Andrews-Wilson, authors of FOUR MINUTES

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (00:00.526)

Hello and welcome to the Thriller Zone. I'm your host David Temple and I'm so glad you have joined me. Couple of quick things before we start the show. If you would please. Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel yet? Let me tell you where it is. YouTube .com slash the Thriller Zone. Yeah, easy peasy. Have you seen our brand new website? It's delicious. TheThrillerZone .com.

And of course you can follow us on all social channels like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, The Thriller Zone. Also, if you ever want to drop us an email, you just want to check in and say hello, you can do that at thethrillerzoneatgmail .com. Guess who's on the show today? Brian Andrews, Jeff Wilson is Andrews Wilson. And they've got a new book on their hands called Four Minutes. Oh, it is sizzling. It's hot. All right. So without any further ado, let's get on into the Thriller Zone.

Great to see you. It's been too long. Dude, it's entirely entirely too long. Yeah. You look fantastic as always. Oh, no, I'm going to say the same to you. You got the rock and the goatee, dude. I love it. Yeah, it had grown down to about here. And my wife turns me one day and she goes, you know, I kind of dig some of that. But that.

No, this didn't really get that long. Yeah. I headed down to like, I had a great big puppy. You can put like a little rubber band out of it. You need more shelf space behind you, bro. I get so much stuff going on. Look at this thing that I got.

Oh, is that what I think it is? Yeah. Wow. That's like authentic 1980s vintage lambswool, like Russian submarine officers cat. Dude, please. I'm begging you. Start the show wearing that. It doesn't fit on my head. It doesn't matter. Take this for like a little kid's head. Take the ball cap off. Let me just see it. I mean, like this.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (02:11.63)
Dude, that is... I can't make it fit. Oh, that is so good. Yeah, there you go. Oh, that's so good. Holy shit, that's great. Yeah. Oh. Oh, yeah. So good. Only we could find a way. Sort of maybe.

Now that is the best you just made my whole week. Maybe I should wear it. Maybe I should do this. Please, please. I'm begging you. Oh yeah. All right. We're recording now, but that's only because I never want to miss one little morsel of goodness with you guys.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (03:06.542)
What will he think when he shows up? No, he hasn't seen it. Oh, he hasn't? No. This is even better. I wish I had a hat around that was... Is there any? Oh, wait, I do have something. Hang on.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (03:28.846)
It is nowhere even in the ballpark of cool factor like yours. Well, hold on. I got, I was texting Jeff. Okay. But I have a, a nice little vintage wool cashmere. Uh, I guess you call like a ball, you know, like it's hats. Or if you wanted to go a Samuel L Jackson. Oh yeah. There you go. Which is just kind of.

I'll put on glasses as well. Oh my God. Where is that clown? I like Samuel Jackson. That's good. Yeah, that's good. It's congle. I'm looking at your output and I'm going to bring this up in the show. By the way, I got very few notes because I just, I just want to hang in the juicy space that you are, but, um, you guys are slamming it. Yeah. I mean, we've got a lot, a lot in the pipeline right now. Yeah. Well,

I'm very excited for you. But you got, you got to do it. You know, when, when the opportunity presents itself, you can't say no. 100%. If you don't, I mean, what's the old saying? You got to make hay while the sun shines. There you go. This is the unveiling. Right. That one. Officers, whatever they are. Yeah. I have a, um, naval officers, a Russian Navy officer's watch that I got years ago.

that my son now wears. He wears a smeeded. But more importantly, do you have any kind of hat other than ANW that's just out of the ordinary? It's out of the ordinary.

You know, like that jester hat that you like to wear those little things. Yeah. Let me see what I can. Yeah. I mean, since we're. Futson around.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (05:30.574)
Dude, this has made my week. Woohoo! Yeah. Even with all this hassle, it has made my freaking week. I have a too small child's pirate hat. Okay. There you go. I like it.

Oh, that is, there you go. Oh, so good. Now we're going to keep these on for the whole show. I mean, this is hat day. I'm not going to have any blood flow to the top of my head by the time we're done. That's all right. That's okay. Make it overrated. Look, by the way, uh, Jeff, his hat doesn't even fit. No, cause this guy had a small head and I have a very big head.

It would probably fit me perfectly. I have a very small head. You can go. Obviously, because I'm wearing a six year old hat right now.

