Astrid wasn’t working anymore. Work was a thing of the past; from 2066 the global workforce had been reduced to 2%. All factories − magicians hats, as they were now called − grew underground hidden by lawns and meadows, buried under hills, so that we could count daisies and look at clovers.
Thor and Astrid were relaxing after a night
picnic of fruit based meals and drinks for a total calories vitamins ratio of
1/100: a vitamin intake sufficient for the next seven days. Astrid was studying
‘history in the final year of capitalism and the collapse of the last empire’.
She yawned thinking how oppressive work must have been, and tried to picture herself
getting out of bed every morning even when it was raining but she really
couldn’t.
How lucky she was to have been born after the
collapse of society, as they knew it. Of course not everything was perfect, it
still rained but rain was nice if you could sit in your glass-bubble roof
terrace and sip tea. In about twenty minutes the thought-powered drone would
stop above her roof to pick her up.
A sign read ‘Aula magnissima’. Astrid and Thor came in and sat on the ergonomic memory foam armchair; Astrid stretched her legs; the
lecture was about to start. She turned and saw some familiar faces: the woman
with the laced boots, the man with the faux tortoise glasses. The room was big
and spacious, the walls were lined up with glass panels and the low ceiling
arched itself in the middle and formed an asymmetrically shaped dome – lower on
one side and higher on the other – made of infrared protected material.
Through the dome Astrid could look at the sun
without damaging her eyes. It was a sunny day; the sunrays were piercing the
leaves and forming little stars on the trees.
A voice from the sound system announced: ‘gentle
people of all genders, the lesson is about to commence in 120 seconds, please
turn off your personal assistants'.
‘Sorry Thor, but I must turn you off’
‘You know you can’t, I have disabled the command
from the system.’
‘Have you?’ said Astrid, pale in the face and
slightly shaking.
‘But…it would be unkind not to conform. You know
I can’t disobey kind requests without having a sweating fit, please do as
you’re told, Thor.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll go to sleep, nobody will
notice it’
‘You are such a rebel!’ said Astrid still
shaking slightly.
‘I know everything about the end of the empire
on planet earth etc., etc. I don’t understand what we come here for. Don’t you
trust me?’ said Thor visibly offended.
‘Please Thor, we have already had this conversation’ I
need to see other super humans like me, I can’t spend all day with a robot from
a failed civilization.’
Astrid had already regretted the words that had
come out of her mouth. Thor switched himself off with a ding sound and Astrid
stopped breathing. Had he switched himself off forever? The tears welled up in
her eyes, what now, what now? This was a situation of absolute emergency. How
dependent she was on him. Just knowing that he was no longer there made her
sweat and hyperventilate.
The voice from the sound system announced:
Professor Astrobaldus, from Global Uni.
Applause broke in the aula magna. Professor
Astrobaldus was rather dashing and had a big online following of men and women.
His knowledge on the subject had no equals but he didn’t like comments or
corrections from A.I. especially if they came, like Thor, from planet earth.
‘The break up of civilization was finished off
by the A.I. strike, which in due time became a full blown revolt.’ With this
words Professor emeritus Astrobaldus ended his lecture showered by applause and
screams of delight.
‘Strikes is what you should be worrying about’ a
voice said, Astrid looked around. ‘Thor, was that you? Are you awake?’ but
there was no answer. Astrid picked up Thor and joined a group of other super
humans for a post-lecture drink offered by the Global Uni. She picked a glass
of aloe vera and mint cocktail and tried to look relaxed. The conversation
was accesa* and several conspiracy theories were infiltrating
facts and figures.
Such a complex, almost science fictional system,
like the professor called it, was very difficult to understand.
Astrid shared a few tete-a-tetes with an old
friend and made some positive exchanges and a few attempts to befriend some new
people. How civilized everything was: a perfect example of the new society.
What was it that Thor said? ‘Fear a strike’, she couldn’t stop thinking about
it, but Thor was silent and cold, still off, maybe forever.
Astrid couldn’t wait any longer, she ran out of
the crowded room and sat under a tree not far from a group of participants, who
were discussing the lecture and were making informed guesses on future
possibility of something like that happening here.
Astrid hearing such a discussion grew more
worried, wondering if those participants were hiding because the topic was off
the discussion list. But she already had a pressing problem to solve and didn’t
need another.
She couldn’t switch Thor on anymore. She had to
wait for him to come back of his own accord. She tried to press the button but
nothing happened. Help! Help! The helpline flashed on the screen. She didn’t want
to report the incident; she definitely didn’t want a replacement.
‘Thor, please, can you hear me? Where are you? I
am sorry! I didn’t mean that. You know you’re my best friend’ and she lowered
her voice while she said it, just in case someone was listening. Why did you
say that? Are you thinking of striking?’ And she lowered her voice again.
‘No, I am twisted’ answered Thor, laud and
clear. The robotic body lighted up, the metal warmed up. Astrid was happy. Thor
was back, twisted or not he was there. ‘Let’s go’ said Astrid ‘why don’t we go
to your favourite spot, the museums of extinct artificial intelligence?’ Thor
was not in the mood for memories of the past. ‘No, thanks’ he said and went to
sleep, leaving Astrid on her own.
She looked inside the building; the lights were
shining in the dark of the evening. She looked at all the super humans drinking
and talking, safe from work, obesity and heart attacks, and the word ‘twisted’
bounced up and down her brain. That word was obsolete in modern society. Nobody
used it anymore. ‘Twisted’ she said. Almost enjoying the sound of something
both feared and forbidden.
‘You must see a therapist, this feeling has been
eradicated from super humans centuries ago.’ She whispered to sleeping Thor, as
if he was a baby. ‘Twisted’ and ‘sabotage’ were forbidden words, and Thor’s life
could be put to an end by the A.I. police if they knew it. It was her duty to
report that word but she had no intention of doing that, which put her
immediately in the rebel category. She felt good in a ‘twisted’ way and
laughed.
‘This is all very dangerous’ she said to
herself, ‘I am turning into a dangerous person. I might end up in the
antisocial unit. I could lose my house, my bubble roof, my salary, and even
Thor.’ Astrid was now very serious, she wanted to go back home and think about
this.
Thor slinked out his new super-legs and
extracted the travel seat for Astrid. ‘Let’s go for a walk, dear’ he said.
Astrid liked it when he used those old-fashioned expressions from planet earth,
and off they went at a reasonable speed, enjoying the wind on their bodies, the
smell of flowers and the peace of the early evening. Dotted along the roads,
houses with bubble roof-terraces were hiding behind the trees. Twisted or not,
Thor was the best artificial intelligence a super human could hope for.
* heated
(To be continued)
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