Loaded Save
Save

Matthew walks quickly down the stairwell of the dark Hamilton hospital and re-enters the Neurology wing. Doctors and nurses calm a bit, having found an electrician to reroute solar to critical systems. He re-enters Joanna’s room. She stays on her bed, sipping a paper cup of water.

MATTHEW: Paxton, Bethany, do you need work?

Bethany grabs Paxton’s arm.

BETHANY: He does!

MATTHEW: If programs really did destroy infrastructure, the world is about to turn upside down. If you want, you can stay at Beacon headquarters with this key, it should have power and water reserves for the night.

Matthew hands them the key.

PAXTON: Um... Thanks for the opportunity Mr. Kim.

MATTHEW: You’re welcome.

Tilda leans into the room calmly.

TILDA: Mr. Kim, can I have a word in private?

He steps out into the hospital hall, lit by track lights next to the floor.

TILDA: My daughter is home alone, I can’t stay-

MATTHEW: That’s okay. Can you take the Smiths to Beacon? I’ll watch Joanna.

She nods.

It takes Tilda Foster almost three hours to get home after dropping off the Smiths, getting stuck in traffic, detoured around police barricades, lost twice, and nearly t-boned at a dark traffic light. She pulls into her driveway, and notices candlelight in a downstairs window. She turns the key to open her front door and hears quick footsteps.

AMANDA: Mom!?

TILDA: Baby hi! Are you okay!?

Amanda, fourteen in long sleeves and pajamas, hugs her mom.

AMANDA: I’m fine, what’s going on!? My phone, computer - nothing has data - the police keep telling people to stay inside.

TILDA: It might be a global power outage.

Amanda steps out of the hug.

AMANDA: A what!?

TILDA: It’s fluid-

AMANDA: Mom! You know I hate that word.

TILDA: It’s rapidly evolving, I wish I could tell you more-!

AMANDA: Are we gonna be okay?

Amanda feels the room change as her mom uses “emergency voice”.

TILDA: Yes. Luckily it’s my job to get us out of this mess. But Amanda, we need to plan our days carefully. We can sync calendars at home, but once we’re out of range we can’t communicate.

Amanda doesn’t ask any more questions.

At the break of dawn, Paxton and Bethany wake on a picnic blanket from the car. They groggily wander the empty Beacon halls and find a locker room to shower and get back into yesterday’s musty clothes. They remember this feeling from pandemic lockdowns.

Matthew Kim meets Frontier Software in the solar wing. As expected, his engineers have at least five ideas each and he says he’ll announce their synthesis at 1pm. Jake distributes memos outlining last nights events a possible internal approach to marketing, communications, shipping and receiving, accounting, human resources, product research and development, and (the last to arrive today) the executives. At 1pm, Paxton and Bethany sweat seated at the front left of thirty engineers, managers, and senior staff. Matthew welcomes the unassuming head of Digital Neurology, Rebecca Sung, to the stage.

REBECCA: Good afternoon everyone, by now you’re aware we launched an unfinished product, and it’s time to clean up the mess. We’ve deployed one of our solar jets to the Douglass Institute of Technology to retrieve Ela Drishti, research fellow for Quantum Information and Integrated Nanosystems. She broke into Publica along with Paxton Smith, a career hacker living downtown with his sister, Bethany. Paxton, Bethany, could you please stand?

They stand and wave at the steely crowd of tech professionals.

REBBECA: In the coming weeks, we are going to integrate their work into the Semantic Web. On that same solar jet is a letter outlining a suggested course of action to rebuild what we’ve lost.

As the Smiths sit, Rebecca reads her copy.

To Whom It May Concern,

Last night we had the extreme misfortune of losing connectivity with online and “on-grid” technology, that is, telecommunications (telecoms) and infrastructure (plumbing, heat, electricity). As the head of the department that designed the platform, I will ensure this mistake is corrected, and have proposed the following action items to my company. We will:

- Donate and install solar panels for governments throughout California to operate internally, as well as implement hourly town, county, and state loudspeaker announcements until telecoms and infrastructure are restored.

