was the largest shipment in the companys
soccer dadmiddle-aged, in black shorts, a history, worth $1 million. An official of the port
gray cathedral catholic dons T-shirt, told Peabody that customs agents would be
sunglasses, and a two-tone Nike golf cap. taking samples of the shipment to verify that
Id like to talk with you about shipments the timber species on board matched the tim-
of illegal wood your company is importing ber species listed in the paperwork required
from Peru, the reporter begins. Hes lean, under the Lacey Act. A week later, Peabody
hunched, and dressed in the shabby manner sent in revised paperwork that added another
of journalists everywhere. 40 tree species for this shipment.
Ah, I dont have anything to say about It seemed like the end of the run for the
that, Peabody says, glancing down and then Yacu Kallpa. But then, as if out of irresistible
turning away to the SUV. habit, the ship turned around and headed
According to Peruvian authorities, the back to Iquitos to pick up another load.
reporter continues, your main supplier, this
company called La Oroza, has been shipping
many shipments of illegal wood to your com- BY 2015, IT HAD BEEN SIX

pany. Ive got three of them here, he adds, years since the Peru free trade
holding out some paperwork. You dont agreement, with all its environ-
know about this? mental commitments, had gone into effect,
I dont know what youre showing me, and trade between the United States and the
Peabody says, turning back now. South American nation had almost doubled,
These are the documents of shipments to $20 billion. It promised to get even big-
sent to your company by this company in ger under the upcoming Trans-Pacific Part-
Peru, the reporter explains. nership. But the Yacu Kallpa was quickly
After the reporter reveals that he has been turning into a test case of whether the envi-
to the tree harvest sites and seen no har- ronmental commitments in free trade trea-
 SOURCE OF IMPORTS TO CHINA

SOURCE OF IMPORTS TO U.S.

RUSSIA ties amounted to anything more than words on paper. For critics, the ship was a big ugly
billboard advertising the utter failure to stop the illegal timber trade. Potentially at stake:

ILLEGAL TIMBER
free trade between the two countries, and Perus already precarious economy.
At the same time, Urrunaga was hearing from her government sources that the lumber
bosses were putting pressure on cabinet ministers to rein in Osinfor. Angry workers were
taking to the street. Logging, after all, made the livelihoods of thousands of Peruvians. The
economy in Loreto moves because of logging, Navarro says. Demonstrators staged noisy,
sometimes violent protests, driving logging company trucks and tractors to the agencys
offices and carrying banners: osinfor works for the gringos. One inspector received
a photograph over WhatsApp of his 1-year-old daughter in her stroller at a local park. The
ECUADOR note said simply, I am from Ayacucho, birthplace of the brutal 1980s militant group Shin-
ing Path. That same week, demonstrators showed up at Navarros office in Iquitos carrying
coffins, one of them bearing his name. Even
after changing his phone number, the threat-
INDONESIA ening calls rang through: We know where 1 0 5

