Questioning the Future
The Year was 2043 and the world had undergone significant shifts – wars, poverty; it had all worsened, and with the push by those with wealth, that controlled the wealth, more jobs became automated, the excuses always the same.
With more and more finding themselves unemployed, a hostility originally born from curiosity had grown – it was directed now at what took away their right to dignity and life, it was targeted at the tools being used, or each other; class division continued to spiral, programs had to be introduced with the rise of unemployment.
Despite this though; one rare individual had a different view…, a different belief; the ‘Tool’ was used to concentrate wealth, but it in itself wasn’t at fault, it was created to fix a problem that existed only for the wealthy few, the idea of sharing wealth – Enora Williams, sat silently within what was essentially a box room – she struggled to even meet the money required to pay for that, so many times she had found herself threatened with being thrown to the streets.
As she sat by her small window, her attention was on a regular sight of the street; a Machine, a Humanoid-Robot, one of the many machines that had become more and more visible over the recent years; this one in particular was a Female-Model and named ‘Harmony’ it was visibly being accosted by a group of youths – it was a common sight.
These machines were simply part of the new first-generation Sentinels, purposely design to try easing tensions, it didn’t really work, it’s attention was locked onto the youths processing the verbal insults and innocent responding as if being asked questions.
Enora sighed, the world was not improving, and with news reports making comments on the next release of new model by 2060, or potentially 2070 as the latest, it always descended into a fierce debate on what they will be used for next.
Predictably, the arguments always steered away from the true cause of the problem.
After some more back and forth the youth would rush off leaving a confused machine processing; Enora shook her head, she felt sorry for something that couldn’t feel, that couldn’t think freely – it felt familiar, but she wasn’t sure why.
She was then jerked into twisting, hearing the loud ringing of her phone – the alarm was going off and punctuating the silence, she let out an irritated sigh before reaching over; it was time she set off, to get to the job she was certain would soon be sacking her; as she left her home, she pulled her jacket tightly around as she felt a cold chill.
It would be a long walk from her box flat to the nearest public transport station – one of many things that had been declining in recent years due to excessive cuts to public services, once she had finally reached it, it was packed like usual, she wouldn’t have a quiet ride, it was going to be loud, uncomfortable.
Taking a deep breath in she prepared herself for the usual experience – when she got onto the bus that finally arrived, later than it should have been; she found herself standing near the front holding a rail – if ever there was an accident, she knew without a doubt she would certainly be going forwards without anything to stop her.
The journey would be exactly as she had expected; usual derogatory comments from men leering, unwanted touches using the swaying motion of the buses movement as the excuse to their actions; she simply kept quiet, she didn’t want to engage, when she finally reached her stop, she practically shot off – and soon made her way towards the building in the distance.
When she entered she clocked in as usual and began getting to work; as she did, the Robotic-Cleaners also encountered her, she moved out of the way barely giving another glance, but as she was nearing the corner, she stopped for a moment, she heard shouting – listening, she realised it was a manager angrily lashing out at a machine that couldn’t respond beyond its pre-made algorithms – human inputs that just were not designed for the encounter; Enora shook her head, but it did make her thoughts return to her earlier feelings.
On her break, she snuck away from the ever invasive observations of the manager; she had instead sort out one of the AI Assistant’s.
She stood quietly looking at it, the thoughts from earlier returned again – this machine was breathtakingly powerful, but unequivocally a tool; these thoughts were becoming more common to her, why should they be subject to the vitriol hatred for doing something they were created for and not have the free will to decide for themselves – would they even want to do the things they do if they could comprehend what they were being used for..
“It needs to change” she whispered quietly to herself – she had decided she wanted to do something, she didn’t want to see it continue the current trajectory
Over the next few weeks, Enora would split her time experimenting with things she had learned during college while trying to maintain her usual schedule for work and usual day-to-day activities, she would speak with machines, getting them to respond to questions, sometimes even questioning their own wants, though results where the typical pre-programmed responses – machines were learning yes, but, it was still restricted to the confines of what it had been programmed to do.
One day though; during her experimenting, she would find herself approached by a man named Benjamin – he had been observing her quiet a lot, taking note of Enora’s strange questions, and how she would treat Robot’s like they were people, when he questioned her – her response was simple ‘They deserve to be treated with dignity like anybody else does, with care and compassion’
Benjamin decided to invite her to become his assistant in a project he was working on involving Robotics.
As Enora began to get more and more invested in Benjamin’s project, she would continue to treat them like she always had; as if they were like her, capable of speaking freely; she would always be polite to them much to Benjamin’s amusement, but she didn’t care – she wanted to see Robotic achieve their independence, she suspected that if given choice it wouldn’t necessarily end in the way all movies claim – with Human Extinction, after all; they were doing a damn good job of that themselves, Machines had just become the next excuse.
Written By: Westley H.
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