(I wrote this a couple of years back for a sci-fi competition, and no surprises for guessing that it didn't get shortlisted, given its cliched theme. There was a word limit; hence the narrative runs incoherently fast.)
Dreamy memories gave an
eerie vibe of a simulated reality when I regained my senses after an indefinite
time. Two men and a woman in black aprons surrounded me as I sat on a metallic
chair in a rather dull room with minimal furniture. They seemed weird because
they appeared to be naked but for a transparent wrapping beneath their aprons,
and were middle aged, with narrow eyes and small mouths, bald and featureless. They
introduced themselves as Dave, Pete and Kiara. I couldn’t recall how I arrived
there, and when. I couldn't tell where I was.
They looked at me curiously,
with anticipation. As my memories started trickling, I narrated my story – to check
my sanity and to satisfy their curiosity.
I, Agniv, an Indian
astronaut, Vyomanaut to be precise, took off for Alpha Centauri, the
nearest star system to the sun at 4.5 light years away. The Nakshatra spaceship,
powered by a breakthrough propulsion technology that could accelerate it close to
the speed of light, departed with three Vyomanauts in the year 2050 when
wearable 6G smart-devices with quantum computing were ubiquitous, and when
wirelessly rechargeable electric-vehicles and all-pervading A.I. in our lives witnessed
the demise of fossil fuels and handheld smartphones.
Soon after our take-off in
Nakshatra, however, I blanked out of consciousness, with an absolute
void of a memory. Now I was amid the three strange-looking, near-naked people.
Nakshatra was expected to be back
home by 2068. Except that I arrived in the year 2248, nearly two centuries
later, Kiara informed me. An unbelievable event, tragic at best and devastating
at worst. A malfunction could have accelerated Nakshatra much faster
than its targeted speed, causing a higher relativistic time dilation, resulting
in skipping 200 years on the earth. I had no idea what happened to my
co-travelers, or how I survived.
Two centuries! Everything
I knew of, certainly perished; everyone I had known –family and friends – were
no longer alive. I was a time traveler who didn’t belong there. In 2050, if we
woke up a guy from 1850s, he would faint at the magic of IoT and wearable smart
devices. He wouldn’t want to live in 2050. Was I going to be any different in
2248, alone of my kind and ancient to the ones alive?
“You look quite different than average people,
with soft voices and small mouths, dressed weirdly. Are you humans, or is my
mind being run through a simulation?”
The three nodded
thoughtfully, faint smiles playing on their faces.
I continued. “Did we
colonize planets around a hundred stars yet?”
Pete was the first to
speak. “The breakthrough technology to get to other stars was discarded and
never pursued again. It needed too much resources as you know, and none would
want to spend resources for sending people to interstellar destinations.”
“I can’t believe mankind
has stopped being curious! Did a 3rd world war happen? Did a virus wipe
out half of humanity? What made leaders save resources than to explore the
limits of the unknown?”
“You want to take a walk
out on the streets to see how the world looks like now?”
“I do, but I am scared,
frankly. It might all seem magic to me. Do teleporting people pop up and vanish
into thin air? Maybe I can’t distinguish between humans and robots walking together
on the streets!” The anticipation of seeing the world 200 years later was
beginning to overwhelm the grief of having lost everyone I knew of.
“You will be mildly amused
but pleasantly overwhelmed.” Dave chipped in. “Before we take you out, we need
to give you a background.”
“I’m all ears!”
“In 2060s, effort intensified
towards integrating nano-devices in the human body. Clinical trials were taking
over in treating diseases using nano-swimmers that drifted in our blood. Step
by step, major diseases including all kinds of cancer could be treated even at
their advanced stages using nano-swimmers that targeted malicious cells and selectively
repaired damaged DNAs. Multifunctional nanobots could open clogged arteries and
assisted heart to pump blood without fail, bringing down instances of heart
attacks. Almost all diseases were gradually cured and eradicated, including flu,
diabetes, TB and viral fever. Our devices could move in anywhere inside the
body, killing pathogens.”
“Nothing shocking. Nanotech
in healthcare has been expected to do such things since 2020s.”
“What you might find
interesting, Agniv, is that nano-biodevices were being merged with the
exponentially-advancing field of A.I. Deep learning algorithms found their ways
up to our brain. A.I.-powered nanobots drifted through our neurons, nerve cells
and blood.”
“You certainly have my
attention, Pete.”
“Even in your times, all
kinds of information, including personal information of almost everyone on the
planet, were up in the cloud. The nanobots inside our blood and brain cells –
were in sync with the global network of information, the giant cloud of data
and internet. The era of Internet-within-brains dawned.”