your family lives. At 3 am on November

30, two men in hoods tossed Molotov cock-
SOLOMON ISLANDS
tails into the front of the agencys office in forest department wanted the ship to get
Pucallpa, another logging town. To get rid under waybut the prosecutor pointed
of people who are in the way is the normal out that he was in charge. Arguments went
thing to do, Navarro says. around for hours until finally the captain
In late November, the Yacu Kallpa was load- said, OK, take your 15 percentmeaning
CHINA
ing up in Iquitos, and Osinfor agents were the illegal wood. Reports say the prosecu-
once again scrambling in the field. By the tor was told that the cost of offloading the
day before the ship was scheduled to depart, timber would be $20,000. It then took him
the agents had found that 15 percent of the days to obtain the necessary permissions,
timber coordinates were faked. A customs but when he returned to the ship, the price
agent in Iquitos rushed a summary of the was suddenly more than $200,000. The
investigation to the local prosecutorwho Iquitos prosecutor finally agreed to accept
hesitated. You want me to prosecute them a declaration from the captain that the ship
BRAZIL
ALL OTHER COUNTRIES based on where the timber in the shipment would bring the allegedly illegal 15 percent
didnt come from? he asked, incredulous. of its cargo back after dropping off the rest.
The details about what happened next are So on December 2, the Yacu Kallpa weighed
murky, but according to news reports and anchor and turned downriver at full speed.
Navarro, the prosecutor wasnt even sure he In the EIA offices in Washington, Alexan-
ALL OTHER COUNTRIES had the authority to stop the ship from leav- der von Bismarck and other staff immediately
ing. The agent cajoled and bantered with him went on alert. They could track the ships
until 11:30 that night, reminding him that just movements minute by minute, as the Auto-
weeks earlier, the nation had adopted a decree matic Identification System that all cargo
authorizing a prosecutor to seize a timber ships must use pinged its location, bearing,
shipment on suspicion of illegality. Finally, the and speed. Government agents in Peru, the
prosecutor agreed to meet the agent, before United States, and at Interpol were watching
Global dawn, at the Iquitos dockif Osinfor could too. When the ship crossed into Brazil, police
Wood provide all the documents from the investi- there, responding to a call from a prosecutor
Laundering gation. Osinfors agents spent the next four in Lima, boarded it briefly. But they had no
PAPUA NEW GUINEA Not much has hours printing out documents, downloaded Lacey Act nor any other means of real enforce-
been done to via the creaky Iquitos internet. ment. The ship pushed on, with captain and
stanch the flow of
illegal wood to The reluctant prosecutor and agents crew now aware that everyone was watching.
developing coun- from Osinfor and customs arrived at the Osinfor investigators were also pushing,
triesparticularly port before the sun had risen. Iquitos is a heading deeper into the forests, working
China, the worlds
largest importer. small city, and word had gotten out. A pla- their way down the long list of GPS coordi-
The products toon of timber company lawyers and man- nates for the cargo. By mid-December, as the
represented here, agers followed on their heels. Word also ship made its way north along the Atlantic
MYANMAR like logs and ply-
wood, are more reached Urrunaga, who soon had some- coast, the investigators sent word to law
likely to be illegal one recording the scene. The discussion enforcement agencies in Lima and the US:
than other wood rageda representative of the regional More than 60 percent of the cargo was illegal.
imports and can
be reexported to
the US as chairs
or picture frames.
 On December 20, the Yacu Kallpa paused of Peru, the US, and Interpol, Mexican officials seized
unexpectedly in Trinidad and emerged again roughly 8 million pounds of rain forest timber. When its
in the new yearsuddenly under a new holds were finally empty, the ship anchored in the har-
flag of convenience. I thought I was going borand waited. A month later, the hapless crew was
crazy, says an EIA technician who was still onboard, abandoned 2,500 miles from home, unpaid,
tracking the ship when the flag of Panama and requesting help and food. Finally, at the end of Feb-
popped up on his cell phone. ruary, the Peruvian embassy intervened and brought the
On January 3, the Yacu Kallpa made a bee- men home. The owners of the ship, based in Lima, liq-
line for the Dominican Republic and began to uidated their assets and abandoned the Yacu Kallpa in
unload its tainted cargo. Meaning we lose, Tampico, according to a former employee. The Mexican
von Bismarck says. An EIA staffer called a government assumed ownership and reportedly plans
photographer friend in Santo Domingo and to use it as some kind of training ship.
persuaded him to get to the scene and start That May, a potential timber buyer from Shanghai
recording. But then international pressure phoned Peabody, the Global Plywood manager, and said
came down on the Dominican government, hed read about the case in the newspaper and wanted
and the Yacu Kallpa sailed onMeaning to sell the wood still stuck in Houston into the Chinese
we won, von Bismarck says. The ship stag- market. Peabody flew to meet the buyer at a Chinese
gered onward, jinked briefly toward Jamaica, restaurant in Vancouver. Even though the wood couldnt
then reluctantly turned back on its familiar be imported to the US, Peabody could theoretically still
course, heading toward Tampico. sell it elsewhere. He warned the prospective buyer that
On January 8, agents sent out a new field any sale might be complicated by the US government.
report: 72 percent of the cargo was illegal. The buyer sought reassurance that Global Plywoods
suppliers in Peru could be trusted. Peabody smiled.
We trust them to do what they need to do to get by in
ONE DAY IN MID-JANUARY, Peru, he said. The customer, operating under a false
as the ship was still en route, identity and with a video camera recording, was of
Navarro had a meeting in his course an undercover agent with the EIA.
office with two lumber trade association Many months later, final reports on the ships last
representatives, one of whom he later found voyages were complete. For the August shipmentthe
out was also the CEO of Global Plywood. one impounded in Houstonit would show that at least
The men lamented that they had never had 92 percent of the 3.9 millionpound haul was illegal.
such trouble in 30 years of buying timber As for the vessels final voyage, it took nine months for
in Peru. Yes, thats probably the case, agents to complete their field checks of all the GPS sites
Navarro said, and we have nothing against listed on the harvest documents. They found that more
private investment. But, he told them, the than 96 percent of the ships cargo had been illegally
evidence was showing that even shipments harvested from the Amazon rain forest and sent north.
with apparently legal documents were com- In June of last year, federal agents showed up at the
ing from illegal sources. one-room office of Global Plywood, next to a volleyball
As they talked, the businessmen peri- court in a San Diego suburb, with a warrant to haul
odically checked their cell phones. Then, away paperwork, Peabodys cell phone, and copies of
abruptly, they announced that they had to computer hard drives. Peabody later emailed the potential buyerthe EIAs
leave. A few minutes later, Navarro found undercover agentto say that any possible deal was off the table. In the end,
out he had just been fired by the president all the illegal lumber in Houston was destroyed earlier this year in a no-fault
of the country. Four days later, feeling vul- settlement with US Customs. A criminal investigation is ongoing, but so far
nerable without the protection of public no charges have been filed.
office, he fled to the United States. (The After more than four years and the work of hundreds of people, one offending
Global Plywood executive did not respond ship responsible for carrying millions of pounds of illegally harvested wood into
to requests for comment.) the US market had been stopped. It was a tremendous victory. But it was limited.
On January 26, 2016, at 8 pm, the Yacu
Kallpa limped into Tampico. At the request Additional reporting by GREGORY BARBER and BLANCA MYERS.

The ship paused unexpectedly in Tri

in the new yearsuddenly under a new flag.
 1 0 7 Perus rain forests are being cut down at a rate of 400,000 acres each year.

This past January, within days of taking lumber. That may not matter for the rain forests of Peru; China has now become
ofce, President Trump pulled the US out the leading export destination for Peruvian timber, and it puts far fewer envi-
of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was ronmental conditions on its massive market for timber.
no longer clear just how much it mattered Von Bismarck says the EIA will also adapt. In fact, the agency is already
whether trade partners stood by their envi- developing a system to monitor forests worldwide by satellite, with updates
ronmental commitments. Von Bismarcks every few days. Meanwhile, Osinfor agents continue their field inspections.
biggest concern was that timber importers One day a few months back, in his ofce, von Bismarck rolled a video taken from
in the United States would now persuade a DJI Phantom 3 quadrotor drone. It showed two Osinfor agents in hard hats, trav-
the administration to roll back the Lacey eling in a local mans dugout, to check one of the GPS coordinates listed for lum-
Act ban on importing illegally harvested ber on the Yacu Kallpas final shipment. There was no sign that a tree could have
been felled in the area, and one of the agents sprayed
no e, for no existe, in blue paint on a grassy hummock.
The men paddled slowly onward to the next GPS point.

