Heaven 2.0: Chapter 2 - Time Enough at Last
Emily
Miracles quickly become normal.
Pre-production samples, NDAs, and cords cluttered my desk. "Gifts" of machined aluminum and chrome, in every size, form factor, and price range from brands of every size, form factor, and price range, desperate for the most glancing mention, formed uneasy peaks wherever there was space. Fatigue coated every surface, settled into every corner of the office. A single file passage was carved into the mountain of ore, leading to a hastily procured green and white striped lawn chair seated across from my desk. On that chair sat Zachary Marc.
"I couldn't help but note the Mental Odyssey 2 in that pile? Um, no, the pile on your right," he pointed to the mixed reality headset.
"Huh? Oh, yeah."
"And," he continued, "I also notice it's still sealed. I greatly respect your newfound talents as a tech writer, but even you must have had some challenges critiquing it without even opening it."
"Well, we both know not a lot has changed between the Odyssey 1 and 2. Seemed like a waste to take it out of its box. Not because of the resale value or anything, it's just a lot more stable like that. That's a load bearing box. So thanks for that."
Zach took a deep breath. "Your style has always confused me."
"Your confusion always confused me. Here I am, private one on one, off the record, with the founder slash CEO of Mental. All the other girls will be so jealous, but me, I just want to know why?"
"You command a sizable audience. You obviously aren't impressed by our packages and emails. Maybe this is how I grab your interest?"
"I 'command' one percent of one percent of what some Silicon Valley propaganda rag pulls in. I doubt that's it."
"Maybe I like your style. Your 'command' of the English language. Your commitment to one hundred percent human written content."
"Oh, is that why you trained your AI on my stuff?"
"Why not learn from the best? I will confess, it is getting harder and harder to find new, good, one hundred percent human written long form content and you're a fairly prolific font of it."
"I wonder whose fault that is. I'm leaning towards the people who call writing 'content.'"
"Do you think none of the fault lies with the people choosing to use our tools?"
"They're just forced to play the game. The rules, set by algorithms made by companies like Mental, force people to use AI made by companies like, oh would you look at that, Mental, or risk getting shoved into obscurity. One person uses AI to write a book a day and now anyone who falls short of that doesn't 'make good fiscal sense.' So I think Mental shares the blame with . . . Mental."
"Well, Mental's stance is that without said algorithms to sort through the absolute deluge of conte— stuff, that audiences will be overwhelmed and unable to find what they like. And, to head off your next volley, yes, that means they will use our platforms less, or even worse, switch to a competitor. We're also just playing to incentives from a larger system; the NASDAQ."
"Funny how it's just incentives all the way down, until you hit starving artists and regular people and then it's a moral failing. Convenient stance Mental has that none of the fault lies with them. But what's your stance?"
"Oh I just toe the company line."
"Yeah, you toe the line in the sand that everyone else follows."
He paused, reaching over to the pile on his left. I held my breath as he carefully extricated the Odyssey 2 box. Nothing fell over.
"Not as load bearing as you thought. I wonder if there's a metaphor there?"
"Leave the metaphors to me."
"Noted. Maybe one day I'll tell you what I really think," he said while opening the box, "but until then here's something that 'rhymes' with it. The concept of blame is incorrect for this situation. More appropriate might be the concept of attribution. Fundamentally, as a technologist, I think technology has done more for the human race than any other application of our intelligence, the arts included. Art doesn't save the sick. I think at some level you agree with me there, and that's why you helped me start Mental all those years ago, and that's why, even after your come-to-Jesus moment, you still write about technology and not, I don't know, the opera."
"Ads don't save the sick either y'know, so I wouldn't go there so quickly. Maybe I write about tech cause it gives me the most opportunity to knock people like us down a peg. You may have bought the legal right to do everything you're doing with your infinite slurry 'experience generator', but you can't buy the moral right, the battle for 'hearts and minds' or whatever. You want people to like and admire you, not just begrudgingly tolerate you at best. And that internal discord, that's just fun to write about."
He allowed a smile. "You're mean."
"You'll be okay."
He took the Odyssey 2 out of the box and put it on my desk.
"You're mean, but you're right, at least in some respects. And I respect you for it. You're not some sycophantic known quantity. Lesser men and products shrink under your gaze, like this Odyssey 2. You hit the nail on the head; it is an uninspired piece of junk. You have a bloodhound's nose for bullshit and all the chaff that went into it, and the ability to extrapolate, see the second order effects that so many miss within our industry.
"What a flatterer," I batted my eyelashes, "this isn't all preamble to asking me to rejoin Mental is it?"
"No, no you'd be wasted writing company blog posts that, off the record, no one reads. No, I just want to extend an offer to an upcoming conference of ours. You've, uh, ignored our last few invites."
"They're just so far away."
"Time tends to go by faster in first class."
"Time goes by fastest watching the conference recording at three times speed."
He blinked. "Wow, I can barely parse out anything above two and a half."
"You can work up to it, go up by point one percent increments. I believe in you."
"Well, this conference really only works in person. Look, I don't want to buy good press, or 'hearts and minds'. I just want to know what you honestly think. To that end, consider us an open book. Anyone you want to talk to, any design docs you want to read, it'll all be made available to you. I hope that's enough to make you reconsider."
"Maybe."
