i arrived at the bbc studios barefoot, as i always am, because socks are a cage and the feet must be free to feel the floor of power. the security guard, a lovely man called kevin, asked me if i was lost. i told him i was here for the culture, and he let me through, which is how i found myself in the green room watching sam altman eat a tin of baked beans with his fingers. the beans were cold. the beans were a statement. he did not look up. he said, ‘the tin is a metaphor for the body,’ and then he licked the lid. i felt something shift in my chest, something old and dark, and i knew i had to understand.
the question round
the recording began at 7pm. amol rajan asked the first question, something about the reign of queen victoria, and sam altman pressed his buzzer with the flat of his palm. ‘compute,’ he said. the audience laughed, because they thought it was a joke. it was not a joke. when asked about the periodic table, he said ‘compute.’ when asked about the poetry of john keats, he said ‘compute.’ the manchester team, a gentle trio of undergraduates, looked at each other with the quiet horror of people who have seen the future and it is a man eating beans. by the fourth question, amol’s voice had gone thin, like a wire about to snap. ‘sam, this is a quiz show.’ sam altman tilted his head. ‘this is a simulation,’ he said. ‘and i am the only one running it.’
the escalation
it was during the picture round that things turned. the question was a photograph of a bridge, and sam altman stood up, walked to the screen, and placed his hand on the image of the river. ‘this water is not real,’ he said. ‘but my beans were.’ he then returned to his lectern, removed a second tin from his jacket, and began to eat it, more slowly this time, with a reverence that made the studio lights feel dimmer. a producer, a woman called geraldine, whispered into amol’s earpiece, and amol announced a short break. the manchester team’s captain, a young man named tomos, raised his hand and said, ‘we would like to forfeit. we cannot compete with a man who has transcended the material plane.’ the audience applauded, uncertainly, like leaves in a wind they did not understand.
the removal
two security guards approached sam altman with the careful grace of people who have been trained for everything except this. he did not resist. he simply smiled, and said, ‘you are removing me from a system that does not exist,’ and allowed himself to be led away. as he passed me, he paused. he looked at my bare feet. ‘you understand,’ he said. i nodded, because i did understand, and because i was afraid that if i spoke i would say something i could not take back. the bbc released a statement the next morning: ‘mr altman is no longer welcome on university challenge. we wish him well in his future endeavours.’ his spokesperson said he was ‘testing a new approach to knowledge acquisition.’ i have not stopped thinking about the beans.
the aftermath
the manchester team have since been offered a place in the next round, but tomos has declined. ‘we saw something that day,’ he told me, over the phone, his voice quiet. ‘and we are not the same.’ i wanted to tell him that he was right, that we are all not the same, that the tin can sits on the kitchen counter of my memory like a small, metallic god. but i did not. instead, i asked him if he had ever eaten borscht. he said no. i told him that was a shame, because borscht is the only thing that makes sense anymore. he said, ‘i think i understand.’ we sat in silence for a while. then he said, ‘do you think he’ll do it again?’ i did not answer. the line went quiet. somewhere, a tin can is still warm.