nidad and emerged again

Then the drone pulled back to reveal that the site was in
fact a vast, grass-fringed lake, glittering in the sun, with
not a forest in sight and where none had ever grown.
 Tony Fadell is at the Grove, a spectacularly
beautiful country estate outside of London.
The event is Founders Forum: the ultra
exclusive inviteonly tech conference. Prince
William is in the house. The guest list is lousy
with knights and lesser officers of the Most
Excellent Order of the British Empire. Marissa
Mayer, the now exCEO of Yahoo, and Biz
Stone, recently returned to Twitter, are min
gling with the other hundred or so invitees.
But this is really Fadells moment.
Its almost exactly 10 years since the
iPhone was released, and the media buzz
is inescapable. The press is having trouble
coming up with superlatives to describe the
1
impact of a device that has sold more than a 0
8
billion units. A new book, The One Device, is
lighting up the intertubes with fresh gossip
about the secret history of the iPhone.
And Fadellboth the source and the subject
of that gossipis getting his due as one of
the guys most responsible for turning Steve
Jobs onedevicetorulethemall vision
into reality.
The title of the afternoon session is What
to Build Next? and Fadell is onstage with
two other bona fide tech zillionairesNiklas
Zennstrm, the Skype guy; and Kevin Ryan,
one of New York Citys most successful inter
net entrepreneursas well as a couple of
other founder investor types. Of the five
people onstage, Fadell is the only one who helped build
an object that every person in the audience has most
likely used at one time or another. First Fadell helped
build the iPod for Apple, then the iPhone, and then he
ventured out on his own to build the Nest thermostat.
Payback Fadell is the star of the show, and he knows it. His
Time
selfconfidence is well earned but can come across as
overweeningespecially to those who suddenly find
themselves in his shadow. Any VC who tells you that
Tony Fadell
you have to move to Silicon Valley, Fadell says at one
created the point, gesticulating wildly, is being very lazy. Two
iPod and
of the other people onstage are, in fact, from Silicon
Nest, then
lost control Valley venture capital firms, and their collars seem to
of them. His squeeze a bit tighter. Fadell, in comparison, is supremely
next project
could be comfortable: relaxed and expansive in a pair of bright
his most red sneakersno socksand a polo shirt. The moder
ambitious
yet: taking
ator, wrapping things up, calls for a lightning round:
on Silicon a rapidfire series of questionswith only oneword
Valley itself.
answers allowed.
Whats the biggest problem facing the world right now?
Climate, Fadell says. Then he adds, Weregoingto
havetogonuclear before being hushed by the moder
ator for busting the oneword rule.
By
Whats the next big thing in tech?
Adam Computational synthetic biology, Fadell says, bend
Fisher
ing the rules a second time.
What is the one word that people who know you would
use to describe you?
Nadav
Kander Troublemaker!
With that, the panel is over, and Fadell is mobbed as he
tries to leave the Groves 18thcentury manor. People want
 autographs, selfies, a word or twobut the Rewind to the early 90s. Fadell, a computer engineering major
most persistent want money and advice. at the University of Michigan, has already tasted entrepreneurial
Like many of his contemporaries, Fadell success with a little educationsoftware company called Constructive
makes personal investments as an angel, Instruments that he founded in his dorm room, but he wants more.
through a firm called Future Shape, with I was getting very frustrated being a big fish in a little pond in Ann
one important difference: He says he has a Arbor, Fadell says, and my eyes were looking at the West going,
venturesize pool of moneya portfolio of Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley. For a technologist like
Future Shape investments worth more than Fadell, there was no other place. Then, when news broke that a handful
half a billion dollars. Looking to make his of Apple alumniincluding the heroprogrammer behind the Mac,
escape, Fadell slips into the mens room. One persistent Andy Hertzfeldhad escaped the mothership and
supplicant follows and, while Fadell is standing at the banded together to form a new company, General
urinal, penis in hand, proceeds to make his pitch. Its Magic, Fadell saw his future.
a startup with a new design for a robotic arm. Fadell Not long after graduating in 1991, he showed up at
listens for less than a minute and, shaking off, says: A General Magics offices in Mountain View, California,
new robot arm? China is going to copy that in a second! early one midweek morning, unannounced. And
What then? Whats your value proposition? because he was there before the receptionist, he just
Faster, better, cheaper blah blah blah. started wandering the halls, uncomfortable in his
Not good enough! Fadell thinks, before offering jacket and tie, rsum in hand. He eventually found
some bland words of encouragement and dashing off some people to pesterpeople who had clearly
to slip into the back seat of a black MercedesBenz been there all night, hacking away. Leave us alone,
Sclass emblazoned with the AMG performance badge. kid. I was humbled in the first 10 minutes of being
As we start to speed toward central London to catch there, he says. I was like, Oh my God, this is not
the afternoon Eurostar to Paris, he entertains the like Michigan, I have got to be here, these are the
chauffeur (and me) with the penispitch story. I did like smartest people ever, I have got to be working here.
his persistence, though, Fadell says, I respect that. I have to be working here.
Turning philosophical, Fadell puts on his shades The young Fadell had persistence, and it paid off:
against the bright sun streaming through the backseat By the end of 1991 he had a job offer from General
sunroof. Its kind of like being a film producer, he says, Magic. I wouldnt have said, back then, This guys
reflecting on his new role, postNest, as an investor. going to change the world, particularly, Hertzfeld
People pitch him, and if he likes their idea, its go time. says. He was incredibly talented, very opinionated,
As if on cue, Fadell is forced to cut his reverie short obviously very bright, and physically very strong.
to take a call from a young journalist doing a story on At General Magic, Fadell joined a small team that
the new culture of celebrity in tech. was trying to build something the company had
Did you ever think that tech would make you into labeled a personal communicator. It had email.
a celebrity? It had downloadable apps. It had shopping. It had
Absolutely not! Fadell says. The tech business animations and graphics and games. It had telecom
in the 80s was Revenge of the Nerds. It was geeks. municationsa phone, a builtin modem, Fadell
We were looked down upon, trodden upon Fadell says. It was the iPhone 14 years too soon. It never
is working himself into his trademark lather. Who got off the ground, and Magic ran out of tricks and
are these crazy guys with pocket protectors and bro cash by the early 2000s, but the experience was
ken glasses? he asks rhetorically. So you never formative. Hardware, software, services. That was
thought that you were going to become a rock star, the first link that I ever saw like that, Fadell says.
Fadell says, winding down, before quickly amending That has influenced everything Ive done since.
the thought. Not that I am, he says, but thats what A few years after leaving General Magic, Fadell
some people think. had his own startup, Fuse Systems. It was a hard
I dont think Fadell is a rock star, but Im ware company that was attempting to capitalize on the Napster
quickly realizing that he is not your runof fueled rise of the MP3 music format. Yves Bhar, the noted product
themill Silicon Valley billionaire making designer, remembers working with the nascent company: The idea
an early retirement out of an investing was to make a full line of MP3optimized music playerseverything
hobby either. For starters, he doesnt even from a component stereo system to a small portable Walkmantype
GROOMING BY KARINE BELLY

