Alessandro Baricco is one of Italy’s most versatile contemporary writers and public intellectuals. His new book, The Game (McSweeney’s, 2020, translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford) is a journey that maps out the transformations that the digital revolution has wrought upon the landscape of human experience Brian Christian is the author of three acclaimed books on the intersection of humanity and technology, including, most recently, The Alignment Problem. The interview begins in utterly 21st-century fashion. I send a Zoom link but somehow end up in a different Zoom room from Alessandro, each of us patiently waiting for the other to arrive. Zoom sends me a notification that Alessandro has arrived in a different meeting room, but it goes to my personal rather than my McSweeney’s inbox and I don’t see it. I email Alessandro’s assistant and get a WhatsApp message on my phone in reply. Eventually, Alessandro, his friend and translator Claudio Fogu, and I manage to find each other in the same corner of the digital landscape.