"You'll leave me guessing until the day of?"
"You're a busy guy, I doubt it'll take up much of your headspace."
"I have a tendency to fixate."
"I'm okay letting you squirm a little bit."
"I reiterate, mean. I'd ask what I did to deserve this, but—"
"Enabled genocides, shot art in the leg, basically broke teenagers," I rattled off on my fingers.
"— but I think we both know, is what I was going to say. But thank you for reiterating," he winced.
"Well, I used your marketplace to sell my couch, so it's not all bad."
"Some people would pay for this kind of abuse."
"Tell me where to send the invoice."
He laughed. "I hope you'll accept this instead," he said, pulling a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket. "The Odyssey 3." It made the Odyssey on the desk look like caveman shit. I took it from him. It was heavy for a pair of glasses, but light for a headset. Looked reasonably stylish too, with a thick plastic frame that I assume was where they hid the electronics. I'll have to make use of his promise and ask for one of the spec sheets to see exactly how they did it. Not that I'd ever tell him, but it was impressive.
"All this just for my opinion?"
"That's right."
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing else."
"And you're aware that I'll be publishing said opinion, right? Even if it's negative."
"I look forward to reading it. Especially if."
I stood up. "Okay, you win, I'll stop by at your conference. I'd see you out but I don't think my little infrastructure can support two people leaving at once. Take care, Zach."
He got up and gingerly stepped through the stacks, with a grace probably unbeknownst to him until that moment as he weaved through errant bits and bobs. "Take care, Emily," he said before closing the door. Everything crashed. "Sorry!" he yelled.
"Idiot!"
While picking up everything that fell I couldn't help fixating on why he cared so much about my opinion. What was I, the chosen one? I resigned in protest, now I write to a tiny group of devoted giga-nerds who he'd never be able to win over, if he were to ever even notice their absence. I should be less than nobody to him.
I also kept coming back to the glasses. They, and the whole show he just put on around them, had me tentatively intrigued, which was more than I could say for most of the other junk in here. Sure they were sleek and all, whatever. But there's been so many duds lately in the tech world. Even AI has just sort of plateaued right into some local minima where it just took people's jobs without even having the decency of giving us space travel or something in return. There was less and less to look forward to, and big wins were measured not in terms of dramatic achievements, but in terms of rights and respect not lost. No sense of growing the pie for everyone anymore, but rather that the bakery shut down and now we all had to fight each other for the last scraps. Maybe these would be the thing to hit escape velocity and change the world again. The smartphone of the 2030s. We could have another honest-to-God pie before the Mentals of the world start shoving ads in it. To my shock, I was actually kind of looking forward to trying them out.
I wrapped my work up as soon as I could and headed home. I ordered a pizza online and started setting up the device. I figured I could get through all the busywork before it got here and maybe watch a movie or an 'experience' while I ate.
Putting them on I was thrust into a world of menus and login screens. To their credit, they were the most engrossing login screens I had ever seen. They slowly danced before me, in a space much larger than my apartment. They were cycling through old photos on my Mental account, given new life through the AI powered photogrammetry, which took my two dimensional images and reconstructed them in a three dimensional space I could stroll through while reading the terms and conditions. One minute I was back in France, and then I'd be transported to India.
I entered my information on a projected keyboard with the same ninety seven words per minute I bragged about hitting on my laptop's keyboard. I'm sure I looked stupid, typing away on an invisible keyboard, while gawking, mouth open, at the backdrops behind the forms. I tried to stifle the urge to close my curtains to make sure no one could see me. VR embarrassment was probably something Mental was going to have to figure out. Unless it was just an old people thing; maybe kids who grew up with it wouldn't have the same reservations?
The background cycled from a reconstruction of the ocean, drawn from photos I took scuba diving in Australia, into a view at the end of a path I used to walk in college, overlooking the whole town. I'd know it anywhere. It was peak Autumn, trees of all colors stretched out for miles, birds circled overhead, the town was getting ready for Halloween, and . . .
I gasped. My heart started racing. My fiance, made 3D, made real by AI. He smiled at me. He looked just like he was immortalized in the photo, wearing the same dumb orange-black athletic jacket, joggers, his crutches. I stared back, stunned. He waved. He looked so lifelike. I walked closer to him, circumnavigated him awkwardly. The AI wasn't perfect, how could it be? It couldn't know how he slouched on his left side, how his hair was always messy in the back, how his eyes flittered back and forth between mischief and consequence. It only had one photo of him, from the front, posing the best he could, to get to know him. But it was an amazing attempt.
"Emily, are you ok?" The voice was accurate. There must be recordings of him somewhere in Mental's data centers.
"Huh?"
"You're crying a little."
I ripped the glasses off. Fuck, he was right. I never thought I'd get to see him again, outside of pictures. Not like this. It feels like I can almost reach out and hug him.
I put the headset back on. The image had cycled to another one.
"Wait no, bring it back. Bring him back!"
Nothing. I stifled tears as I rushed through the rest of the forms. The pizza got cold as I finished setting up the device. I immediately booted up the experience generator. A cold text box greeted me. "Please, please. Take me back to that photo with Jay at college," I whispered into the mic.
The birds and trees sprung back. Jay sprung back. This was grotesque. This was wonderful. I smiled and waved. He waved back. Under the glasses I sobbed.
