Thoughts on
MOM’S MESSAGE
“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”
It is not the job of a sci-fi author to predict the future (Ray Nayler has a great essay on that), nor is it the point of the genre. That said, with Mom’s Message, I tried to do it anyway.
I aimed to describe a vision of 2054 Seattle as accurate as possible to what the world will be like in 30 years, both culturally and technologically. While I will be off the mark on many of these predictions (AI and algorithms will likely be far more prevalent than I am capable of imagining in fiction, and I’m honestly not sure if MR/AR/VR will ever take off), I’d bet money on others.
In terms of labor, I believe UBI will be implemented in the United States. Automation will take over many tasks we consider jobs now (the last jobs to go will be the ones that require the human-on-human touch, like social and environmental work), and the four day work week will become commonplace. Socially, non-binary pronouns will become normalized, and some form of universal health care will finally be embraced. While AI will become prevalent, I do not think we will reach ASI or even AGI by 2054, because I believe making an AI as powerful as a human mind is much harder than we realize.
2054 is my estimation for the year the human population goes down, and this decline is going to disrupt much of the world, especially the countries who can’t cope by implementing immigration reform in a newly deglobalized society. Feedback loops of climate change and environmental destruction are also going to increase, but at a decelerated rate as green technology evolves and population drops (which I suppose makes population decline a partly positive prediction; I would be the first to agree with Minnie that the world does not need more humans). Emotionally and psychologically, depression, loneliness, suicide, and general lack of purpose will get worse, not only in the US but in most developed countries.
Then there’s the visors. Indeed, since writing this story I am no longer confident that augmented reality will end up being the next step after cell phones. Having had the opportunity to observe the aftermath of Apple’s recent crack at the tech, not to mention Google’s attempt from several years back, it’s easy to say that, at least for the moment, mixed reality is being rejected by the zeitgeist. I think Marques Brownlee put it best when he said “the smart phone is OP.”
The tech will get better, though, and then comes the true test. After headsets become burdenless contact lenses or screenless alternatives become more cheap and convenient than cell phones, will humanity make the choice to bury ourselves deeper in cyberspace, or will handheld devices are enough to satisfy us?
Time will tell.
“Today you’re one year older and one year wiser. Maybe it’s time to give broccoli another go?
No matter what, you’ll always be my baby.”
I have enjoyed Nintendo’s Animal Crossing games from time to time.
The subreddit for these games is overwhelmingly a place of acceptance, empathy, and happiness. But there is a dark side to it all, as many players are sad about how their real lives don’t match up to the lackadaisical flow of the games. They cannot wake up late walk around and talk to neighbors, and go fishing every day of their real lives. Some players evidently lead lives of loneliness in the real world, claiming they have no one to spend their real birthday with, but at least have their friends in the game.
I have to emphasize: The NPCs in Animal Crossing are nearly identical copies of each other that incessantly repeat phrases, yet still people grow attachments to these characters. If this is how people get with their Animal Crossing villagers, how are people going to act when Machine Learning NPCs start acting and responding exactly how a real human does? Alternatively, am I wrong to question this so long as lonely people are finding peace and happiness, even if it’s from code?
Then I saw how Animal Crossing players reacted to the “Mom letter” that appears seasonally in the mail: despairing over the fact that their mother was a narcissist or abuser, or missing them because they died of cancer when they were fifteen, or apathetic because they never knew their mom at all. Others were grateful; here is an article by a player who lost their Mom with more wisdom on the phenomenon than I could possibly possess.
In the end, that’s why I wrote this story. Mom’s Message is a reminder that, for those of us so fortunate to have people in our lives who love us, we should be grateful for this. Even better, we now have the tools to connect to those people more easily than ever before in human history.
And you don’t have people who love you, well . . . we can only do our best to make connections. Internet’s right here. Hit me up on discord.