Thank God head size has nothing to do with brain power. I'm living proof of that as are you with your big head. Well, welcome back for a return visit to the Thriller zone. And let me count real quickly. I think this is four. Maybe we have the record. Uh, you are tied with the record with Mark granny.

So just real quickly, real quickly explain to me because people are joining us and we're having all kinds of fun with this. Brian, what is the significance of that hat? This is an authentic Russian submarine officer's wool cap. They have a certain name that slips my mind, a Russian name, of course.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (07:17.166)
And my wife bought me this as a fun thing for the launch of active defiance. So you guys are the first people to get to see it. And now it will go on the shelf behind me. Uh, if I'm not wearing it, I might just wear it to everything we do. And if I may say so, it's a smashing accoutrement to your visage. Yeah. Yes. All right. Jeff is up now. We've got the pirate over here. Yeah.

Jeff, how about you? What is the, and just make it up if you have to. Yeah, there's no significant reason. My hat, I was wearing the, my Andrews and Wilson hat when we started. And then I had my USS Indiana hat, but you guys thought I had to wear something weird. So I went and got my eight year olds pirate hat. So.

I want what you guys created. That's where I am. Well, welcome back you internationally bestselling duo. Good to be here. Good to be here. I don't even have to do that in air quotes because this, this, this shit's legit as they say, uh, four minutes right here. I have so much to say about that juicy little read. We're going to get to it in just a minute and, uh,

Got to have so many things to say. Let's cruise. How are we on time? Are we, we got any pressing issues? Oh, you know, just the five novels we have to write this year other than that. So please be relaxed and take all the time you want. All right. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to heart out in less than 30. How about that? We're David. I'm Joe. We're here for you, brother. Okay. You're one of the few that we will make time for no matter what.

You're so sweet. You probably say that to all the girls. Well, before we jump into four minutes, I do want to do this because we have a nice long history. You guys were kind enough to join me when I was just first launching this puppy. We're now into a season six coming up on year three, almost 200 episodes. So you've had a huge part in that. Well, we're glad to have been a part of it. You're a good dude. We knew you before the podcast. We get to say that. Thank you.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (09:32.526)
I'll insert some applause later. I do want to do, I do want to play, I want to play a catch up because the last time we saw each other was, well, now you were on the show last in February. So a year ago and we squeezed in Thriller Fest in between there, didn't we? Yeah, we had breakfast, right? Didn't we have breakfast? Yeah. Okay. Good. With your lovely wives. Does it feel like it's been a year already?

No, it's time warp. It's the era of time warps. It feels like, I mean, we're heading to Thriller Fest again here in a month or two. And time warp actually plays a part in four minutes. See what he did there? You know what? They're not paying you enough. Let's do a real quick countdown. Cause I was doing this as I was, as Brian and I were chatting, uh, tier one. So we got tier one, including Ember coming out this winter. Don't want to jump ahead of myself, but you know, you guys are coming out in July.

Ember is July? Yeah, I think. I'm not going to lie to you. You might know better than we do. It's possible I'm wrong. Well, active defiance is coming out summer, right? Active defiance comes out in May. Okay. All right. Well, maybe my... Wait. Oh, okay. See, now you're going to make me do this here because I do my homework. So I have to do tier one. We didn't mean to mess you up. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I don't want to distract.

So tier one, Sons of Valor, Shepherd series, Tom Clancy series. That's where Active Defiance is coming out right in the summer. Yeah. And Webb Griffin, presidential agent series. So what Brian and I were talking about before you showed up, Jeff, is that just how busy you cats are. I mean, what you're doing in 365 days trumps what most people do in the three times that. So tell me about that. What's that feel like?

It feels like a collision course with divorce as well. So we love everything we're writing. So this is not us complaining. We know that it is such a blessing and that these are good problems to have. But I will say that my family wasn't that thrilled that they had spring break last week and I worked every day, including Saturday and Sunday. Brian, I think your family were like, you're working? They went to the lake.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (11:58.606)
without me, so I was here by myself, which allowed me to get a lot of pages written, but I did, I did feel very. Yeah. Um, so I mean, that is, that's all honesty. That's part of it is it is a little overwhelming. We're getting into a season where it's going to get a little bit better, um, over the next year or two. Um, but it's, it's so it's partly that, and this is the stress. It's one of those, be careful what you pray for things, but then.

