In 2010, a small book lit up the world of science fiction, then disappeared. Very few people have even read it.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects told the story of two people raising primitive AIs—think Neopets, except with the temperaments of precocious children—and captured the ongoing debate around artificial intelligence in vividly human terms. The book won a Hugo award for best novella, then, nearly as soon as it came out, ran out of print. Lifecycle became a holy relic for sci-fi readers, with copies surfacing rarely, sometimes for hundreds of dollars. It was nearly impossible to read, at least until now.

Ted Chiang's new book of short stories, Exhalation, is his first collection since 2002. Already a legend in the sci-fi world, Chiang has a visionary knack for turning scientific discoveries and technological innovations into broader diagnoses of the human condition. Best known for “Story of Your Life,” which inspired Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-nominated Arrival, he has a relatively small body of work that trickles out slowly. He holds onto stories until they’re just right. (He once refused a prize nomination because he felt the story had been rushed and didn’t meet its full potential.) And, as Lifecycle can attest, when they do appear, they can vanish just as quickly. In the past 28 years, he’s released 17 short stories and novellas. A third of them have taken home Hugo and Nebula awards, science fiction’s highest honors.

Exhalation collects Chiang’s nine latest stories, which, like “Story of Your Life,” explode our notions of time, language, and free will in ways that will keep you up at night. “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” returns to consider our ethical obligations to AI. “The Great Silence” wonders where we’re going as a species, while “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Fiction” explores how our self-image will change once we can record every second of our lives. Two stories appear for the first time: “Omphalos” suggests that maybe God exists but has placed his attention elsewhere, and “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” explores the ways our behavior would change if we could communicate with alternate version of ourselves. If anything can be said of Chiang, it’s that he likes big, thorny questions.

From a book tour on the west coast, Chiang agreed to swap some emails about his new book and the role technology plays in our lives today. He shared his thoughts on social media, capitalism, and why science fiction may be more urgent now than ever.

GQ: These stories cover a fairly long period of time. The oldest, “What’s Expected of Us,” was first published nearly fifteen years ago. How have your interests evolved over that time? What are the most significant ways you feel our culture’s relationship with technology has changed in that time?

Ted Chiang: I think my interests have remained fairly consistent over time; themes like free will and the relationship between language and thought were visible in my first collection, and they’re visible in Exhalation as well. As for our culture’s relationship with technology, I think the biggest change has been the rise of social media. We’ve essentially given every individual their own television network, and we’re still trying to understand the ramifications of that.

What are those ramifications, or at least the most important ones? Are there any you think people don’t consider enough?

I think the big issue is the lack of editorial oversight, and to what extent that’s a feature or a bug. It seemed like a feature during the Arab Spring uprising, when social media allowed breaking news to be disseminated far more rapidly than traditional media outlets could. But now any neo-Nazi or conspiracy theorist can reach an audience of millions and make a fortune from advertising revenue in doing so, and the social-media platforms just shrug. I don’t want to romanticize the days when there were only three broadcast television networks, but at least it was harder to get hate speech on the air. We’ve created technology that gives everyone a megawatt transmitter without giving them a standards and practices department.