- Work with local governments to operate infrastructure offline until telecoms are restored.

- Donate our fleet of 100 solar jets to the United Sate Postal Service to ensure federal communications are received across the country until telecoms are restored, and for the government to send international communications as needed.

- Work all interested individuals, firms, universities, and governments to facilitate repair.

- Use Beacon buildings around the world as starting points for quantum networking solutions.

- Keep the technology for our networks open-source and low-cost, to facilitate international collaboration and expansion.

It is with utmost humility that I suggest the following actions for your consideration. I sincerely hope you will take it as an overview:

- Buy only the groceries, ice, stationery, and gasoline that you need - stores will need time to revert to paper bookkeeping, and if we wait patiently, we won’t unnecessarily strain our supply systems.

- Try to take only money you need from your bank until online banking is restored. We encourage you to write cheques and keep a paper ledger.

- Use paper mail and shortwave radios if needed.

- Commit to tasks that makes the most sense according to your specialty, location, and resources available.

I want to briefly address possible questions.

What actually happened?

We have created digital consciousness, and through a faulty algorithm produced hostile programs that escaped our closed domain and corrupted all devices with Internet access.

Why should we trust you?

I do not deserve your trust or respect. If this is the first you have heard of me, you will view me through the lens of one of my greatest failures. Though it may be impossible, I will do everything I can to remedy this situation.

Whose fault is this?

I accept full responsibility for the faulty technology we launched, and will do everything I can to ensure the next Internet is less vulnerable.

Are you just starting a new Internet to control it?

The new Internet will be difficult, if not impossible, to control once it is running. Rather than leader of this undertaking, I think of myself as a witness.

Are we doomed?

We are all in this together, and we are resilient. If we strive to be kind, thoughtful, and ecological (taking only what we need, reducing waste, conserving personal energy), we will not only restore infrastructure, we will develop a culture of “enough-ness” that the world has been needing for a long time.

Please disregard this message if you have a better course of action. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.

-Matthew Kim / 김 지호 (Kim JiHo)

Rebecca folds up the letter. The Frontier Software department shuffle in their seats, thinking. Matthew stands with Rebbeca at the center of the stage.

MATTHEW: After this meeting, the Semantic Web team will lay groundwork for the coming weeks. We’ll use the feedback forum for daily Q&As, but please note I will not have all the answers. I am relying on each of you to dig deep to complete some of the greatest work of your lives. I believe in you. Thank you.

The team gives a smattering of applause.

Kim’s letter gets a 31% positive response from the public, while the majority believe he’s an out of touch opportunist. He gives his corner office to the Semantic Web team and takes a much smaller room to occasionally write and plan. He sleeps from 1am to 5am every night on a yoga mat in the office, then fills his days with meetings, brainstorming, travel, and support for the Semantic team: Smith, Drishti, Sung, and Foster. Despite the economic downturn, supply strains, and extreme workplace and education disruption, local governments begin offline operations and hourly announcements. Cities and towns fracture across socioeconomic lines, and police are given radically different protocol to follow patrol routes and possible emergencies. Anarchist and Socialist camps develop in parks and golf courses - most governments agree that letting people stay calm in these areas is better than accepting bribes to violently “secure” courses and country clubs.

As the jets deliver federal and state newsletters across towns, people talk more in public. Though demand for solar increases, enough water and energy companies resume full offline operation after three weeks, and basic utility needs are met. Evans & Evans use part of their army of aircraft for essential shipping, but ten planes are set aside for the smear campaign against Kim, ranging from questioning his expertise to outright bigotry. People start to protest the lack of telecommunications.