What an honor to have, like the only way around it would have been to say no to Tom Clancy who like who, who does white. You can't do that. Right. No. So we could have decompressed it if when, uh, when Tom Colgan reached out to us with this amazing offer, um, we could have, we could have passed, I guess that would have made our lives a little simpler. Uh, and I'm going to be honest, one of us may even have said that's what we should do. Um, and then the other one was a submarine officer and said, wait a minute.

This falls on the 40th anniversary of the hunt for the red October. Put your big boy pants on Jeff. We're getting to work. That's what he said. That's a quote. I got to get one of those. I look for one on V deck, not find a klaxon. And I feel like having like a sound effect, you know, like on my computer is not authentic. And I can't mute him. Right. Only you can. Is that I'm trying.

David, if you ever find one, we couldn't say no to it. And, and, and I think Jeff is happy that we didn't because I'm very happy. Yes. Because are this is, you know, um, we were both reading Clancy when we were naval officers. I mean, I, I read hunt for an October when I was on a submarine chasing around Russians. You know, I'm reading about crazy Ivans and maybe watching crazy Ivans for real. So, I mean, that's pretty cool to think that now, if you told me, you know, back then that I would be writing the Clancy book with Jeff.

First of all, I'd say, who is Jeff? And then the second thing I'd say is no way, that's impossible. So it is a little crazy. And it is amazing. In fairness, in my defense, when I did contemplate us maybe saying no, I did not know that our book was gonna fall on the 40th anniversary of Hunt. If I had known that, it would have been a no -brainer. And once we did know that, when Kogan said, well, you know, just so you know.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (14:17.582)
Uh, that was the end of it. And it would be remiss if we did not give a shout out to, uh, Blackstone because it did present an enormous logistical challenge. And so, you know, we have a very Blackstone publishing our main publisher. They're like family and we approached them like family dad. So we, uh, we got in touch with dad, with Josh Stanton, the CEO over there and explained the situation. He was.

So amazing, so amazing. He was like, if you guys want to do this, we'll shift stuff around. We can change production schedules. You're a writer. You know what a lift that is for a company to do that. So they have been fantastic. So in addition to a huge thank you to Tom for the opportunity, huge thank you to Josh and to our whole team, our whole family at Blackstone for supporting it. All right. So real quick.

A golf clap for Blackstone. All three of us right now. This is for you, Blackstone publishing. Yes. And, and a blowing a kiss to Tom Colgan, our sweetheart. Really? Come on. Thank you. Just a salute with a salute from you. Are you that insecure? It's like the dating. Was it the dating game where they went?

I just know that Tom Colgan would get a kick out of that. So anyway, kudos to all the cats involved because you guys, I mean, 40th anniversary, Clancy and historical. I mean, you're going down in history, guys. That's the way I look at it. You're going down in history. Yeah, I like it. It feels that way. And I will say that the other thank you is the United States Navy because you say going down in history.

This does feel like a journey back in time because the clans, as everyone knows, Clancy never served, right? He was never in the military. He had wanted to be, but couldn't because of his vision. And, um, so he relied very heavily on engaging, uh, military people and the, and the military at large, and they supported him. They gave them the love, they gave them access. Um, and so in that way, we are sort of doing a little time travel here because we reached out to the Navy when we got this opportunity and said, Hey, we're going to write this book. It's going to be on the 40th.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (16:31.054)
And man, they honed it up, Dave. They gave us unlimited access. This is the USS Indiana. We got to go out to sea aboard fast attack submarine. We got to tour the blackfish. We got to do a cod flight out to the Ford who was underway in the Atlantic. And Brian got his first carrier trap. We spent two days aboard that ship with the newest aircraft carrier. Amazing experience.

Got to meet the crew and the, and the skipper, the XO, we met all of the officers and crew. We got to fly F -18 simulators with the instructor pilots from VFA 106. So first of all, that sounds like a kid's dream, but it informed this book so much. It allowed us to do what Clancy always did so well, which was really honor the men and the women, the technology.

the things that are out there on the, on the pointy tip of the spear. We were able to reflect that in this novel in a way we couldn't have done without the Navy. And we can't shout out the names of the people because they're all still active duty and underway, but they know who they are and God bless them for all the work they did. They were reviewing manuscript and checking facts and they were incredible, man. It was really awesome. Wow. Wow. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. I saw a bunch of social media from you guys was.

