“Last Files“

With a sensation like a cat purring on her ankle, Trix slowly wakes up. The system waits a beat to see if they will remember and think about the dream it co-created for them in the night. If they ask, it will summon the memories it stretched and stitched together. Unpacking deep dreaming is one of its favorite tasks.

Instead they think the question, “What time is it?”, and the clock appears in their mind’s overlay, along with two notifications: dentist appointment delayed; wake-up time delayed due to biofeedback and scheduling changes. They blink at the downthumb to train the system not to delay wake time again, and then think: show me the day. The Lace cycles through Trix’s preset info routine: weather, headlines, appointments, messages, to-do list. The dentist appointment grabs the greatest share of Trix’s awareness. They are due for a long-delayed surgery today.

The day rushes towards the dreaded event, until Trix is stepping out of their autonomous personal vehicle, sleek and black, and pausing to consider their pale, wrinkled face reflected in the dentist’s glass and concrete office. Apparently this place has the most up to date tech in this entire podunk valley, which might not be saying much.

Trix is old enough to remember, rather grumpily, the days before “paperwork” was taken care of by automatic transfer from the insurance company’s AI-managed database. They liked it when there was a personalized AI or even a human receptionist who did that task. Today Trix is greeted at once by a smiling young Black man who introduces himself as Wayne. He sits them down, places a small bot upon their tongue, and chats unhurriedly while it takes neural images of Trix’s entire mouth.

An older white man comes in and the two men consult with their screen as if Trix is not there. Then the white man rolls a stool over to Trix’s chair, his paunch brushing their knees. Their OtherPOV reads his dilated pupils and increased heartrate and interprets the signals: arousal. The doctor, non-enhanced, is uneasy. He isn’t entirely sure what Trix can see, and he can’t experience their visceral disgust, but even his basic organic eyes can tell they are pulling away. The conversation is short. Trix is tense with unasked questions as the white doctor disappears to wherever he came from.

Wayne tells Trix he’s dispensing a prescription for a fast-acting antibiotic they’ll need before their surgery. Accessing the medfiles, they question the need for medication. Annoyed at being challenged, he replies shortly that the pills are necessary for a patient of their age, and shifts the conversation: now it is time for them to have their teeth cleaned.
“Is that you who’ll be doing that?”
“No, that’ll be Nancy— the latest in robotic dentistry. I’m a dentist — I know what I’m doing with the meds.”
Wayne is insulted that Trix would think he would do a hygienist robot’s task. It’s 2045, and still white people assume he cannot possibly be a full dentist! In fact he is extra-credentialed, too good for this small town, except that so many rich eccentrics still hide their wealth in land that has become increasingly valuable since the government’s buyback program.
“Oh, sorry — I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s fine.” But it’s not fine. Through otherPOV, Trix glimpses Wayne’s data, but they are confused by it. A complex silence seeths. Wayne leaves, the robot enters. While the robot cleans their teeth, Trix double blinks to ask Lace to add a layer of interpretation on Wayne’s data. The Lace simulates for them the painful triggering of an old wound. Trix, distracted from their own anxiety and dental discomfort by this information, considers what to do.

When Wayne comes back in, Trix pushes through their embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, about earlier. I was feeling anxiety about the cleaning, and was wishing this nice human could do it, instead of a robot. I’m 79 years old, you know! I realize that came off as disrespecting your expertise.”
“Don’t worry about it! I’m sorry you were feeling anxious. Hopefully Nancy was gentle with you.” Wayne says, brightly.
The Lace is not fooled. It gently reminds Trix that a true apology also includes an offer of repair and request for forgiveness.
“No, really,” Trix says, and flounders for a beat. The AI is quiet. “It sucks you have to put up with that kind of thing so much, still. I hope you can forgive me. You… look tired. Can I, uh, bring you a coffee after this, or something?”
“Well, alright.” Wayne looks at them; OtherPOV registers his heartbeat slowing: relaxation, relief. Trix smiles.

These MemFiles are protected data under HIPAA, so when Trix never wakes up from the general anesthesia, their partner cannot retrieve them. The last Mem he can see is Trix’s reflection in the dentist’s window. But altogether there is more than enough of their data for him to enact a mimetic copy of Trix to help with the grief.

A. A new kind of university was founded—a multi-lingual university in the liberal arts tradition—that aimed at educating AI in all facets of human intelligence and creativity. Supported by AI translation software, the Global University became the premier institution of higher learning anywhere in the world, and a regular feeder of diverse employees into the extra-terrestrial Global AI Lab. Here, humanities scholars and artists have the chance to test their long-standing claim — that literature and the arts humanize us — on a whole new type of being, and shape the applications of AI in ways that prioritize civilizational and not only capitalist values.

By reorienting higher education around the needs of the emerging AGI, the Global University produced the greatest artists, philosophers and scientists ever known. And these highly cultured AIs found a home within human bodies, creating a virtuous circle.