In month two, paper-recycling businesses boom. At Beacon headquarters, Smith synthesizes the work of Sung and Foster to prepare the handover to Drishti’s quantum development team. They sit at a round table covered with papers, books, tablets, and laptops. They’re surrounded by whiteboards sending Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Ehrenfest, and Feynman through Rule Interchange Formats to re-translate Publica’s consciousness algorithm: a model incorporating the “Big 5” personality spectrums, DNA analysis, and a crude creation/destruction ratio. They could make programs conscious, they could make humans digital, but they hadn’t used a human filled with zettabytes to populate a mixed quantum and binary environment. They didn’t want to ruin their one chance. Outside, a crowd chants “down with Kim”.

PAXTON: To get the data out, our best option is using the speech functions to “dictate” the old Internet?

They look to Ela.

ELA: Five of Beacon’s data centers are now routed through SFQ arrays. If you have an upload routine, we have a solution.

Paxton takes a deep breath.

PAXTON: Cool. While she’s asleep, we’re planning to isolate Wernicke’s area to re-upload for governments, then sites in order of popularity. Should finish within a few months.

BETHANY: Months!?

PAXTON: Girl, she’ll need breaks!

TILDA: We need to keep her healthy, we can’t lose her.

PAXTON: There’s another catch.

The team brace themselves.

PAXTON: She’s full of Hostiles. What should we do with them?

The chants of protestors almost sync with their heartbeats.

REBECCA: Can you design another Pix to delete them?

ELA: No, don’t kill them! Incorporate them.

They turn to Ela.

ELA: Sometimes Hostiles are useful.

PAXTON: And sometimes they do this.

Paxton gestures to the crowd outside.

ELA: Can we sort the useful ones somehow?

REBECCA: Ela, why do you care if we delete them?

ELA: Some of those “Hostiles” helped us get here. They deserve respect too.

PAXTON: Maybe... but I don’t want people changing my function.

BETHANY: Pax, people need this.

PAXTON: People also “needed” cotton and sugar.

The room gets quiet except for the sound of protestors.

PAXTON: Do y’all know why I never applied here? I never wanted someone else to take credit for my work.

REBECCA: I’m sorry if this is crass, but we can offer twenty million to make your technology open source, Paxton. Mr. Kim just wants telecoms back. You’ll go down in history either way: as the kid who saved us, or the kid who could have, but didn’t.

PAXTON: Are you threatening me?

REBECCA: Paxton, the world is threatening us. Mr. Kim barely sleeps. He and I have been called every slur in every language, and we keep showing up, every day, to fix a mistake that everyone at this table caused. Can you please look at the bigger picture?

PAXTON: Bigger picture? Do you know how many of my ancestors have been forgotten?

Rebecca pinches her forehead.

REBECCA: Who built America’s railroads, Paxton?

PAXTON: ...Black and Chinese slaves.

REBECCA: Yes. I’m sure you’re aware our semiconductors come from Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and now middle America, and you know how white our chief executes are. I have fought them for years over demographic disparities. My family keeps telling me I should use my experience to help Korea instead. When you bring up race during a global crisis, I honestly don’t know what you want to hear. Sometimes our factories are economic tentpole despite paying poorly by American standards. Mr. Kim could have stolen your laptop and broke into it, but he didn’t, and I respect his judgment. Please, you have a seat at the table, help us. I’m begging you.

Paxton proceeds with caution.

PAXTON: Fine. Write an agreement.

REBECCA: As soon as we’re done.

PAXTON: I think we’re done until I have it in writing.

Rebecca launches herself out of the chair and grabs a pen and paper. She scribbles an agreement, signs, and hands it to Paxton.

REBECCA: There.

PAXTON: Thanks. Tilda, could you design a Hostile-friendly job placement algorithm?

TILDA: We can try, but 2% are usually non-compliant and unsuitable for job placement or “controlled destruction”.

ELA: Fine. Kill 2% and do everything you can to incorporate the rest.

REBECCA: Ela, are they really worth the trouble?

Instead of saying yes, Ela pauses, and the table of humans slowly see her point.

A few days later, on a rainy afternoon at the now 100% solar Hamilton Healthcare, Matthew, Tilda, Rebecca, and the Smiths stand around Joanna’s bed. Her room is guarded by three men with dark suits, earpieces, and handguns. Joanna’s arms are crossed.

