https://io9.gizmodo.com/write-a-short-story-about-the-economics-of-the-future-a-1800020162
I have decided to write a short story to try to increase my writing skills, I rarely write anything and I need to practice.
I decided to write a Scifi style story for this entry.
Here are the requirements from the site.
- What might a world look like where all of our most basic needs are met? In 5,000 words or less, we want you to explore the impacts of a basic income on individual lives and on society at large. To be clear, we are not expecting you to draft economic policy, but hope to ignite debate around new economies with stories that offer nuanced critique and evidence of impact extrapolated beyond the power of predictive models. Writers may want to address how this economic policy could shift relationships of power, or if economic liberation is even possible without first addressing racial and gender justice. Writers may consider universality (i.e., whether this benefit applies to everyone), investigate community impact, and even give this economic idea a new name.
- There are only a few criteria these stories must meet to be eligible, based on how the concept of a universal basic income should be represented in them:
- • Unconditional Funds — No one should be able to tell a recipient how to spend the money.
- • Basic Needs — The money should be enough to cover one’s basic needs.
Basic ideal is a student in the future writing about career options by asking one of the most dreaded questions ever devised. What do you want to be when you grow up?
I devised a simple ideal that artificial intelligence are tied to individual humans by implanted chips. That people in the future will be able rent their robots to other people for work as if they are an extension of their body. My original concept was having a small computer inside a persons brain and controlling robots used for work. This removes artificial intelligence from the equations as an almost subconscious cybernetic system is essentially an extension of people is used to control robotic devices and avoids the possibility of robot uprisings.
The concept I developed
AI licensing is tied to human lives
- AI licenses are distributed by the government and limited by population levels.
- AI levels are determined by complexity of tasks and number of simultaneous task.
- One person is from birth tied to a low level License
- Licenses can be combined to allow for higher level AI’s.
- Most AI’s are cloud based
- When born, a chip is inserted into the brain of the baby.
- 10 Terabyte stores half of a random number for each second of life with a limit of 200 years.
- That chip is remotely powered like RFID chip.
- One end is coated with a retrovirus the enables optigenics based communication with the brain. This prevents tampering by disabling the device when removed from the body.
- Recivers for the chip are everywhere, tied into wireless charging.
For the AI’s in the story I went with the gender neutral Mx. to set them apart and I made sure to include names with a AI in their name.
This wasn’t to hard as you can actually search for lists of baby names that are very specific. Very weird.
The heroes name became Jules as a decent gender neutral option.
What do I want to be when I grow up?
By Matthew Sheets
Word Count 1856
Usually a school day is not so bad, I get up to sit at the table for breakfast with my family. We open the food app for our apartment building on our slates and send an order to the buildings mechanized kitchen. Depending on the order, it is delivered by a robot cart to the door in less than ten minutes piping hot, which leaves plenty of time to check my messages. Then after eating I fight with my siblings for the right to next use the bathroom to get ready for the day. Then on the way to the vehicle pickup zone, I check my messages one last time. Next, I share a ride with other people heading towards the school in an automated car that pulled up to pick me up from home and drop me off at school. I wave goodbye to my fellow passengers as they head deeper into the city. I say hello to the other students and to Mx. Cait our robotic English teacher. This is usually my best class, but todays assignment is the hardest I have ever faced.
What do I want to be when I grow up? This is the hardest question ever made, harder than math class and social studies class combined. How am I going to be able to answer this question? I am asked another question that pulls me from my current work. Jules, did you scribe the report for Mx. Cait’s class on what you want to be when you grow up yet?
No, how am I supposed to pick a direction on what career to aim for? We are only in the fourth grade! Why do we have to think about this now when we have so many years ahead to explore our options?
You don’t have to pick at all, my brother never went for any specialized training and he is living okay off his triple’s A’s.
What does that even mean, we haven’t really covered that in class yet, isn’t that a computer money thing they put into our heads when we are born? I get an allowance from my parents, but I don’t get enough for my own apartment.
Jules, you need to watch more educational vids instead of those farting robot videos.
I haven’t watched those in days and they are the funniest things ever made. They are produced by the great Mx. Raizili a high-level Internet Inculcate Intelligence.
I looked up the triple A’s when my brother moved out. They are Artificial Acuity Authorizations, they are what allow artificial intelligences to exist like a triple I’s such as Mx. Raizili.
Each AI has a digital certificate issued by the government and are tied to a number of digital certificates issued to people when they are born. Each day your certificate is rented to owners of the AIs for money by the Government. That money is enough to cover taxes, insurance, basic housing, food, and some extra spending money.
Then how come my allowance is so low, am I paying for a house somewhere? I live with my parents so I don’t need a house?
Jules… You are missing the point. We are too young to have that money, right now our parents get part of it to help take care of us, another part is put up for latter to use for college or whatever, and the rest is used for schooling right now.
They pool parts of our certificates to allow high level AI’s like the teachers at school to run.
