Among the A.I. Doomsayers

She was spending the afternoon preparing dinner for six: a yogurt-and-cucumber salad, Impossible beef gyros. On one corner of a whiteboard, she had split her pre-party tasks into painstakingly small steps (“Chop salad,” “Mix salad,” “Mold meat,” “Cook meat”); on other parts of the whiteboard, she’d written more gnomic prompts (“Food area,” “Objects,” “Substances”). Her friend, a cryptographer at Android named Paul Crowley, wore a black T-shirt and black jeans, and had dyed black hair. I asked how they knew each other, and he responded, “Oh, we’ve crossed paths for years, as part of the scene.”