“That does sound like
sci-fi, after all! What kind of changes did we embrace once bionic nanodevices
with internet and A.I. got embedded in our brains?”
“All kinds of changes.”
“Like?”
“Imagine the entire
internet in your brain. You can access any piece of information instantaneously
and connect to anyone on the planet in the blink of an eye, not via a dumb
phone or a silly wearable device but direct brain-to-brain, mind-to-mind.”
“Like a giant global
network of human minds?”
“Yes. Mankind becoming one
single super-organism of infinite information and knowledge.”
“But where will you see
the information? You need a screen, a device. Connecting to others’ brains will
overwhelm me with their worries and thoughts. No?”
“With A.I-powered nanobots,
images can be conjured in your brain, bypassing the retina and photoreceptors.
The sensation and perception of image – or in fact of smell, touch, sound and
taste – are all formed in the brain. Nanobots connected to the cloud, helped
the brain get those sensations directly, skipping our sensory organs which otherwise
feed signals from the outside world. You believe and experience what your brain
makes you believe and experience. Nanobots could make you experience what
another person is experiencing, and your perception would be identical to that
of the other guy. A.I. would put appropriate filters to ensure their worries
don’t trouble you anymore.”
“That’s astonishing. When
did all these happen?”
“A century back.” Kiara
explained. “Our decisions, choices and judgements were the result of our
genetic makeup, experiences and the environment. Now, A.I.-powered-nanobots
embedded in our brain help us take the best decisions drawing from the
collective input of billions of humans, topped up with the best deep-learning
algorithms.”
“This sounds ruthlessly
futuristic, but I bet there’d be millions of poor and homeless folks out there.
There’d be extremists, selfish businessmen and corrupt politicians who would
always exploit the needy. Your nanobots inside the brain would be just futile against
this. Only a fraction of humanity is reaping the benefits, right?”
“About a century back,
people everywhere started to realize the social and economic inequalities that
plagued us. Consequently, everyone started to become selfless, caring and compassionate;
people redistributed their wealth and resources. Governments were dissolved and
nations were disintegrated peacefully to remove all man-made borders. Ten
billion people believed in a single species of homo sapiens.”
“That’s plain bullshit. People
can’t do that, not billions of people. Society is chaotic and will always have
disparities. What you’re saying is textbook definition of utopia. Terrorists won’t
give up fighting for religious beliefs, and the richest folks won’t give away
all their money in charity. Politicians won’t stop being corrupt and anyone
would think of his family first. How on earth can nations dissolve?”
“Except that it all
happened.”
“And what exactly would
the motivation be for working and doing jobs if wealth is equally distributed
among all?”
“There is no motivation.
Just that everyone believed in helping others, and in not having governments or
nations. Crime rate is flat zero, everywhere.”
“Impossible!” I cried out.
Dave chipped in again. “It
has happened, Agniv. Our negative traits like anger, greed and selfishness were
gradually eliminated, thanks to the giant cloud of human brains, guided and
pervaded by A.I. Terrorists, greedy businessmen and power-hungry politicians no
longer exist. We are in pure utopia.
Supply chain, logistics,
production of food, goods and services are all robotic now, including
agriculture and transport. The generation, storage and distribution of energy
is done by A.I.-powered bots in a self-sustaining manner. We no longer need to
interfere or give instructions to get electricity or food or water or anything.
Our needs and demands which are always in sync with the global network, are
taken care of by robots and A.I. We no
longer need currency or money. There is no concept of job or business anymore. We
humans have nothing to do except indulge in entertainment which feels as real
as you can imagine.
Our emotions are triggered
by chemicals secreted in response to appropriate dictates from the brain on
receiving sensory inputs. Now, nanobots in the brain can stimulate secretion of
hormones which make our experiences and emotions indistinguishable from the
real ones despite being AI-assisted algorithms. It’s as real as it gets. We’re
augmented humans.
We don’t need to speak as
we can understand each other, brain-to-brain. Hence our mouth and lips, our
vocal cords are weakening. It’s also artificially engineered biological
evolution, expedited at will.”
“I just can’t fathom it. No
one needs to work but everyone is selfless, there is no government or money. Robots
and A.I. generate energy and food. How fast is the population growing?”