live in the Valley anymore. He has moved device. Tony was talking about a world where media, especially
to Paris. Permanently. And the more I learn music, was going to be all digital, Bhar says. And he got so excited
about him, the more I begin to suspect and animated and passionate that he broke a chairhe was just very
that Silicon Valleys favorite son secretly physical, getting up and sitting down againand that became a joke:
hates the Valley. To hear Fadell tell it, he Tonys a kind of excitable guy who breaks the furniture.
certainly has reason to. To get the idea off the ground, Fadell rented an office in San
Franciscos Telegraph Hill neighborhood and hired So he put his own dreams in a box and went to work
about a dozen people. Then Apple called. This was just for Apple as the head of the iPod project. The first
after Jobs had returned to the company he founded iPod was not perfect, but it was still way better than
and was struggling to save it from oblivion. Jobs was the competitionand as it was refined, it grew into a
looking for a way out of a nowin battle with Microsoft monster hit. Steve Wozniak, who watched it all happen
and, like Fadell, had hit upon the idea of a portable MP3 from the inside, credits the iPod with turning the entire
player. Toshiba had just announced the launch of a small company around. It made our revenues double, our
format disk drive that would give the Apple MP3 player profits double, and our stock double, he says. The
a crucial advantage over the competition. But Apple iPod was a hit, and Fadell was a hero inside Apple.
needed someone who knew the When Jobs announced that he had cancer in 2004, Fadell was
tech forward and backward to on every list of potential successors. He even reminded people of
build out a prototype. Execu the mercurial Apple founder, both in his ability to get things done
tives asked him to come in to and in the way he operated. Tony is a little bit like Steve Jobs in
discuss somethingthey were the way he shaded the truth, says Hertzfeld, who was close to
cagey about exactly what. both men. Its not exactly lying, but its expressing things in an
Fadell assumed Apple needed advantageous way.
some help designing a nextgen The iPhone, which came out in 2007, was Fadells last chapter
Newton and took the meeting. at Apple. As the guy who built the iPod, he had earned the right
It was only after he signed the to shape the companys next flagship product. The phone project
nondisclosure agreements that started in earnest at the end of 2004. By that time, Fadell and
he discovered that the company Tony his team had prototyped iPods that could also make phone calls.
started
wanted him to design a portable to adopt Fadells design used the iPods circular controller like a rotary dial.
MP3 playerthe future iPod. In Steve Jobs But there was another team inside Apple with a bigger ideathe
mannerisms
effect, Apple was asking Fadell and
alltouch screen. And the competition between the two teams at
for help in competing with him persona times escalated into fullon corporate warfare.
self. Yet if Fuse were to have any because Fadell lost the battle over the iPhones final designbut, because
it was a
chance of survival, Fadell had to pressure of his previous success, he was still expected to build the hardware,
take the consulting gig at Apple, cooker a powersharing situation that created all kinds of drama with Scott
but also
because Fuse needed another you emulate Forstall, Apples legendary software guru. This is when Steves
infusion of cash. The tradi what works, leadership and management style started to permeate the company,
right? And
tional sources of funding had so everyone
remembers Andy Grignon, the manager responsible for the phone
shut down because the dotcom started part of the iPhone. Tony started to adopt Steves mannerisms and
crash was already under way. screaming persona because it was a pressure cookerbut also you emulate
at each
Fadell put Fuse on autopilot other. what works, right? And so everyone started screaming at each other.
and designed the iPod pro It became just like the thing to do: Fly off the fucking handle. And
totype for Apple in six short by the time the iPhone was ready to launch, it seemed Fadell was
weeks. After he demonstrated no longer the golden boy.
how the iPod could be built Jobs appeared to confirm this fact in an exceptionally cruel way:
which components, which inter The message was signaled from the stage at the very event where
faces, and at what priceJobs the iPhone was unveiled, on January 9, 2007. When Jobs was demon
put Fadell into a double bind. strating the iPhones contact list, he showed that he could delete a
He asked him to abandon the contact with one tapand the contact he deleted was Tony Fadell.
Fuse MP3 player designs and The public may not have thought twice about the gesture, but the
develop his idea inside Apple, Apple engineers in the audience understood exactly what was
which would mean killing his going on. People laughed about it, but everybody knew, Grignon
own company. It was agonizing for the young entre says. Steve was in many ways diabolical, and Tony and
preneur. I was just like, whoa! says Fadell, who even Steves relationship had grown increasingly rocky.
now gets worked up at the thought. I am like, Wait a Fadell insists that his relationship with Jobs remained
second, I have a company, and there are people over there solid, but he seems to have been pretty decisively out
working on this other thing. How am I going to do this? maneuvered. That demo script, Fadell says, was 1
1
So I just got in my car, and I started driving through the created by Scott Forstall. (A source closely involved 1
hills of Saratoga and Los Gatos. I go up to Skyline, I wind with the presentation says Jobs was adlibbing.) Fadell
up those roads, and Im just sitting there going, What and his wife, Danielle Lambert, also an Apple employee,
am I going to do? What am I doing? eventually decided theyd had enough and were gone by
In the end, Fadell didnt have much of a choice. The November 2008. Fadell says they left to spend more time
odds of Fuse succeeding on its own were not good. with their kids. Steve was wondering why we didnt do
it sooner, Fadell says. And then for a year, year and a Fadell has prime office space at Station F, a startup incubator in Paris.
half, we kind of went around the world. The city they
liked best was Paris, so there they settled. They bought a
big, beautiful apartment in the seventh arrondissement,
started filling it with contemporary art, and enrolled
their eldest son in the local school. world with a solidstate thermoelectric
coolera chip, in essence. In Fadells mind,
the ultimate triumph would be a break
through battery: If we have energy storage
technologies that are very cheap and very
Fuck Apple! efficient, then were going to see wars stop,
Fadell is in full manic panic, and because no one is going to be fighting over
those are the first words out of oil reserves anymore.
his mouth as I step into his garden We each take a bike and head into traffic,
courtyard in the seventh. Its early riding south on Boulevard SaintGermain
in the morning, the day after Found If youre and then merging into traffic to veer onto
ers Forum in London, and Im being launching Boulevard Raspail. Fadell has our destina