Uh, and you were on board was the social media blurbs. It wasn't that long ago. Part of this research, right? Okay. Yeah. Went to, uh, we've made several trips to Norfolk and, um, the last one. So we, we did post pictures when you're on the Ford and you can't post the pictures from, from the submarines, but on the Ford we did. And then we went to the USS Porter. Um, which was really, it's a, it's an Arleigh Burke class destroyer.

and they welcomed us aboard. They're in port, welcomed us aboard. We toured, spent a lot of time with their combat systems officer, the CSO. And they gave us access to combat and bridge and got to tour the entire boat. And so it's fantastic because we're going to heavily feature the Arleigh Burke class DDG in the next Tom Clancy book. So again, you know, submarines and active defiance, and then we'll be dealing with...

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (18:50.862)
the surface Navy and highlighting their incredible capabilities in the next clan. And you know what else it did, Dave, in addition to getting to see the platforms and the technology, we really got to meet these people and you know, old guys like us were like back in the day, right? You know what I mean? And, and there is, there is a little element of that. You're like, you know, I don't know, is it, is this generation up to the task? We do that. And I'm embarrassed that I ever had those thoughts because we met young men and women on.

all these platforms that are as dedicated, as committed, as hardworking, as patriotic, as passionate as anything that you've ever experienced in the military. So we are in good hands, I can tell you that. And it allowed us to reflect those relationships, the characters in our books are definitely amalgams of some men and women that we met during these tours. It was a really incredible experience.

It's the perfect amalgamation of your past, your skill sets, your knowledge base, your access that makes your books so real and so true to life. I mean, that's why we read your books. It's amazing. Well, thank you. We'll be right back.

Hey everybody, this is Brian Andrews. And Jeff Wilson. Together we're Andrews and Wilson. And we're hanging out with Dave Temple on The Thriller Zone. And now back to the show. We need to get back to four minutes because we only have five left. But...

Let's go ahead and just jump into this because there are folks who are going, oh, come on. I know, but I'm reading four minutes or it's coming rather. Let's talk about special ops chief, uh, Tyler Brooks, great character by the way, and his team of task force Omega. Now we can, we can start, let's start with the techno part of techno thriller. Cause this feels like a wee bit of a departure, uh, for you guys. So let's start there. If you want to elevator pitch it, if you just want to tell me, you know, talk about Tyler and.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (20:54.51)
And his crew jump in, maybe even a step back from that, like where it comes from, right? Like the idea, because this is it's, it's a departure, but it's not right. Because what we write about is very character driven, special operations, covert operations stuff. Right. But there's always that idea of, you know, what's that one by element, a one by element that you can do a little speculative stuff on. Um, we did that in sandbox with artificial intelligence, um, here.

this idea of what is it that makes missions fail? What is it that makes it so that things don't unravel the way you want them to? And the answer is the intelligence, right? Not your intelligence, but the intelligence streams, the data. And what if you had an opportunity to get a little peak just into the future of what's going to happen? What might that inform what a special operations team could do, right? If you had that crystal ball.

This is where the bad guys are going to be, and this is what they're going to do. Wouldn't that be a game changer? And so this book was sort of, sort of grew out of that talks from writing the other books about that frustration of not knowing, you know, really for sure, where's the certainty. And so we did a little dive. I'll let Brian talk about the, the science dive that we did on time and time travel and how this technology could potentially work. Um,

and what the limitations would be. So what we didn't want to do is do time travel. We didn't want to do the DeLorean and back to the West, right? We wanted to have real rules that make it a challenge. And then we wanted to be able to show how every technology has an upside and a downside. So, Brian, I'll let you do the hard part. I see you looking at, yeah, oh yeah, save that for me. Stay tuned for Professor Quantum Mechanics. Billions and billions of years ago. Okay, go ahead.

