Innovation, Dustin Zhang ’22

Innovation

Dustin Zhang ’22

2060

Ding!

He felt the pleasant sensation of an awakening. The sunlight shone upon his blankets, the curtains having opened upon the approach of dawn. He took off his headset and glanced at the time. 6:45? Oh, right, he had a meeting this morning! He hurriedly put on his suit and brushed his teeth, thankful that that headset had worked; it normally did, but after all, there was always that one-percent chance.

He could already smell the scent of freshly fried eggs and toast. Downstairs, he scooped his finished breakfast out of the pan on the stovetop, relishing its taste, its consistency, everything about it. He decided to grab a cup of coffee as well; he pulled out the screen and swiped through all the options, before settling on a decaf. As the coffee began pouring into the paper cup, he anticipated the sensation of the warm drink flowing through his system, revitalizing him, preparing him for the meeting to come. If only the coffee maker could be like all his other appliances and automatically predict his preferences based on his habits and patterns . . . but oh well, one can’t have everything, he supposed.

Once he had finished eating, he brushed himself off, grabbed his papers and his keys, and walked out the door, which locked behind him and sent a signal to the rest of the house to begin cleaning. The sleek car in his driveway opened its doors, sensing the presence of its owner, and he climbed in. The prompt came up: [Suggested destination: Office?]. He tapped yes and leaned back in the comfortable seat as the engine came to life and the car backed out of the driveway, sending him onwards towards the rest of his day.

2100

The late morning sun was the first thing he saw as he peacefully arose from the depths of his slumber. The back of his portable movement device rose up, bringing him into a sitting position. A screen lowered from the ceiling above him; [Reminder: You have a meeting today in 1 hour.] His toothbrush, toothpaste already on it, was placed into his palm, and he quickly brushed his teeth.

The device wheeled him down the hall to the kitchen. He could smell the freshly cooked bacon and toast from his bedroom, and the sight of breakfast made his mouth water. He reached out to pick up the pan and place it on the tray that had extended out in front of him, before grabbing a fork and commencing eating. [Coffee?] the screen on the tray inquired, and he selected a grateful yes, waiting for his favorite mocha to begin pouring into the paper cup. In the meantime, the TV in the corner played the news.

“ . . . and developers at HaiTech Industries say they’re creating a new device that, as they put it, will ’completely revolutionize our day-to-day lives.’ We’ve heard that hundreds of times by now, but this time, they say, they do have a concrete plan . . . ”

More revolutionary technology? With the smart homes of the 50’s and the portable movement devices of now, the concept of yet unmade technology that could still cause change seemed alien to him. It was as if mankind had hit some cosmic limit, some boundary on how easy they could make daily life, some final extremity beyond which they could advance no more. Had they made machines do all that machines could do for them? Was innovation finite? He shrugged. It wasn’t the time to think about such lofty things. He turned back to one of his many screens and within a few moments was loading into his virtual workspace.

2120

8:00 AM

He awoke in a beautiful garden of red roses. The hyper-realistic flowers swayed in the simulated wind that tenderly brushed against him. A few months ago, he would have been in a small office building, laboring over something he didn’t care about; the rapid advent of FullImmersion™ had taken everyone by surprise. When HaiTech had first announced it, everyone had scoffed at the idea. But then, almost overnight, hundreds of millions of orders from all around the world had been placed. And now . . .

He felt like he could stay in this Eden forever; never hungering, never thirsting, never tiring—the machines catered to all his needs. And there was nothing back in the real world that needed him. Everyone he knew or cared about was plugged in; the global economy was run by artificial intelligences that took care of everything; there was just no point in doing anything but enjoying himself in this imaginary world.

Hey, man! His friend came running up to him. You want to hang out for a bit? Yeah sure, he responded. What do you want to do? 2200

He lived in a blissful haze of colors and grays, days and nights, happiness and happiness and happiness. He had not a single care in the world; after all, what was there to care about now? The machines took care of everything. Food? Nutrients pumped into the bloodstream. Sleep? Neural implants simulating its function. Interactions with others? Cleverly timed dopamine releases. Thinking?

Too much work; why think one’s own thoughts, when one could just live one’s entire life in heaven, detached from pain, detached from the real world, detached even from the self? The visionaries in the big corporations all foresaw this, knew that this was the logical next step as countless devices and gadgets simplified the human life more and more, as transportation, cooking, cleaning, walking, talking, awakening, all became obsolete, too wasteful of time, too mundane for a mere human to do. And now . . . oblivion, the sweet and pure nectar of happiness happiness happiness.

A pinprick, far up in the sky. Perhaps the machines saw it. Perhaps they conferred with each other about it. A marble. An orange. And then a blinding flash and searing heat and a deafening clamor as billions of eyes and ears and voices were all screaming in agonizing pain and billions of names drifted through the air and then it was all dark. As dark as it was in the beginning.