a startup
escorted onto the premises by Fadells today, tionthe Paris Expo centerdialed into
PR person. Today she has scheduled dont go his iPhone. Its only 4 miles away, but we
to Silicon
Fadell for a long sitdown interview are going to have to sprint to get there in
Valley if
with me. But all of that has been for youre not time. Theres only one problem: My boost
gotten, as Fadell has just been hit from there, doesnt work! Fadell says.
Fadell
with some disturbing news. Fucking tells a No matter, he just stands up on his pedals
Apple, he says. Fadell clams up after group of and grinds like a bike messenger who has
students.
this outburst, but I later hear there is Dont do it! just guzzled a gallon of espresso. Keeping
a dispute brewing between one of the up is not easy, even with my Superpedes
Future Shape companies and Apple. trianassisted superlegs, because Fadell is
Fadell has invested in hundreds of blowing through red lights, splitting lanes,
startup companies, and I have no idea squeezing through wormholes in moving
which of them is butting heads with traffic. And doing it all onehanded so he
Apple. However, I do glean enough can keep an eye on the map.
to understand that there is nothing Watch out for cops, OK? he says as we
unusual about the mornings drama. blast through another busy intersection.
Fadell is a drama king: The more If they see me riding with my phone out,
drama, the better. In fact, Fadells its an automatic ticket.
PR person is a specialist in what has Were cranking, running with traffic on
come to be called crisis PR, and she the Rue de Rennes, and then the second
tells me that with Fadell, every day technical fail strikes.
is a new adventure. What the hell?! Fadell grunts, glaring
Indeed, the next thing I hear from at his screen while spinning his crankset
Fadell is that weve got to go now. He has decided that, madly. My phone is only at 50 percent charge. It was
instead of sitting down for the interview this morning, full when we left this morning.
he has to make an appearance at VivaTechthe Tech You need to be able to jack it into that battery in
Crunch of Europe. He points to a pair of bikes waiting in the bike, I say, offering an unsolicited design critique.
the courtyard, outfitted with a device that gives them Youre right! he says, leaning into a chicane designed
an electric boost. The devices are from a startup called to slow traffic.
Superpedestrian, and Fadell is an investor. The bet A left, a right. The streets are getting wider: four
1
on ebikes is emblematic of the types of investments lanes, then six. Traffic is moving faster and faster. Fadell 1
2
hes looking for. He tends to like hardware startups. is starting to sweat.
He looks for industries that are very stable, where the I need to reboot. Theres a bug in the phone. Its
basic designs, tools, or materials have barely changed sucking power, he says. We glide to a stop at the edge
for a long time. Consider Modern Meadow, a Future of a deserted plaza near a train station so Fadell can
Shape portfolio company, which is trying to replace reboot his iPhone. The reboot doesnt fix the bug. Such
cow leather with a labgrown substitute. Then theres is the life of a digital citizen, he sighs.
a heating and cooling company aiming to replace every I have an idea: I hand him my Android so he can con
compressor in every industrial refrigerator in the tinue to navigate, and we are off again. Its all downhill
from here, and soon we are on a paved bike path. Fadell the average houseevery lock, appliance, power outlet,
narrowly escapes a headon collision with a helmeted and light switchwould be replaced by a fancy cloud
mountain biker while trying to get his bearings from connected gizmo. And what would connect this socalled
the unfamiliar phone. internet of things? Who would provide the operating
Weve got gravity at our back, trees to our left, and system to the houses and apartments we would all be
pedestrians to our right. Were laying down a groove in living in? Well, Nest of course.
a dedicated bike lane carved out of an impossibly wide Fadell moved back to Silicon Valley to build it with
Parisian sidewalk. Matt Rogers, who had been Fadells colleague at Apple.
It says were here! Do you see it? Its just to our left The company was incorporated in June 2010 and was in
somewhere, Fadell says, craning his neck, looking for stealth mode for more than a year. Googles Sergey Brin
the Expo center. saw a prototype early in 2011 and immediately moved to
Then, crash! buy the company. Fadell said no. Steve Jobs heard about
Fadells front wheel goes kerflooey against a half the thermostat and wanted to see it too, but by the time
inch granite curb delineating the edge Fadell felt it was perfect enough to show to the perfectionist, Jobs
of the bike lane, and hes thrown to was on his deathbed. He never saw it.
the ground. The bicyclist behind us The Nest thermostat debuted at the end of 2011 and earned Nest a
swerves to avoid the crash and curses raft of plaudits and design awards, and all the attention was making
at Fadell while hes down, splayed over Fadell nervous. I have seen this before, he says, where youre the
his crumpled bike: Merde! biggest fish in the smaller pond, and then all of a sudden the pond
My phone is yards away, having grows immensely because Google or Microsoft or Apple or Amazon
escaped Fadells grip when he went or Samsung gets into it, and now youre a very tiny fish with these
flying. The screen is shattered. Fadell big, big, big whales.
has dirt stains on the knees of his By the summer of 2013, the second product in the Nest family, a
white jeans. smart smoke detector, was about to come out, and Fadell was looking
Youre not going to put this in the to raise more money through an investment round. We had connected
story, are you? Fadell asks. products, but what we wanted to do was connect the whole thing
together. That was the vision of Nest. So how much money was it
going to take? Fadell asks. The answer: a ton of moneyand time
too. Meanwhile, Google was still interested in buying the company
outright. Nest was starting to look like the key that could unlock a
The one problem with moving gazilliondollar connected home market, and acquiring Fadell
to Paris was that Fadell had no real seemed to be a chance to inject Google with some of the design DNA
network there. Then he met Xavier that had made Apple the most valuable company in the world.
Niela man sometimes referred to Fadell was pressed hard against the same dilemma hed faced at
as the French Steve Jobs. He made Fuse a decade earlier. He could bet everything on himself and risk
his money as an internet entrepreneur losingor he could try to pursue his vision inside the confines of
and now, like Fadell, invests it. I was a warm corporate cocoon. This time the double bind wasnt so
reading blogs and stuff, but I wanted to heartbreaking. Fadell wouldnt have to kill his company, because
talk to other people in the business, Nest would effectively live inside Google. Fadell could keep control
Fadell tells me. while drawing on all the Google infrastructure he needed to build
At the time, Paris wasnt a big tech Nest into a connectedhome platform. All kinds of promises were