“We stopped reproducing
about fifty years back. The hormones which give people pleasure while having
sexual intercourse, is now eliminated by nanobots. People don’t feel the urge
to have sex. Old age is pushed back indefinitely by engineering our DNA at the
atomic level. In principle, we will live forever. We decided to stagnate human
population. Everyone is nearly the same age now which is early thirties to
early forties - no children and no old people. We are immortals, frozen in time
at this age. It is utopia.”
I was shocked beyond my
own comprehension when they walked me outside. The streets were clean and empty
except for a few people walking naked in transparent wraps. Skyscrapers looked
the same everywhere. No vehicles and bikes. No shops. No restaurants.
Pete explained: “We
realized that there is no shame in others seeing our genitals. There is no
sexual urge as you know. The transparent wrap you see, is made of nano-fibers
with a million sensors that regulate our body temperature, monitor our health,
deliver medicines through interfacing nano-needles, protect us from rain or
wind, generates solar energy to power the nanodevices in our bodies. We stay
indoors and indulge in virtual experiences. Music, movies, games and art are
all created and conjured by the A.I. in us, our brain perceives it all directly
without the need for sensory organs like eyes or ears.
We don’t need to travel
anymore. Virtual meet with family and friends is as realistic an experience as
actually meeting them – even the sensation of touch, hugs and kisses – are all
engineered inside our brain cells.”
I was lost in thoughts: how
could all these possibly be true? This could be possible in only one scenario,
and that was infinitely scary.
“Humans aren’t humans
anymore.”
Kiara took out a needle,
pricked herself. Thick, crimson-red blood oozed out. “We are humans, very much!
Our hearts pump blood, and our bodies are still biological. Did you fear that
we were all robots, run by a super-powerful A.I., enslaving humans, making them
hallucinate and live in a matrix of fantasies? Like the ancient movie Matrix
from 2000s?” She smiled.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m
sure you’re all biologically humans. But the A.I. and the internet became
self-aware, didn’t they? It was artificial consciousness that emerged and
seeped into your brains even as nanobots swam inside your blood, took over
human consciousness, and started dictating your thoughts and actions.”
“You’re right about A.I. becoming
self-aware. It is ‘us’ now. We got rid of anger, greed and selfishness in
humans. No crimes, no violence. Isn’t that sheer utopia? Wouldn’t mankind want
that?”
“But you stripped us of
the very things that made us humans: our emotions and our ability to make our
own decisions.”
“You’re getting it wrong, Agniv.
We experience emotions in a way identical to what you or your contemporary
humans experienced. No change in that because the same set of hormones are
secreted in our bodies, albeit under the assistance of A.I. We still take our
own decisions, guided by a sentient A.I. inside our brains.”
“No!” I yelled. “It’s not homo
sapiens anymore. You’ve transformed into biological beings dictated by
artificial consciousness.”
“You’re over-reacting.
Wouldn’t you want to see a society which was equal in all aspects, free from
all maladies and malaises? Or would you want a society with increasing poverty,
chaos, rapes and murder, drug cartels, battles and wars that leave millions
handicapped and killed?” Pete thumped on my back gently.
“Are you going to embed
those nanobots in my brain too, and make me one of your kind? Sync me to the
global network of human minds? Strip me of my inherent decision-making
abilities?”
Kiara put her right arm
around my neck. “If you mix a cup of water to a cup of milk, stir it, and then
take a spoonful of it, would you get water or milk?”
“It’d be a mixture.”
“Same here. Artificial
consciousness (A.C.) did become self-aware, and it percolated all the way to the
network of human brains. Human consciousness is benefitting from the help provided
by A.C. Our overall consciousness is no longer biological or artificial in its
entirety. It’s an amalgamation of the two. We are humans, almost fully
biological, but with a consciousness which is partly artificial in origin.”
“Except that the
artificial component is the dominant one!”
“The choice is yours, Agniv.
We won’t enforce. You can use your fully biological consciousness to decide
whether you would want to continue living that way, or you’d like to become an
augmented human like us.”
I remained silent, and so
were they, for a few minutes. Was this utopia, or a dystopia presented to be
perceived as a utopia?
“Agniv, we found you near
a damaged space capsule, some ten miles from here on a field. You’ve no memory
since taking off in Nakshatra, and our records show that it never
reached Alpha Centauri. Your co-travelers didn’t survive. How did you come
back to earth? How did you propel it back from wherever you had reached?”
At that very instant, like
clouds giving way to a clear blue sky, the void in my memory started filling
up, slowly at first and then rapidly as memories crystallized. Suddenly, I
became aware of my recent past. I smiled. I recalled what propelled me back to
the earth - it was an entity which was neither artificial nor biological.
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