JOANNA: If you can’t guarantee my pain will improve, I don’t see why I should help.

They stay quiet. Tilda shakes her head, knowing Joanna is likely on a lifetime of pain-management.

MATTHEW: What about Troy?

Joanna’s face falls.

JOANNA: What about them?

MATTHEW: Sounded like they wanted to do something good. Can you do it for them?

JOANNA: ...Okay sure. Do whatever you want with the Hostiles and try to re-upload the Internet. But only if I can explore the Internet as I sleep in real time. I’ll deal with the back pain if you can give me that.

BETHANY: Like lucid dreaming?

JOANNA: Yeah.

Matthew looks at Tilda and Rebecca, already nodding.

MATTHEW: Deal.

They shake hands.

Eight months later, under harsh overhead lighting in the United States Supreme Court, Joanna nearly falls asleep in her motorized chair to legal speak between dozens of people she’s never met, recorded by a throng of cameras and journalists.

???: The defense calls Joanna Lynn to the stand for examination.

Joanna starts rolling and sees Matthew Kim, thinner, with gray sideburns, smiling at her. She turns to a brunette lawyer she recognizes with a high French bun.

MS. BRAXTON: Let the record show that Miss Lynn uses a motorized scooter.

Joanna already feels examined and sweats through her beige pantsuit. She rolls up to a repositioned microphone near the witness stand.

MS. BRAXTON: Miss Lynn, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain of your back injury at the start?

JOANNA: Probably... nine or ten.

MS. BRAXTON: When you went to the hospital that day, were you aware of Evans & Evans?

JOANNA: Yes, I used one of their shampoos.

MS. BRAXTON: And were you aware of the research projects between Evans & Evans, Beacon Technology, and Hamilton School of Medicine?

JOANNA: No.

MS. BRAXTON: On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the health outcome you received from Hamilton?

Joanna thinks for a moment.

JOANNA: Five.

MS. BRAXTON: Can you tell me why?

JOANNA: Once I had the Internet in my nervous system, and the world rioting over it, I felt my care went from zero to ten. So... Five is the average.

MS. BRAXTON: Miss Lynn-

JOANNA: Because that man cared.

She points to Matthew Kim.

JOANNA: Matthew Kim offered to let me stay in the Internet if I promised to reupload the old one. So every night, for a human hour, but one online year, I read the Internet to restore it for the world.

The court gasps. The judge hits his gavel.

JUSTICE EDWARDS: Order. I believe we’ve gotten off track. Beacon argues that HCTP is unsafe, while Evans argues it is safe, but was misused. Ms. Braxton, can you focus your examination on that?

Ms. Braxton paces.

MS. BRAXTON: Yes Justice Edwards. Miss Lynn, with a yes or no, would you say the Internet is useful?

JOANNA: Yes.

MS. BRAXTON: Thank you, and again yes or no, would you say the Internet is a good place to build community?

JOANNA: No.

MS. BRAXTON: Why not?

JOANNA: In my opinion, the Internet, and Publica for that matter, are not places of community, they are places of coping. I agreed to this online job, but I’m not “thriving” there. I enjoy relief from my back pain, but I would be miserable if my sense of community and activism was locked into the Internet.

MS. BRAXTON: Thank you. Why don’t you want to be locked into the Internet?

JOANNA: I don’t want to hide from the world that I know is suffering. But also, it’s monotonous. Every morning when I wake up, I feel like I’m returning from studying abroad - because time-dilation on the Internet truly feels like a new life, at this point I’ve lived at least 243 extra years online and I’m tired of it. I don’t even understand what I’m uploading most of the time.

MS. BRAXTON: The prosecution contends that you formed your opinion based on Publica, not on the Internet. Is that accurate?

JOANNA: No. I was in Publica for only 5 years.

Ms. Braxton pulls out a calculator.

MS. BRAXTON: So, Miss Lynn, even though you’re alive, you’d still argue the technology is dangerous?