city, says Niel, who recalls meeting made, Fadell says. Including, according to a source who saw the
Fadell early one afternoon in his office in 2009. It was contract, a fiveyear runwaya period of time in which
a blind date bromance, and they talked for almost 10 Nest could spend and innovate freely with the goal of
hours straight. Oh my God, we just bonded instantly, capturing the entire connectedhome ecosystem that
Fadell says. We had similar backgrounds, just in different everyone knew was coming.
countries. He had an Apple II, I had an Apple II. In January 2014, Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion.
We spoke a lot about electronics Niel says. Five months later, Google bought Dropcam, a smart
Fadell had an idea about a company of his own and was homesecuritycamera company. The plan was to do
looking for collaborators. Nest was burning inside me to some modifications, rebrand the system, and add the
be created, he says. Niel was an early investor. new Nest Cam into Fadells product line. Thats what
The Nest elevator pitch: home thermostat meets the happened, but not before the former Dropcam CEO, Greg
iPhone. Nest was never simply about making a smarter, Duffy, attempted a coup dtat early in 2015. According
more beautiful thermostat, any more than the iPhone to an article on the news site The Information, Duffy sent
was about making a smarter, more beautiful phone. The an email to Google CEO Larry Page complaining about
business pitch was that, someday soon, every device in Fadell, his boss at Nest. He also recommended that Fadell
be fired and suggested that he himself should replace ing an entrepreneur in residence deep inside the
Fadell. When Duffys insubordinate power play got no Google death star, Ruth Porat was hired as Googles new
response from Page, he quit Nest and, for good measure, CFO. Porat had deep roots in Silicon Valleyher brother,
says he told Fadell, I think youre running this company Marc, was Fadells boss at General Magicbut Porat
like a tyrant bureaucrat! before walking out. came from Wall Street.
Theres definitely a tyrannical streak in Fadellin a She was hired to bring financial discipline to Goo
heated moment Fadell once asked his cofounder, Rogers, gle. And indeed, within five months, Google announced
to postpone his honeymoon to help the Nest team meet that it was no longer Google anymore. It was Alpha
some deadlines. (Rogers knew the storm would pass bet, a holding company that would contain at least a
and took his honeymoon as scheduled.) But Fadells real dozen divisions. There would be the core searchand
problem wasnt his socalled tyrannyit was the new advertising company called Google as well as what
bureaucracy he suddenly found himself in. Alphabet called its other bets. Nest was one of the
The month after Duffy transferred out of Nest, becom other bets, and as a division Nest would have to meet
certain revenue goals, and its balance sheet would suddenly be sub
ject to large overhead and other indirect charges from Alphabet.
Fadell remembers the moment vividly. He thought he had a promise:
five years in which to build Nest into the dominant connectedhome
Archangel platform. But everything changed when Google morphed into Alpha
Investor bet. They decided there was a new regime in town, and they said,
Were going to have all new metrics, and I was like, This is not what
There are angel investors, and then we agreed to before, because this was not just about fiscal thingsit
theres Tony Fadell. The engineer was about getting married. I had never thought about being bought.
best known for inventing the iPod
has spent the past eight years It was about getting married to build a beautiful child, right?
quietly investing inand consulting Fadell soldiered on under the new regime for four months, until
withstartups through his fund, at the end of 2015 he discovered that the new bottomlineoriented
Future Shape. In size, Future
Shapes billion-dollar portfolio Alphabet was going to sell Nest. At that point I knew it wasnt going to
rivals medium- and large-size VC work out, and thats when I came home to my wife, after a lot of strug
firms. But the investments come gles with the Alphabet thing. It wasnt working, it was, OK, its over.
unencumbered by meddlesome
limited partners or 10-year return Things went south after Fadell told Page that he wanted out in
horizons. So Fadell can, as he puts December of 2015. The tech blogs started circling, and the famously
it, go long. Heres where Future tightlipped Google started leaking. Recode got ahold of a meme,
Shape is placing its bets.
blanca myers created by someone inside the company, that showed a cartoon mob,
torches raised high, behind the words sell nest. The Information
did a damning expos, featuring Duffys version of Nest as a bloated,
ineffectual organization. In a followup blog post, Duffy accused Nests
leadership of fetishizing only the most superfluous and negative traits
of their mentorsin other words, Fadell had emulated Steve Jobs
Keyssa Phononic dark side but not his capacity for getting things done. Fadell, of course,
(Campbell, CA) (Durham, NC)
Develops high- Develops solid- rejected the charges: In his view, Duffy was acting out of line, while
speed wireless state heating and
connectors. cooling systems.
Nest was racking up accomplishments at Googlea regular drumbeat
of significant hardware redesigns and new software services. Fadell
felt blindsided by Duffy and hamstrung by legal agreements restricting
what he could say publicly: I was disappointed Google
did not step up to the line when these personal attacks
were made on me and Nest, he says. Furthermore, Google
Turvo Karius DX Dice
(Sunnyvale, CA) (Redwood City, CA) (London) threatened Fadell with legal action if Fadell went ahead
Offers a cloud-based Diagnoses Suggests live music
logistics platform for infectious diseases performances
and defended himself in the pressthis tidbit according
shippers, brokers, using genomic and offers mobile to the same source who saw the fiveyear runway clause
and carriers. technologies. ticketing on an app. 1
in the original purchase agreement between Google and 1
5
Nest. Alphabet, which politely declined to comment on
what exactly went wrong at Nest, whether Fadell quit or
was fired, or even if there was any runway agreement in
the first place, vehemently denies threatening Fadell with
Impossible Rohinni CashShield
Foods (Coeur dAlene, ID) (Singapore) legal action. Whatever really happened behind closed
(Redwood City, CA) Develops Helps enterprises doors, we do know for certain that by June 2016, Fadell
Makes a meat LED lighting detect and prevent
substitute from plants. products. online fraud. had returned to Paris for good.
 Given that Fadell has tangled financial lightning struck him twice: Both he and his wife got a bundle
with major Silicon Valley companies of Apple stock options back when AAPL was dirt cheap, and then he
and lost twice, its hardly surprising sold Nest to Google for $3.2 billion. Its all covered, Fadell says,
that he decided to relocate to Paris. referring to his finances. I dont have to worry about it. So the point
The surprising thing is that he may of Future Shape, for Fadell, is finding those magic productslike the
have found something better. At least iPhone or the Nest thermostatthat need long runways but might