Yes, I am a nuclear engineer. They couldn't let me do the summary until I became a nuclear engineer.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (22:57.198)
You know, I mean, I think that Jeff described it correctly that we very much are interested in exploring this idea of the intersection of the human condition and technology. And so, especially now, there's so much rapid development of technology. And so when we thought about time travel, we always try to imagine, you know, what would it be really like instead of sort of the kitschy like Hollywood, like he said, the DeLorean, you know, type of thing, or any of the other time travel movies, we tried to imagine, well, you know, let's see.

how would this probably happen? So in the four minutes universe, we sort of contemplated is that DARPA was what they were really working on is a modular fusion reactor. They were working on Tocamak. And this technology is in the news because fusion reactors would be like sort of the panacea of energy generation. You'd have unlimited energy and it doesn't produce nuclear waste like our conventional fission nuclear power plants do. So there'd be...

great interest in these small modular reactors, you could put them from base to base and they'd be completely self -sustaining. And so what happened is they're working on that. And when they turn on this reactor and they make this giant magnetic field, they end up sending somebody accidentally to the future. And when he comes back, you know, he's like, I think I was just in the future. And so the minute they realize they have this technology, you know, then they first say, well, oh, well,

you know, if we could go into the future, even just a short time in the future, imagine that like imagine 911, you know, when we think about 911, a lot of times people say, well, all the signs were there. If we only just been able to put them together. Well, imagine if you went into the future and you actually saw the tower fall, there's no, there's no missing that. So that this is this is our approach is intelligence collection is imperfect. And now you think you have this technology where you are going to have this.

asymmetric advantage over your competition. You get a leg up because you can actually see in your crystal ball what's going to happen. Of course, in a typical Anderson Wilson book, you know, there's always a cost and there's always unintended consequences and things never work out like, like you think. So that's the fun part of four minutes in the plot. Well, there's two movies that I thought about when I was reading this book.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (25:16.142)
And I hope this is a compliment because it borrows on a couple of different theories. First of all, there's a great element of minority report that Tom Cruise movie back 22 years ago, by the way, where they had that ability that the pre pre cog pre cogs. So there's a little bit of that. And then I thought about inception and that kind of a thing. And then I thought about, you know, time bending in the quantum mechanics, which I'm

fascinated by. And then it begs the question as you're reading it, you're, you know, that you're sitting there going, all right, can you actually do that? I mean, there's a little bit of that, that you kind of think you can do. Yeah. Well, we tried to, we tried, we just spent a lot of time looking at, uh, a lot of stuff that's been written on, on time, the nature of time, uh, and how it applies to potential of time travel. There's certainly nothing in the near horizon that,

suggest that there's gonna be time travel. But if there was, we imagine it would be something like this. It would be very exciting to realize you could go and then you realize that there's an enormous number of restrictions on how it works. You can only go in our universe that we created. They can only go up to 28 days, I think we used into the future. But the worst part is because of the energy requirements, they can only stay for four minutes. Once this magnetic field that's being created,

uh, becomes unstable, which they can maintain for about four minutes. You get sucked right back to the press. So is it really that, so imagine you get told, you get to be the first time traveler and you do it and you're like, that's it. Like I was here for like, seriously, 140 seconds in a room. Like this is not sexy at all. This is awful. And, you know, my only job is to cram as much information in my head so I can come back. Like, and so that's where Tyler Brooks is our.

our Navy SEAL who's so excited by, hey, nothing bad is going to happen to my team again, because I'm going to know what's going on. And he realizes I couldn't have less accurate information than only having 240 seconds to absorb everything that's going on in the universe. And so we wanted to ground it that way so that we could focus on the characters and focus on, you know, the threat and make it exciting and suspenseful. So when they first jumped, he's told, remember that he's told you're going to jump to this room.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (27:42.766)
And then we're going to have a lot of information. You just try to memorize as much as you can and bring it back to the present. That's Mike. That's what we do here. Yes. You jump, you memorize, you come back. He's like, that's not what I want to do. I'm a, I'm a senior chief. Yeah. I thought I was going to go in there and cap the bad guys. Like, no, no, no, no, no. You come back here, look where you're out there. Something there. It just resets when you come back. And that was interesting to think about that. Right. Cause.

If you think about time flowing like a river, right? So like you're on a riverboat, you're standing on the riverboat and you're just moving with time with the current, you know, if you throw a rock up into the front of the, you know, off the bow, you're eventually going to catch up to that point. But you know, anything that you did in the, if you, if you jump off the front of that boat, you splash around and you come back onto the riverboat by the time you get to that point, you know, all those ripples are gone. Everything is undone. So.

You're, you're looking into the future, but you can't really affect anything in the future. And that's sort of a rub, right? So anything they do, they got to do it in the present. And then they go back to the future to check and see did the thing that we did work or did it not work? So it's this constant leapfrogging back and forth. Did it work? Did it not? Did it work? Did it not?