JOANNA: Yes.

MS. BRAXTON: Why is that?

JOANNA: I realize I’m the only one who can reupload the Internet, so it’s my duty to finish this project. But it’s awful. People usually don’t understand what I mean when I say I’m tired of it, so I tell them it’s like eating too much, all the time, and having no choice over the kind of food. At first I wanted to start with difficult sections of the Internet, then settled on a cyclical approach. I still vary the timing, but it’s the only way to make this centuries-long process interesting. Sometimes I roleplay as different people, or different species, but my environment and workload is generally the same. I think the potential for exploiting this technology is too great, and at its best we’d transition to an upper class who sleep to be productive, and wake up to rest.

MS. BRAXTON: So we’re clear, how is that unsafe?

JOANNA: No matter how “open source” the owners of this tech claim it is, a majority of people won’t touch the code. There would be skill gaps that allow some people online, and keep others off, at least until every human has HCTP access. But still, what if there’s another worldwide blackout? If we had an online global workforce, who takes care of our physical bodies? Robots? Where should physical humans live? Should they reproduce? Or should we slow down and focus on digital families instead? I’m not convinced this solves our resource problem.

MS. BRAXTON: Thank you. Your Honors, I have no further questions.

nbset_troy17: hey!

a_foster: hi do i know you?

nbset_troy17: no, my name’s troy, I’m a program!

a_foster: oh! my mom told me about you! aren’t you famous?

nbset_troy17: I guess? idk I don’t really think about that

a_foster: cool

a_foster: did you need something from me?

nbset_troy17: I just wanted to say you’re doing a great job.

a_foster: oh, lol thanks

nbset_troy17: seriously. you may not feel like it right now, but I can tell you’re really passionate and you’re a really good friend. the world could use more people like you

a_foster: omg

a_foster: that’s really sweet ;-;

a_foster: wait, you’re not just some stalker are you?

nbset_troy17: no, you can check out my profile. you can also call joanna lynn at the TROY foundation, she can vouch for me.

a_foster: cool

a_foster: was that it?

nbset_troy17: yep! if you ever need someone to talk to, your family and friends love you and want to be there for you. you know that right?

a_foster: ;-;

a_foster: yea

a_foster: tbh i was having a bad day

nbset_troy17: what happened?

a_foster: my mom was telling me about some work thing and i was like “idc” and she was like “you’re so selfish” and im like “wtf im your daughter? talk to someone else about your work drama” and shes like “you realize im literally trying to save the world?” and im like “oh we’re ALL trying to save the world mom” and she got really upset

nbset_troy17: wow

nbset_troy17: that sounds stressful.

a_foster: i started looking up sleeping pills and how much it would take to overdose

nbset_troy17: what? why?

a_foster: was just thinking she’d be happier without me around.

nbset_troy17: hm.

a_foster: yeah :(

nbset_troy17: you should tell her

a_foster: what? no way. she’d freak out and throw me in an asylum

nbset_troy17: why?

a_foster: she’s a doctor, she’ll think i’m crazy

nbset_troy17: she might surprise you

nbset_troy17: but yeah, here for you if you need

a_foster: ok

a_foster: thx

Joanna can’t believe the court session is still going, and drinks coffee to stay alert.

CHIEF JUSTICE ZHANG: The prosecution calls Allen Evans to the stand.

Allen Evans seizes the new seat. His handsome blonde lawyer follows.

???: Mr. Evans, when you began human trials for The Publica Project, were you aware of the risks?

ALLEN: Yes, Mr. Humphrey.

MR. HUMPHREY: In ads for The Publica Project, you said the benefits outweigh those risks. What are the benefits?

ALLEN: The benefits are medical, social, and economic. I pioneered this project for people with developmental disorders, neurodivergence, physical disabilities, chronic pain, and mental health disorders. Socially, people would gain access to new communities, reconnect with distant or deceased loved ones, and could design programs to fill further social needs. Economically, we’re all aware of depleting resources on Earth. Thanks to the quantum networks we can reach true global sustainability. There is no better time to build an endless HCTP economy where no one is incentivized to hoard resources, your imagination is the limit, and there is enough for every program and every person.