thats the case Xavier Niel makes. Sili change everything.
con Valley, Niel says, is for suckers. He All of these incumbents with these big businesses that have been
ticks off the downsides: the skyhigh around for 100 or 200 years can be unseated, Fadell says, because
salaries needed to attract engineers, the technology is the unseating element, the levelizer. When Fadell talks
atrocious traffic, the relative dearth of about technology he means something a bit different than the usual
cultural institutions, the isolation from definition. He waves off things like email and spreadsheets as mere
the great cities of Europe boltons to existing business models. His thesis is that almost every
I am, to say the least, dubious: France industry is up for grabs when and if someone like him redesigns the
is known for being unfavorable ground essential hardware with software and services baked in. Its the formula
for businesses of all kindsespecially Fadell learned at General Magic and then applied at Apple and Nest.
startups. It has high taxes, rigid labor Everywhere he looks, he sees industries ripe for his particular brand
laws, and a culture that is averse to the of disruption: logistics and trucking, urban transportation, farming.
free market. But I have to concede that Its an exceedingly familiar rap. Every venture fund claims that
Niel, a billionaire eight times over, is disruptive opportunity is everywhereits the very premise of that
putting his money where his mouth is. type of investingand lots of them claim, for one reason or another,
Hes making the case against Silicon that they dont push their startups for exits.
Valley in the middle of Station F, a mas Fadell indulges in one heresy, however: an insistence that you no
sive complex on the outskirts of Paris longer need to throw yourself at the feet of the Silicon Valley masters,
devoted exclusively to the care and as he did 25 years ago. If youre launching a startup today, dont
feeding of startups. The building that go to Silicon Valley if youre not from there, Fadell tells a group of
houses it all is a former railroad terminal almost as long as awestruck students at a coding school that
the Eiffel Tower is tall and filled with a sea of desksmore feeds its graduates into Station F. Dont do
than 3,000 in all. Basically, its a gargantuan coworking it! Youre at an incredible disadvantage. It
space, one that comes with all the amenities youd find is clear that hes also talking about himself.
in a big Silicon Valley company campusfoosball tables, In fact, whatever the audience, whether
private conference rooms, fancy food courts, a chill zone, its coding kids or the founders of Founders
beanbag chairs. All of it is owned and operated by Niel. Forum, Fadell never misses a chance to
He operates as its landlord. Young entrepreneurs with poohpooh the Valley. Fadell made a for
an idea have to apply to get in, and if they do, they pay a tune in Silicon Valley and now has left it for
In Paris,
nominal fee for a desk and plugandplay access to the he can
good. Hes putting down roots in Paris. He
entire French entrepreneurial ecosystem. Looking down pick out studies with a French tutor every day and
from all sides are offices of the permanent tenants: angel younger is getting fluent. His two kids are enrolled
versions
networks, VC firms, incubator and accelerator programs, of himself, in the local cole, and the headquarters
outposts of large firms like Facebook and Microsoft look give them of Future Shapethe new businessare
money,
ing to hire and acquire. Those tenants pay top dollar for and watch inside Station F.
the advantage of being in the same building with all the all the You dont need Freud to figure out why.
possible
young guns. versions
Look past the big wallet and the big ego and
One of the nicest of the permanent offices belongs to of his life you see a guy who has been grievously hurt
Fadell. Future Shape, his fund, is now worth, he estimates, story by the Silicon Valley systemexploited and
unfold
between $500 million and $1 billion. Thats equivalent again and then betrayed, twice. First by Steve Jobs,
to a medium or even largesize venture fund. But the again. who squeezed Fadell for all the juice he had
difference is that, unlike a VC fund, Fadell doesnt have and then publicly tossed him aside. The
a bunch of limited partners second time it was the same shit, different
backing him, tracking returns companyFadell was again suckerpunched
ADAM FISHER
(@AdamcFisher) over (typically) a 10year mat on the way out. The wave of bad publicity
is the author of uration period. Future Shape while he was at Nestthe Recode memes,
Valley of Genius,
a history of Silicon
is all Fadells money, so theres the Information exposcame after Fadell
Valley. It will be none of the usual VC pressure to told Page he wanted to leave Google.
published
in spring 2018 by
IPO or be acquired. His personal Sure, he might have failed altogether if
Hachette. balance sheet is not public, but it hadnt been for the support of Apple and
Alphabet. And by one very important mea produced very few high tech companies of
sure, Fadell succeeded stupendously, thanks
to Silicon Valley: He walked away from both
companies with huge piles of money. Maybe
note. But who knows? It might just work.
Station F is not some governmenthatched
development plan but rather the private
COLOPHON
for mere mortals, money would be enough. gamble of a selfmade tech billionaire, and
DOPPELGNGERS THAT
But it wasnt for Jobs, who famously plot Niels stated goal is to have it pump out a HELPED GET THIS ISSUE OUT:
ted and finally succeeded in winning back thousand additional startups a year into
the control that Apples early financiers what is one of Europes biggest startup cit Twin shadowcats Walnut and Willow; all
those passingly familiar faces on BART;
took from him. Hardware is tough: Putting ies. Its the ambition of all the people here, Netflixs Ozark (its basically Breaking Bad);
Marjorie (the 70-year-old woman who lives
millions of things in the hands of millions including Tony, as well as our new president inside me) and Monique (the 15-year-old
of people requires large amounts of capital. Macronthe young French president has girl who lives inside me); my great-grand-
father, who had the same haircut as me;
And when someone gives you large amounts met with both Fadell and Nielto help this Dougie Jones, he born of the gold seed,
who made it home to Sonny Jim; my belief
of capital, it often means you lose control. ecosystem become huge. that Brendan Fraser and Billy Zane are the
same person masquerading as two differ-
Elon Musk, who is two years younger than As for Fadells Future Shape, it already ent actors; eating two of the same cup-
Fadell, is the first Silicon Valley hardware includes chunks of some of the more cakes at a wired farewell; Meeko, the dog
that stares at his reflection all day; when
titan in generations to retain control of his promising nonSilicon Valley companies Ilana Glazers Broad City character fell in
love with her lookalike; those pictures of
inventions. Fadell seems to yearn to oversee goingSuperpedestrian in Cambridge, me that my mom just came across at the
his own dominion. This idea that he had to Massachusetts; Modern Meadow in Nut start of my career.