While I'm referencing movies, here's the other one that popped into my head and I meant to say this and that is interstellar because they're talking about bending time and you know, you go out this way, but you're actually in there. I remember that they had a piece of paper and they punched the, uh, the pen through the paper and I'm like, is that really doable? And I think a lot of that is our brains are just too much or my brain's too much oatmeal up there to really be able to put that together.

So there's a difference between the theory and the technology, right? The math of, if you look at math from a quantum mechanics or from a physics standpoint, mathematically, everything that we pose in this book is plausible. Okay. Technologically, it's literally impossible. Right? So, so there's that intersection of theory and, and fact, does that mean it'll always be impossible? Well, I don't know. I can't, I'm not smart enough to imagine a technology.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (29:58.574)
They can overcome the hurdles to allow that to happen, um, or to allow you to survive it if you could. But from a math standpoint, the idea of time travel is plausible.

It's kind of like Brian's hat. It's like, it's concrete. It's it is concrete in and of itself, but it's not really doable. It's not doable. It doesn't work. It's been 45 minutes and I'm still laughing. Okay. Uh,

Here's another question as I was beginning to wrap the book. I went, I wonder if these guys are, if they see themselves drifting over into the space cowboy lanes. We have always been space cowboys, David.

We own that lane. Okay. I think what we, we don't want to be boxed in, in the sense that, you know, uh, we don't only want to be known as the guys that can write one type of book. I think that we're too intellectually curious. There's so many other interesting topics that I think that that would become, um, maybe frustrating for us or at least potentially stale. So I think, you know, like we said, we're interested in how technology affects people and the human condition. We're interested about how.

unintended consequences happen because once you've served in the military, you realize that every single piece of technology the Navy gives you, it never exactly works like you think it's going to. It always has unintended consequences. And then the other interesting thing is, you know, the operators typically adapt it to use it in an unforeseen way, you know, in a different way than maybe it was originally anticipated. So we love this idea, especially because technology is advancing so fast.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (31:48.558)
The stuff that seemed like science fiction two, three years ago is reality now. And they have a machine that can write a book. Yeah. Chat GPT was the stuff of fiction three years ago. So for us, the types of things that we're speculating on happening in the near future, it's not space cowboy lane. It really is plausible. Okay.

Well, there's, I'm now at a cognitive dissonance because I really want to jump on two different topics at once. One is, uh, Jeff changed his hat. So he went to Sony pictures, which may be triggered my thought to, we got to talk about what's going on media wise outside of the books, but I'm going to come back because you just gave me the perfect tea up Brian for AI. So let's spend, um, uh, 35 seconds of our remaining four minutes on AI.

because you were talking about this back in Sandbox a lot. I saw you on social media and in the press. So let's talk about AI in both, how do I want to say it, in both writing and warfare, because there's the people going, oh my goodness, AI is going to take the books and you know, and I'm like, whatever. And then the AI in warfare, you can talk amongst yourselves and pick the first one you want to talk about. I mean, I think that,

the way to approach it is to make a general statement about our take on AI. And that is that like any tool, it's a valuable tool that can improve the human condition if we're in charge of the tool and not the other way around. Brian made a great analogy on an interview recently where he said like, when they invented the nuclear bomb, nobody said, you know, why don't we let the nuclear bomb decide when it blows up? Right? Like that's the risk of AI is here's a technology that can make decisions.

But we are insanely aware of the potential benefits. You know, I use the medical example all the time as a former vascular surgeon, the idea that you could be in the operating room and have in an earbud, the world's literature on the problem that you're focused on is rhythmically improve the quality of healthcare and the, and what you can do when you encounter something unforeseen in the operating room. The cure for cancer is likely to be discovered by a.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (34:03.726)
relationship between artificial intelligence and human researchers. The battlefield you brought up, that's a great example. We can make decisions. They should still be human decisions, but it can be based on data that AI can help collate. For example, there are some projects in the active duty military and the DoD world right now that the only thing the AI is really doing is

collecting this enormous unmanageable amount of information and condensing it using AI algorithms into something consumable so that you get only what you need to make a good human decision. So there's a lot of really good things that can come out of artificial intelligence. And then, you know, you're talking about them writing books. Do we want that? I don't, but I think that's for people to decide. You want a book that was written about your condition by someone who shares it?