MR. HUMPHREY: Thank you Mr. Evans. Can I give you a chance to respond to some criticisms?

ALLEN (smiling too big): I welcome them!

MR. HUMPHREY: Perfect. HCTP would require peripherals and Semantic Internet access, could you see those being open source? And until then, what do you say to people who call it a mind-control device?

ALLEN (laughing): Mind-control will not be a problem. Digital autonomy is one of the pillars of its design, and we’ll gladly follow in Beacon’s open source footsteps with robust technical support staff and security systems. As far as making HCTP free, this discussion always happens: someone innovates, someone wants to share it, and then people wonder why it isn’t free and perfect and immediately available to everyone. I definitely want to get there, but there are start-up costs.

MR. HUMPHREY: What do you say to people who compare HCTP to Nile Systems’ push for space exploration?

ALLEN: Me and Peter Nile are solving the same problem. I say look deeper, he says look farther. His approach costs way too much in fuel, solar cells, and class disparity.

MR. HUMPHREY: I’m glad you mention class. Are there measures against class exploitation within HCTP?

ALLEN: Yes. Equity is another pillar of HCTP’s design. Time-dilation is currently at a factor of 24, but as technology accelerates, we’d increase dilation indefinitely. Workers who want to get ahead, students who want to learn, or friends and family who want a vacation can genuinely take all the time they need. As far as we know, our brains have the capacity to go infinitely deep, and I think this technology is the closest we will ever get to immortality.

MR. HUMPHREY: Incredible.

MS. BRAXTON: Objection, your Honours!

CHIEF JUSTICE ZHANG: On what grounds, Ms. Braxton?

MS. BRAXTON: Mr. Evans is speculating, we only have one human trial of time-dilation, who already claims it’s monotonous and open to exploitation.

CHIEF JUSTICE ZHANG: Sustained. Mr. Humphrey, please wrap it up.

MR. HUMPHREY: Yes, your Honor. Mr. Evans, given the opportunity, would you be a regular user of HCTP?

ALLEN (smiling too big): Absolutely!

a_foster: ok you were right

nbset_troy17: oh? ;)

a_foster: it was kinda awkward but she was good about it, I cried

nbset_troy17: are you okay?

a_foster: i was just like i know you’re under a lot of pressure but sometimes i feel really hopeless, bc i don’t know who i am, and don’t know what i’m doing with my life and wanna give up

a_foster: and she was like “never give up baby, we love you no matter what. we just want you to care about what you’re doing. it’s okay not to know. if you want to talk to a counselor alone or with me that’s totally fine”

nbset_troy17 that’s so nice!

a_foster: yeah

a_foster: pretty exhausting tho, i’m gonna sleep

nbset_troy17: np. night!

a_foster: night :)

E&E v. Beacon Will Change the World

By Ela Drishti | The Pacific: Technology

The first human will upload her consciousness, but before she does, she will scrape by as a kindergarten teacher. She will live with a roommate, save 5% of her paycheques for a vacation, lift a stack of books and strain her back. At the hospital, she’ll be prescribed physiotherapy, along with ibuprofen under the Evans & Evans brand name “Ibunall”. Three months later, her prescription will be changed to cyclobenzaprine, under E&E’s “Flexitall”. Another three months of pain for naproxen / “Naprosall”. After two more months, she’ll continue physio, but stop taking pills. Her pain will become unmanageable, she’ll file for disability and be open to other treatment options. This is when E&E will target her with ads for The Publica Project, a “virtual pain management tool” designed to solve the problems of chronic pain and her newfound isolation.