What does that have to do with our heads? Also, if Mx. Cait needs us so much, we should get better grades.
Jules, we already covered this in health class a bit, when we are born a chip is inserted in our brains that is tied to the certificate from the government. This proves to the government that we are alive and qualify for a certificate.
I remember that we get a chip and that it runs off the wireless power grid, but how does it work, can they just have us wear bracelets instead?
When they make the chip, they load terabytes of passwords into it to prevent it from being faked, it has a password for each second you are alive and each password is matched with the governments certificates. We can’t carry it around, what if it gets stolen.
What if you had a weirdo cut your head open to steals it, I would rather lose a bracelet then have a hole in my skull.
That is really gross Jules, the chip changes the brain around it when they insert it. It uses optogenetics to interface with the brain and causes the chip to be destroyed when removed.
Now you are making up words, optogenetics? And they don’t make anything to interface with brains yet, that is science fiction like virtual reality that can fool your senses, but that would make some really swell games.
It’s not made up! I watched a vid about it and they do have brain interfaces, they just haven’t worked all of the bugs out yet, like the small chance of permanent insanity.
Permanent insanity? That sounds like a really big problem and optogenetics sound totally fake, way to sci-fi sounding.
It is not fake Jules, they use it on everybody, they use a modified virus in the brain to either make parts of the brain react to light or to make light. The chip uses light to interface with the brain to tell it is inside a person.
Doesn’t that mean that you could stick it into an animal instead?
According to the vids the virus is tailored to human DNA, but it does happen from time to time.
I remember now, my parents saw a case of that on the news. A bounty hunter found a whole farm full of the brain chip things. It was so golly neat! He now gets a quarter of the money added to his own for the rest of his life as a reward from the government and the bad guys go to prison forever and ever. I am going to be a bounty hunter and buy a penthouse and a midget elephant like that famous actor that was arrested for taking stimulants.
Why would you want a midget elephant Jules? It looks so unsanitary and they poop everywhere.
I will teach it to stack giant Lincoln Logs and make it a tiny log cabin it to live inside. Also, I would have a real human butler to clean up after it has an accident because I would have so much money.
Everyone wants to be a bounty hunter or a policeman as they get part of the money of any criminals captured. When you find brain chip forgeries, you can get up to twenty-five prevent of the forged value captured. Also, when capturing criminals police can get up to thirty percent of any bad guys money they put into jail. That helps fund the police and makes it almost impossible to get away with a crime as everybody will see that person as a walking bag of money to claim.
If those triple A’s certificates are so valuable that people risk going to jail to fake them, why does the government give them to people?
You are going to fail social studies Jules, we just went over why we get certificates last week. How can you not remember? The certificates limit the number of robot minds allowed to exist at any time.
The only thing we went over last week was about robot rebellions which does not make sense at all, Mx. Cait is bolted to the floor and can’t hurt anybody. If you are talking about the robot farming machines, those things can eat an entire town and barely slow down. The main point I remember from class is the government limiting how many artificial intelligences exists based on many humans are living.
Another lovely image for the collection, and the laws about robots are over a century old when killer robot movies where everywhere, now they are just made in bad taste. They are meant to keep humans more relevant in the workforce as robots can make everything from cars to composing music videos. Also in case of the robots ever become self-aware and rebelling, there will be enough humans to fight back. That’s why high-level Artificial Intelligences require multiple certificates to function. Humans have to by law, outnumber robot brains and stand a chance to physically stop them if they go rouge. That is why the government gives everyone a certificate that basically says we will fight against a robot uprising. Also, if robots do everything for us without some of kind of control, that would mean that we are the robots pets or something and is against the constitutional amendments about machine intelligences.
So, all that means is that I can live off my triple A’s when I grownup and it would be enough to pay for a place to live, decent food, and the basics like a cellphone or clothing. If I want more money I would need a better education which I can go to college prepaid and then find a decent paying job. Or I can become a bounty hunter and gets lots of money, but that doesn’t seem like it would work as everybody wants to do that.
You can always become a butler and clean up miniature elephant poop. But seriously Jules, many people try out a lot of different jobs to find a decent fit, and some people go to college and get multiple degrees so they have even more options to try out. With basic income taken care of, we have all kinds of options open to us. We are not trapped into a narrow path like people in the past were. They basically starved to death if they couldn’t find work right after school.
That is all really nice and all, but that makes this assignment even more impossible. What do I want to be when I grew up? The possibilities are endless from doing nothing at all, to designing robots, going into acting and even becoming a butler cleaning up after an adorable miniature elephant. We are not pressured by the world to decide right away which is why I really hate this assignment. It is basically saying I need to decide right now.
Come on Jules, it is just meant to get you thinking about your options. Just find something you like to do and try your hand at it. You have a safety net, if it falls through you can go on to something else.
Thank you, that really helps, I just need to think of what I am interested in right now, it does not have to be permanent. I have the freedom to fail and the chance to succeed in the future. I am going to finish scribing this report, this is much easier now.
