Speculative Futures

A Dystopian Speculative Future

Minanfotos (2021). City landscape color. Photograph. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/city-landscape-color-nature-3542248/

In the not-so-distant future, the world is a very different looking place. There has always existed a gap between those who have the technology and those who do not, but over time that gap has become a dark chasm.

It all started in the early 2030s when paper products were deemed to be a major environmental hazard. A halt was put on all forestry and processing of paper products, from printer paper and books to lumber and furniture. A culture of reduce, reuse and recycle became the norm. It sounded like a sound environmental strategy, but those who relied on the printed word for the education and the support of schools rapidly fell behind as their textbooks became outdated and their supplies needed for learning rapidly dwindled. People became concerned for the wellbeing and mental development of their children, while areas that relied on primary industries for their economy began to degrade and break down.

When this started to happen, those who could afford to began to migrate in search of a better life. Families streamed from great distances in search of the places that technology reigned supreme and after the paper ban, life not only continued on as normal, it thrived. Where cities such as Tokyo, Silicon Valley, Vancouver, Mumbai, and Paris once stood, there emerged a new type of city. A city-state governed by technology. Education in these states took on a drastically different method; all learning was centered around the maintenance and advancement of technology. Texts existed purely in digital forms while students took lessons on the language of code alongside learning how to read. Authorship of new writings became less common as predictive algorithms voraciously consumed the contents of the pre-existing libraries of knowledge and became the primary means of information production. Humankind’s relationship with text became one-sided, focused on consuming only.

With the influx of residents and the resulting economic upturn, these areas began to grow. They became shining metropolises of advancement and technology. With the need for space and infrastructure, local governments overturned the environmental laws that had decimated so many areas around the world. The harvesting of the natural world was harsh. It allowed for these cities to grow at alarming rates while devastating the resources around them. The cities grew into gleaming jewels of human progress, while surrounded by the murky stain of human consumption. While life had prospered in these technology-driven areas, abandonment by residents meant that the areas they left behind became desolate and decrepit. This change in law also accomplished an unintentional side effect: it angered those who still resided outside of the cities.

This was the beginning of the conflicts. People living outside the walls of the tech-cities began to raid them in search of resources to help them survive. Those who lived within the walls began to demand their governments protect them. Technology leaders developed algorithms to find those who would be best suited to help guard the cities. Algorithms poured through all available data, from Facebook posts to surveillance data to medical information. Those selected were elevated to the position of state military police, tasked with protecting the secrets of the technology. That was still not enough for the citizens, protests filled the streets each night and anger filled the online sphere. Politicians were goaded into using the same algorithms to analyze their own citizens, identifying potential problem makers and defectors, taking them into custody before they could cause problems.

Outrage grew both inside and outside the cities. Conflicts grew in scale and violence until finally those who governed the states felt there was no alternative: war. And war always ends the same way.

A Utopian Speculative Fiction

Lee, C. (2021). The spruce. Photograph. The Spruce. https://www.thespruce.com/home-office-organization-ideas-4586995

Adam awoke gently to the sound of his Thursday morning alarm. The pressure sensor in the bed had been monitoring his sleep cycle, choosing to softly awake him when in his shallowest sleep during his programmed acceptable wake window. It made for a pleasant start to the day. Adam stretched his arms, yawned, and sauntered to the bathroom to complete his daily routine.

After exiting the bathroom, Adam walked to his closet where the touch screen on the wall warmly chimed to life. “Good morning Adam,” the soothing voice came from speakers unseen, “I have taken the liberty of selecting three possible outfits based on today’s weather, your scheduled activities for today, and your previous Thursday outfit selections.”. A faint mechanical whirring came from inside the closet and when Adam slid open the doors, his clothes were hanging neatly. He tapped his preferred option on the touch screen and the closet rod slid forward for him to grab his clothes.

After getting dressed, Adam came downstairs and went to his fridge. The possibilities of what he could make flowed across the screen on the front of the fridge collaborated between the internet access and the history of his last shopping trip. A smoothie seemed appealing, so Adam opened the doors, gathered the ingredients, and set about making breakfast. The digital assistant voice chimed again from the depths of the house. “Adam, according to traffic patterns, you should depart for the office in the next 10 minutes.”. Grabbing his keys, Adam left the house, the security system locking itself as the hidden cameras watched the owner depart the premises.

The biometric scanner built into the front door of the office beeped quietly as Adam grasped it and admitted him to the office. Adam took off his coat, made his way to his corner office, and took his seat. The coffee maker whirred to life as he took his seat and Adam gestured his passcode into the camera above the computer, the motion completing the security protocols. Adam ran through his day in his head, he had some notes to complete before starting. He typed the first word into his keyboard, allowing the predictive algorithm to complete his thought. He waved his hand mindlessly, using the motion gestures to approve or override the suggestions made by his text software. An alarm chirped from his computer, alerting him that his next task was about to start.

Adam started up the camera app, checked his hair, and launched the broadcast software. He smiled widely as he connected to his classroom and waved to the camera. Two dozen black rectangles greeted him, each emblazoned with the initials of his pupils. Too cool, as usual. Adam typed into the computer, allowing the computer software to enunciate his words for him. He had long given up on trying to talk with his students, each of them preferring to complete their group tasks with the AI software prompting the conversation or using text as their primary method of communication. Remote learning was supposed to be temporary, but with the option to travel anywhere while learning, many families had permanently made the change.

Adam clicked his mouse, distributing the copies of the novel that they would be working with today. He missed the days of feeling the weight of the books in his hands and seeing the well-worn pages that he lovingly repaired, but the practicality of trying to ensure students carried materials with them was not worth the effort. He assigned their reading pages, clicked off the camera, and waited patiently for any questions. His co-teacher AI filtered any basic queries, forwarding only those questions that it was not equipped to answer. That happened less and less these days.

Adam sighed, leaned back, and dragged the PDF of the novel into his lesson generation program. He let the program work, sipped his coffee, then curated the suggested lessons for his upcoming classes. The texts he approved were instantly uploaded to his file storage and classroom website for future reference. Another alarm chirped on the screen. Adam flipped over to his next classroom where he repeated the same process with his second classroom. Technology had made his job so efficient that he could now do the job of two teachers without setting foot in a school.

He glanced out the window of his office wherein the room across the hall, and in many like it, another teacher was doing the same job. Adam didn’t even know her name. Adam loved teaching and had become incredibly tech literate to do this. He was well-respected in the learning community and even had published some articles on AI-assisted, remote teaching. But Adam missed talking to people.