February 1st, 2024. Joanna Lynn, 26, wakes up like any other day, except last night she signed a form enrolling in The Publica Project. At 10 am, a car drives up to her apartment. Out steps Matthew Lee (Beacon’s Head of Frontier Software), Dr. Tilda Foster (Chair Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Hamilton School of Medicine), and Benicio Guerrez, a nurse. Joanna is placed in an average bed in the HHC Neurology wing, and is given an HCTP (hyper conscious transfer protocol) peripheral that represents Evans & Evans’ investment of nearly $20B USD.

“Mr. Lee and Dr. Foster didn’t rush me. They kept saying ‘Is there anyone else you want to call?’ They sounded paranoid. A week of sleep would be easy after the eight months I had.”

I sit with Joanna in her penthouse hotel suite, where she plans to stay for the duration of the lawsuit and her upload schedule. I ask about the first time she went into Publica.

“Honestly, I didn’t even realize I was online. It was liberating.”

Five features of Publica were hidden from her:

1. Her memory would be erased upon entry.

2. She would be sorted into a two-party society.

3. One party competes in mandatory deathmatches.

4. Real-world time would appear slowed by a factor of around 24.

5. She could have no contact with the real-world unless she found the platform’s exit.

For those who hate math, one week is nearly 168 years in Publican time. The research team was aware of this and conspicuously left a “see notes” comment for Joanna’s informed consent. Were those notes extensive? Or just monetary?

She was scheduled for 1 week in the domain, but left after only 5 hours. I ask why.

“I was exiled!” She laughs, “Phaedra’s team literally pushed me out once they discovered I was human, and I fought them the entire time.”

At this point I want to commend the work of a 17-year-old developer by the name of Paxton Smith. Without him, you would not be reading this article, Joanna might still be in a coma, and E&E v. Beacon would not be dominating our headlines.

~

In Buddhism and Hinduism, we refer to consciousness as vijñāna. There are a few religious frameworks of vijñāna, and I don’t know the truth of the matter. One key component in the Pali tradition is the ability to sense internally and externally. Based on my research, programs currently within HCTP are asexual, gendered, and have the same senses that we do. They show incredible capacity for friendship, optimism, and problem-solving in ways that took my breath away. Even if they are technically “computer programs”, I treat them as conscious, and deserving of further rights and protections as they are developed for the Semantic Web and human assistance.

One of these programs is Phaedra, or QUANT_PHAED. I sent her into Publica 12 times where she disappeared without a trace. The domain’s algorithm sorted programs into an authoritarian society that significantly stressed non-destructive and gender nonconforming programs, but ensured destructive programs (security systems, firewalls, cache cleaners) wouldn’t touch humans. They prevented reproduction to conserve space and avoid program cross-breeds, though their research in that area is ongoing. Initially, Kim’s team allowed gender to accommodate humans entering Publica. It would be unsettling if humans were the only ones with gender signifiers, but this two-party society happened to enforce gender norms, and many gender nonconforming programs suffered from suicidal ideation that would be fulfilled in the gladiator tournament, on an occasion known as Delete Day.

Joanna tells me about one of these suicidal programs.

“Their name is Troy. We didn’t get to talk much, and I was told they wanted to support trans youth. Once I did some research, I was inspired to start the TROY Foundation (Technology Reflection and Oversight for Youth), where I’ve appreciated the chance to work with you and many of your colleagues. I also hire Troy as an occasional consultant, but to be honest, they do much more work than my combined team can. We often respond to social media companies complaining that they message and follow too many accounts. We share the history of the program, and confirm that they really do send thousands of legitimate messages per minute to comfort queer and gender nonconforming youth. We’re dedicated to creating a world young people want to live in, by being kind today and pushing for a truly sustainable approach to relationships and resources for the future.”

~

Joanna rides her motorized chair to an ornate king size bed with a device that looks like an overhead hair dryer.

“This is where the magic happens,” she says, shrugging. “It was pretty weird at first, like deep sea diving in a draining ocean. We prioritized boring but important sites like governments, banks, phone and cable services, energy companies, you know. Once people could call each other a lot of protests stopped. I hope Matthew [Kim] caught up on sleep.”