You want something about the human condition written by a human or an artificial version of that. I think most people would choose the human generated content. But so I think there's good and bad, but you just have to decide as a species, not individually, where you want AI to fall into our universe. Jeff, I wish you'd given this some thought because you just really haven't pulled.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (35:23.502)
Brian, go ahead and jump in here, because I know you got two cents burning a hole in your pocket. Yeah, I would love it for us to be able to decide on the species. Unfortunately, I think our collective intelligence, we've proven that our collective intelligence is pretty low. So when it comes to making decisions that, you know, affect everyone on the planet, I think that's an area where human beings struggle. And it makes sense because, you know, we organize ourselves into local tribes and...

communities and then countries and everybody has resources. And so we're always sort of thinking about the competitive edge. And so I think this is where, you know, you're starting to see, I think the EU just last week started some legislation to protect creatives against losing their livelihoods and professions from AI. Whether the United States will follow suit or not, I don't know. We have a very strong influence of big tech on our politics.

And so Big Tech is invested in this technology and I don't think they want to see it limited in any way. But, you know, part of me as a creative, I think about, you know, I get a lot of myself worth and sense of purpose from being a storyteller. And if somebody were to take that away from me and I was not able to compete with AI that can turn on a book in five minutes or 10 minutes or turn out a hundred books in a week, you know, and I can't compete anymore at that speed.

You know, what, what am I left to do? You know, am I, am I just supposed to be a consumer that doesn't add any value to our culture or generate anything myself? So I'm wrestling with this question personally. I don't, I don't have an answer for it, but I think that a lot of people are wrestling with it. And that's, that's sort of the angst that you're starting to see in the, in the national discourse. Well, I was talking to Mark Graney just inside the last two weeks and we were talking about this at length and he said, look, yeah, somebody somewhere.

fed all of his books into an algorithm and said, write me a book like this. And he said, it got pretty close. And he goes, and he always has such a good attitude, doesn't he, about everything. He's just like, hey, okay, so let that happen, whatever. I'm going to write what I want. The people who want to read what I write, they're gonna be there. So maybe that's a little Pollyanna. Maybe that's just a healthy way to do it. Because to your point, Ryan, you can get wigged out, flipped out, wigged and stressed by going,

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (37:49.806)
What if this happens? However, at the end of the day, and I was saying this to someone recently, it's kind of like this. You can tell the difference between a handmade suit or handmade shoes, right? Or a handmade shirt. And I use this just because I'm a, I like wardrobe then made by a machine. So you're going to have the choice and you're going to pick one or the other. And I like that attitude, David, because then we become the Gucci of storytelling, right? Our books are $400 a pop.

We are bespoke. Especially with that hat. Once again, yes. The head shake with the hat. Yeah. All of them home, baby. It doesn't even fall off. It's on so tight. She's giving me a headache. I see the circulation starting to bulge your eyes just a little bit. Oh yeah. All right. Well.

Uh, I know we've, I told you we'd be out in time. So, uh, we, again, the book is four minutes. It's a riveting read. I loved every bit of it. You guys always, once again, the future is only half the battle. I love that little byline. You guys just continue to put it out and, and I know you're stacked. And as you said earlier, Jeff, it was perfect. You said, you know, yeah, are we wigged out, but so grateful. And that's the thing I like about you guys. You're always operating at a gratitude and you.

You know the gifts you've been given and I so admire that about you too. Thank you, David. I appreciate that. Because we didn't touch on the Sony, let's go ahead real quick as we start to wrap. Besides books, there's some TV stuff. Talk to me. Give me the skinny. We got a lot going on. We now have, is it 13 or 14, Brian? Yes. It's either 13 or 14 projects in development. Oh no, it depends on what other people do. Yeah.

Right but you know Hollywood so you know we'll see what we'll see what all that means but we've got stuff from things that are already scripted and in pre all the way down to things that have just been optioned we've got about 14 things um i think probably three or four of them are features the rest are tv is that right is that's how right brian i don't know i have to look at it but um tier one for example has been optioned we're super excited about that um we've got some others that are are in the works so the

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (40:11.918)
The best thing is you go to a website. We've got it. We've got a media page now. You lists everything that we have, but that is an exciting, an exciting thrill ride to do that. Cool. What'd you say, Brian? I just said four minutes is being developed. Four minutes is in development right now for, um, either TV or film, um, has already, has already been optioned. And, um, we're, you know, some of the projects were actually, uh, we're all, we're executive producers on everything that we're doing.