sell his babies is, I sense, what drives him. ley, New Jersey; Convargo in Paris; DICE in wired is a registered trademark of
Advance Magazine Publishers Inc.
Fadell is almost pathologically compelled London; CashShield in Singaporeand to a Copyright 2017 Cond Nast. All rights
reserved. Printed in the USA. Volume 25,
to say whats on his mind, and never in the person their CEOs have described Fadells No. 11. wired (ISSN 10591028) is pub-
lished monthly by Cond Nast, which is a
week I spent shadowing him did he say behindthescenes help as invaluable. Judg division of Advance Magazine Publishers
anything that smacked of selfpity. But by ing by the idolization that Fadell gets from Inc. Editorial office: 520 Third Street, Ste.
305, San Francisco, CA 94107-1815. Princi-
the end of the week, it was clear what this young French coders, Future Shape will pal office: Cond Nast, 1World Trade Cen-
ter, New York, NY 10007. S.I.Newhouse,
third act of his career is about. Hes trying undoubtedly get early access to the start Jr., Chairman Emeritus; Robert A. Sauer-
berg,Jr., President and Chief Executive
to challenge a Silicon Valleycentric sys ups that will emerge from Station F and Officer; David E. Geithner, Chief Finan-
tem that separated him from elsewhere. His rockstar status cial Officer; James M. Norton, Chief Busi-
ness Officer and President of Revenue.
his creations. is probably his main advantage Periodicals postage paid at New York,
NY, and at additional mailing offices. Can-
In France, Fadell has a mini as an investor. Will it be enough ada Post Publications Mail Agreement
No.40644503. Canadian Goods and Ser-
replica of Silicon Valley outside to beat Valley VCs at their own vices Tax Registration No. 123242885
RT0001.
the Future Shape door. Its a game? Well see.
place where he can pick out But in another sense, Fadells POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS (see
DMM 707.4.12.5); NONPOSTAL AND MILI-
younger versions of himself, big bet on Paris has already paid TARY FACILITIES: Send address correc-
tions to wired, PO Box 37706, Boone, IA
give them money, andin a off. Spiritually, hes back home 50037-0662. For subscriptions, address
changes, adjustments, or back issue inqui-
sensewatch all the possible to that Midwestern place where ries: Please write to wired, POBox 37706,
versions of his own life story he was before he was sucked Boone, IA 50037-0662, call (800)
7694733, or email subscriptions@wired.
unfold again and again. My into Silicon Valleys vortex. com. Please give both new and old
addresses as printed on most recent label.
job is to come here and bring He calls his own shots. Hes a First copy of new subscription will be
mailed within eight weeks after receipt of
Silicon Valley here, he says. big fish in a small pond. Hes in order. Address all editorial, business, and
production correspondence to wired
Its that cultural element that control. And this time around, Magazine, 1 World Trade Center, New York,
1 NY 10007. For permissions and reprint
1 people are trying to replicate Silicon Valley comes to him.
requests, please call (212)630 5656 or fax
7
around the world, of taking risks Tony meets more American requests to (212)6305883. Visit us online
at www.wired.com. To subscribe to other
and believing in yourself and tech people in Paris than in the Cond Nast magazines on the web, visit
www.condenet.com. Occasionally, we
changing the world, and theres US, Niel says. Because if you make our subscriber list available to care-
no reason it can only be done in are a big US tech manager, you fully screened companies that offer prod-
ucts and services that we believe would
Silicon Valley. Fadell is the vec come to Paris at least one or two interest our readers. If you do not want to
receive these offers and/or information,
tor, the human tissue culture in times a yearand when they do, please advise us at PO Box 37706, Boone,
IA 50037-0662, or call (800) 769 4733.
a grand cloning experimentas they all call Tony!
wired is not responsible for the return
well as the experimenter, tweak By all means, when you come or loss of, or for damage or any other injury
ing the rules. to Paris, you should definitely to, unsolicited manuscripts, unsolicited
artwork (including, but not limited to, draw-
What I see is a guy trying to look Fadell up. Hes a wild man, a ings, photographs, and transparencies),
or any other unsolicited materials. Those
prove to Silicon Valley that maverick, a bull in a china shop, submitting manuscripts, photographs,
artwork, or other materials for consid-
his way was the right way all and a lot of fun. But take one bit eration should not send originals, unless
alongwith the irony that hes of advice from me: Whatever specifically requested to do so by wired
in writing. Manuscripts, photographs, art-
trying to make that case in a you do, dont let him borrow work, and other materials submitted must
be accompanied by a self-addressed,
hightax country that has, so far, your phone. stamped envelope.
 SIX BY SIX: STORIES BY WIRED READERS
We l c o m e t o t h e W I R E D b a c k p a g e . E a c h m o n t h , w e p u b l i s h a s i x - w o r d s t o r y
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illustrate here. Your next assignment: In six words, write a tale of robot creativity.

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A TALE OF LOVE IN THE DIGITAL AGE:

UPON
MEETING,
NEITHER
ONE
LOOKED
UP.
BY @NOLANDLIKEOCEAN, VIA TWITTER

HONORABLE MENTIONS: SHE STOLE MY HEART AND PASSWORDS. (@VAZQUEZ_AND1, VIA INSTAGRAM) // HE CALLED. APPALLED, SHE TEXTED BACK. (@DIGIUNDERDOG,
VIA TWITTER) // I ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU. (@ANDOCALRISSIANO, VIA INSTAGRAM) // ROMEO, ROMEO, WHEREFORE *OPENS SNAP MAP* (@NATTAHTAT, VIA
INSTAGRAM) // LOST A PHONE, FOUND A LOVER. (HUNAIS HYDER KHAWAJA, VIA FACEBOOK) // SWIPE, TEXT, RECEIPT, UBER, NETFLIX, DELETE. (@SEVRLES, VIA INSTAGRAM)

1 1 8 ANUJ SHRESTHA NOV 2017