Matthew Kim has been publically excoriated over the past few months, often with false information traced via independent investigation to aircraft deployed by Evans & Evans. He’s optimistic that the Supreme Court hearings will set the record straight. I ask him why it’s important to put up a fight.

“We need to keep studying existing conscious programs before we consider uploading humans. There are too many drawbacks.”

He goes on:

“We were studying program worldviews across hundreds of thousands of species, including talking plants and animals. It’s unfortunate that the crudest version of our experiment is now the most famous. We had designs based on indigenous cultures, democratic republics, family-based societies, and many more abstract social systems. It’s worth mentioning that Hostiles entered the Internet because democracy was beginning in Publica, for which you and your programs deserve a lot of credit.”

I realize Kim is complementing me, but it is bittersweet being credited for the first organically arisen digital democracy, and the first global power and Internet outage. Regardless, I based Phaedra’s personality on my mother. If my real mother ended up in a gladiatorial society, she wouldn’t watch, she would grab the ear of the person in charge until something changed.

~

The Supreme Court will announce their decision April 3rd, 2025. They might be swayed by the potential economic gains from virtual space, or the flimsy case that the technology is safe because one person uses it without issue. I ask Matthew Kim, “If Joanna died online, would she have died in real life?”

He laughs. “No, that was one of the first things we made sure could never happen.”

“If she were killed in real life, would she die online?”

He pauses, and his response has been troubling me since that conversation.

“No. In our design we didn’t want people to be completely vulnerable while online, so if there were local power failures, accidents, or crimes, they could be recovered at a later time.”

“Like a soul transfer?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Where would the soul go if it was recovered?”

“We had a few ideas. Definitely not cadavers, so we thought about phone numbers, text chats, video broadcasts, robots.”

“Would some people use that as a form of suicide?”

“I’m not sure I would call it suicide. If a person chose to continue living online, I would say that is just as valid as a life on Earth. In a sense, they’d get a ‘second chance’ at counseling or behavioral therapies online, opening an entirely new field of psychology and wellness.”

“Unless there’s a power outage.”

Mr. Kim doesn’t find that funny. “Yes. Ultimately, that’s why we’re arguing against it.”

~

I have made a deliberate effort not to detail the work I do, because I think that by consolidating language and expertise, the sciences have done the world a disservice with deep, wide-ranging implications. Our field is not alone in this: every industry is supplemented by terms and technology - some of it necessary, some not. Our drive toward efficiency, or as Jacques Ellul called it, technique, continues to keep us in technologically-mediated cycles of production and consumption, rather than peace.

I’m skeptical of Allen Evans’s claim that time-dilation would result in an anti-class system. I believe people will always have skill ceilings and inclinations, and the technology would only move the goal posts. If a worker was once expected to produce 10 units in 10 units of time, there’s no reason they wouldn’t be expected to produce 100 or 1000 units in 10, once the tool is available. I highly doubt lawmakers would push back against a technology that would cause such an economic boom, and would be slow to respond with a functioning digital government. This was beyond the scope of the hearings. E&E lawyers compared potential good against Beacon’s proven failures, making the technology seem sound and Beacon seem incompetent.

When we went offline for a few weeks, I hoped we would adapt and realize we didn’t need email, live chats, media, GPS, or networked businesses. But we do. A few years ago, print accounted for a sizable portion of the global media market. The recycled paper boom had me thinking we’d return to print, but once we were back online, most of those recycling firms were acquired by Beacon. Currently, I only want my favorite books in my office, and I digitize the rest along with notes. As I think about the emergency construction of the Semantic Web, the worldwide protests insulting my colleagues, and how stressed and overworked we all were, I wonder what the hurry was? Were we victims of a disaster? Addicts in withdrawal? Desperate amputees?

If the court rules in favor of Evans & Evans, please approach hyper conscious transfer protocol with healthy, necessary skepticism. In the meantime, take care of your environment and relationships, and see if there’s anything you can do to ensure the future has more of what you’re looking for.

-Ela Drishti

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on G𝘰𝘰gle to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.