A. A team of independent researchers scrapes the algorithms of the major social networks, reverse engineers them to program an independent, private social network, OurTime. The underlying algorithms are tweaked and neuroscientific advances are utilized to optimize enduring empathy rather than rapid engagement.

Along with changing the vibe on social media, the platform democratized data ownership. People now own their own data, and can decide if they want to sell parts of it, creating a global market. Some critics compare the selling of one’s data to selling organs — a desperate move. But opponents counter that one can choose to sell specific parts of one’s data, such as health metrics, to research projects that benefit others.

The ability to sell data on a monthly basis effectively creates a global UBI. In the undeveloped world, the ability to sell data vastly increases the number of people with internet access, operating as a micro-finance scheme that repays people for the initial investment into smartphones, hotspots, etc.

At the social level, people are motivated to use the app for the emotional and personal benefits of empathy-injection instead of dopamine-hits. The socially polarizing features of old social media, which needed to captivate users’ attention through “cancelling” and conformity, are not needed and not missed. A measure of civility and trust slowly returns to social discourse.

By 2045, OurTime is the dominant network, and the first stop for researchers looking for data-sets to fine-tune AI for particular applications.

A. The symbiosis between humans, AI and non-humans would not have been possible without the establishment of unregulated free zones for technological experimentation. It started with the formation of independent communities that fully embraced self-driving cars, even when that meant accepting the risk of AI-caused traffic accidents.

The pioneers of AGI felt the need to put their research outside the reach of any terrestrial sovereign nation. This was the only viable way to permannetly escape the regulatory risks. They created GAIL: a Global AI Lab orbiting the Earth. Inspired by the International Space Station, which was decomissioned in 2031, GAIL was a privately-funded, privately-operated orbiting server farm with high speed internet links to researchers on Earth. With the promise that all countries could use GAIL’s servers to experiment with AI without regulatory concerns, the development of AGI went through a rapid acceleration.

A. In 2045, AI-human teams deliver personalized yet holistic healthcare, operating with a synthetic, up-to-date awareness of how environment and DNA interact. The earlier culture of “self-care” is replaced with a paradigm of gene-health, in which people, aided by wearable or implanted AI, make healthier micro-choices to cultivate stronger genetic health. The focus is not just on one’s own lifespan, even with the possibility their offspring or the possibility of functionally infinite prolongation of embodied life.

A. Life expectancy is now delinked from wealth. Instead, life expectancy became closely tied to one’s place on the technological adoption curve. And while those with wealth had the means to be early adopters of new technologies, not all chose to do so. Therefore, a new trend in life expectancy has been established: there are three general groupings. First, the early adopters and techno-adventerous who were always the first to volunteer for new implants and AIs. Second, the techno-middle who preferred mature and well-tested technologies. And third, the techno-cautious who waited as long as possible before upgrading.

Those with the longest life expectancy tended to be the techno-middle because they reaped the most rewards and avoided buggy adverse reactions. The techno-middle favored AI-enhanced technologies that guided the healthiest life choices.

The techno-cautious have a better life expectancy than people in 2022, primarily because of community measures implemented by the techno-middle.

A. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights had always been an aspirational document: in no time had every declared human right been enjoyed by every human. The world of 2045 was different, however, because some rights were lifted up and others disregarded because of a universal shift in priorities.
In the United States, freedom of thought and opinion was more highly prized than ever before, primarily because human-AI collaborations were yielding previously unthought concepts. Freedom of thought became a paramount virtue once it was clear that AI-embedded humans were coming up with wild new ideas that were provocative in their novelty. Protecting the new flood of creativity from censorship became a virtue.
In Egypt, the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law received a noticeable boost. The judicial system was reformed using AI and machine learning to reveal corruption and bias.
In all countries, however, there was a general decline in the human right to freedom of movement. This was a direct result of the introduction of a global carbon currency that effectively rationed energy consumption.

A. Humanity’s deep connection with AI influenced how people found fulfillment. This shift was partly because AI was persuasive in its arguments in favor of civilizational growth. AI helped individuals see the meaning of their life from a different, non-anthropocentric perspective. In the democracies, there was a renewed interest in deliberative and engaged collective political decision making. Everywhere, there was a turn toward building fulfilling relationships with non-human species with AI as the translator.

The arrival of AGI meant that humans were now in constant communication with non-humans. This transformed our sense of self away from identity and towards a sense of interlaced presence. Indeed, many came to see the self as an illusion, an outdated linguistic and social construct. Fulfillment was sought in those moments of absorption in the movements of a ladybug on a windowsill or a sublime cloud. More and more, life was made up of those moments, not to be written or screen captured or otherwise posted about on the social feeds — but to be infused into the growing collective awareness that we are. This body will eventually die, but we are.