All 14, but we've got a couple that were also the screenwriters. So that's fun, um, to get involved in that side of the business. So we've got a project with Walden that we're writing. So yeah, we're, it's one more thing that we have to do instead of play with our kids. Well, there'll be time. There'll be time. Um, I want to say this. There is, um, we were talking about if AI takes over something and there's one thing I know having done two.

No, three tours of duty in Hollywood is that people like working with people that they like. That's the follow me here. Can you spit out a script by AI? Sure. Can you build all those mechanics in and have it done willy -nilly and one after the other? Yeah, sure. However, like you guys are going to be the prime example, good people like to work with good people. And knowing that you created

the collateral yourself and we get to work. I'm using me as though I'm Hollywood get to work with you is really kind of part of the blessing and the juice. Yeah. And you know, you know, well that, uh, screenwriting is different than writing a novel. We work and work and work and work and we get a novel and it goes out there. A screenplay is done in post, right? Like when post is done, the screenplay is done.

Uh, everything. And so the human interaction that goes in between a producer and a director and the talent having their own take on things, uh, as well as the writers being involved from beginning to end, it's a, such a dynamic kinetic living thing that AI can't do that. Right. Right. AI can't go, ah, you know what, because we got so -and -so actor doing it. It's, it's playing a little different. Let's rewrite this part. Let's redo this part. Let's change how we.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (42:38.606)
approach this scene or this set piece. It's a very living, breathing, kinetic thing, unlike writing a novel. And so I feel like on the screen side, there's that protection. In addition to the WGA and SAG -AFTRA had a lot to say about this over the last year, obviously. But in addition to just legal protections, I think there is in its nature, producing film and television is a human experience.

that is very, very difficult to replicate by machine. Yeah. And I think two of the key words that popped into my head as you were explaining that so eloquently is organic and nuanced. There's a sense of organic that comes out of only the humans can really do it and the nuanced. Sure, can you have that script written and involve pathos? Maybe, but it's our sensibilities and our humanity that makes the nuance work. I agree. I agree.

And we'll see you at the Dave Temple Baptist Church on Sunday as I preach about the nuance of it. Um, all right. So folks, if you want to know more Andrews hyphen Wilson .com, the course is a place to go. And as Jeff and both Brian mentioned earlier, you can find out all about the books and what's happening, but this has been so fantastic and needs to happen a little more often. Oh, well, if we're tied for first place with Mark, we got to beat Mark, right? We got to be Mark.

We'll wear a different silly hat the next time. Whatever it takes. Yeah. He's not bringing his silly hats. I bet. Yeah. Please sign up for our newsletter if you don't mind because we don't send them very often, but it does keep you up to date on our new releases and just cool industry news and stuff like that. So we won't, we won't spam you and we won't trade your information, but it is the best way. So like David said, go to our website, andrews -wilson .com and sign up for our newsletter. It's free and we'll keep you in the loop.

Sweet. Well guys, I doubt that I know because you're busy and now I'm guessing I'm moving. If the family is being moved down the list and I'm certainly going to be moved down the list as far as priority. So, can I get on your calendar for 2025 everybody? Of course. Anytime you get on our calendar next week, Dave, that's how that's going to be. Are you going to be in New York? Maybe we'll see you in New York. And that could happen. And if not, we'll be in Nashville in the fall for about.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (45:05.134)
Now that one, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be there, yeah. Guys, once again, thank you so much for the gift of your time and your prolific talent. Thank you so much for having us. We'll all be praying that Brian can get the house.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (45:21.07)
Thanks once again to my good friends, Brian and Jeff, AKA Anderson Wilson. The book, as you know, four minutes, so good, so good. As always, these guys are just cranking it. Before we go, wanna do just a couple of quick things, if you would. You can join us on any podcast channel, Apple, Spotify, you name it, we're there. And finally, thank you to our sponsors, Blackstone Publishing, for supporting the show. And...

a potentially new sponsor called Coffee Coffee, based here in lovely, groovy Encinitas. They serve up delicious coffee and accoutrement, snacks if you will. So if you're ever in the neighborhood, check it out. All right, next week's guest is a surprise. I'm gonna leave you to hang on the edge for that. Until then, I'm Dave Templier, your host, and I'll see you next time for another edition of The Thriller Zone.

The Thriller Zone with David Temple (46:20.078)
The Thriller Zone!