Flash Fiction: Your Future Destination

When AI knows more than you let on...

A slight deviation from the usual posts, I thought I would share in this space, a flash fiction story that I wrote several years ago. It was even featured in the

New_ Public

. While they published it here, because of the licensing (Creative Commons all the way), I also shared it on my blog when it first came out.

Your Future Destination

My future arrived on a Thursday. Future Destination knew when and where I needed to go. Silicon Valley showered the company with accolades as the second coming of the wheel or rather, the second coming of the FAANG; after all, the wheel yielded to gravity, but anticipated auto arrival (A³ in tech lingo talk) yielded to unspoken human desire; the profit possibilities were infinite. They scooped up business, municipal, state, and federal driving contracts by the second and eventually, could calculate not only who they would sign with next but also the exact pricing point. Why discuss and debate, when it could just be so easily decided?

The A.S.T.R.A.L. (anticipated single-travel road-auto line) vehicle waited in my (no-longer needed) driveway. It chauffeured me along the idyllic and rustic county road, old Route 55, exactly where I wanted to go. It serenaded me with a long and wailing ballad from my teenage years. The magic of algorithms; they plowed into all customer data for everything: social networks, dating apps, health trackers, medical history, calendars, shopping habits, eating preferences; hell, even bathroom visits. It was all there to sort and match once we began nano-chipping babies. First the slap; then the chip, as they said. Future Destination took all of that and fed it into their machine. Sure enough, at a 99.9999% success rate, transportation arrived within 2 minutes before needing it.

The ride was smooth; the interface, friendly. I felt so at ease. They made traversing through life so efficient. The assumed desire met before one had time to think; so much profit to be had. Though the creators never fully realized how implied desires with unchecked automation could create unforeseen consequences, their progress continued unimpeded with little negative fanfare. I never spoke my desire, but the mindless algorithms captured the patterns; some part of me was hoping for it.

It knew where to pull off the road and into the ravine without any embankment to block us. Of course, I could only laugh when I saw the ambulance and medic-bots at the bottom of the ravine, waiting. Apparently, Future Destination had scored that contract too.

The End

Image source: DALL-E 3 from ChatGPT 4

Part of the reason I decided to include this here is that I generally like fictional and also think it is a fun way to thinking about and exploring these things. I’ve had a couple of ideas about using fiction in this space and so this is my test ballon. I could imagine doing short fiction around different relevant ideas and questions I have with generative AI and am curious if folks will find this helpful or interested. Leave a comment below and let me know!

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AI+Edu=Simplified by Lance Eaton is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International