The Utopia Experiment

6

Christian Dresner beamed from the lectern as the dull click of thumbs on cell phones filled the convention center. Smith didn’t have anyone to text since he still had no idea why he was there, so he just sat quietly and tried to wrap his mind around the potential of Dresner’s new hardware.

To call it revolutionary was an almost laughable understatement. Smith was one of the few people who had recognized Dresner’s hearing aid for what it was: a first hesitant step on the road to changing humanity forever. What made it so new — so extraordinary — was that it had been the first prosthetic that wasn’t a wildly imperfect facsimile of what had been lost. Instead, it was an order-of-magnitude improvement over what evolution had spent millions of years creating. In the end, his great accomplishment hadn’t been helping impaired people to hear. It had been demonstrating that we were entering a world where Mother Nature could be beaten at her own game.

This step, though, was in no way hesitant. Dresner was throwing humanity headlong into what could be the next phase of its existence. Where would it go? Where would it stop? Hell, where should it stop?

Smith looked over at Janine, but she was completely immersed in her iPhone — a device that had seemed so sophisticated a few minutes ago but now seemed a little like a steam-powered stone tablet.

Having said that, a few critical questions needed to be answered. First, did it really work? Innovative technology was great but if it was hard to use or impractical, it tended to fade pretty quickly. Touchscreens, headsets, and standard voice interfaces already worked pretty well.

The second was about the body modifications. He’d spent his life trying not to be perforated and, with the exception of a few stray bullets and a knife or two, had been fairly successful. Would average people want to have bolts screwed into their skulls for the privilege of getting rid of their smartphones?

He glanced at Janine again, noting the diamond nose stud and the colorful tattoo on her upper arm. There was his answer. The generation after his seemed to look at body modification with the same trepidation he felt when changing his shirt.

The sound of thumbs on plastic died down and Dresner began pacing again, the screen behind him following along as though it were connected to cameras embedded in his retinas. “As all of you know, a piece of hardware is only as useful as the software available for it. In the end, the Merge is just a platform. It’s what we’re putting on that platform that really interests me. Of course, we have all the basic apps you’d expect: phone, email, social networking, GPS, and the like. But we’ve also created applications for the financial services industry and politics — two areas that are critical to society and I think everyone agrees need help.”

“Oh, God,” Janine mumbled, a look of horror overcoming her youthful features. “He may have invented the coolest technology since the printing press and he’s going Boy Scout on us.”

Dresner seemed to read her mind. “But don’t worry. We’ve done some fun stuff too.”

On screen, the doors of the convention center burst open and a horde of blood-drenched vampires rushed in. It was realistic enough to elicit more than a few screams from the audience as they spun in their chairs to take in the empty room behind them. When they turned back to Dresner, he was holding his hand like a gun, happily picking off the ghouls as they charged up the aisle.

“No way!” Janine said, attacking her Twitter account again. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And I once saw George Clooney in a Speedo.”

The monsters faded and Dresner looked out over the slightly ruffled crowd. “The strange truth is that the main idea here wasn’t the hardware — I just needed something to run the search engine I had in my head.” He paused for a moment, seeming to ponder his next words. “The problem with the Internet — and the world in general — isn’t the availability of information, it’s that there’s too much information. And most of it’s nonsense. But what if we had a way of instantly vetting the quality of what we’re taking in? And I’m not just talking about things we look up on the ’net, I’m talking about everything around us.”

He motioned to Bob Stamen again. “Could you stand up one more time?”

He did, if a bit reluctantly, and an icon on the screen that looked like a listing wedding cake activated. Suddenly Stamen was surrounded by a hazy green aura, and his name hovered over his head in subtle lettering.

“We’ve managed to crack the facial recognition problem by hijacking the brain’s built-in software for it. So you can see that my new search engine — LayerCake — knows who Bob is and gives him a nice green glow to tell me that he’s a good guy. Based on what, you’re probably asking. Well, based on everything available in the public record — Wikipedia, news articles, and so on. LayerCake goes through all those things, combines them to some extent with what it knows about my own personal values, and then gives me the benefit of its analysis. Now, why did I pick on Bob? Because he’s the very image of the person you want to marry your daughter — he runs a terrific charity, he has no criminal record, he has a perfect credit rating, and so on.” Dresner grinned. “Not everyone here would probably get quite that deep a shade of green.”

The laughter from the crowd was polite, but also a little nervous. Everyone was obviously pondering the same thing Smith was. What would LayerCake think of them?

The color of the icons running down the left side of the screen now made more sense, too. The stock market icon that had been pale green a few minutes ago darkened perceptibly, undoubtedly reflecting the real-time movement in Dresner Industries’ stock price as the texts and tweets of people in the crowd flew around the world. The weather icon went from green on the left to red on the right, probably reflecting the current sunny skies over Las Vegas and the storm front predicted to arrive that night.

“But it doesn’t just work on people,” Dresner said, walking back to the podium and looking down at the headset he’d discarded earlier. It had the same warm green glow as Bob Stamen.

“So why does LayerCake like this headset? I just said you shouldn’t trust the Internet, right?” The icon expanded and a list of hyperlinks appeared: “reviews,” “value,” “details,” and “where to buy.” The “reviews” link expanded and a list of sites including Amazon, ConsumerSearch, and CNET came up. The stars were gone, though, and their ratings were displayed through the glow around their logos.

“You’ll notice that some of the colors are more transparent than others. That tells you how much data LayerCake has and how authoritative it thinks it is. For instance, it’s going to feel pretty good about Consumer Reports no matter what. But with Amazon, it’s going to take into account the number of reviews and weigh each one based on feedback.”

It was a concept with incredible potential. Smith wondered if one day he’d be able to glance at patients and determine how they were doing just by the color of their aura — confident that LayerCake was taking into account everything from the blood workup entered seconds before by a basement lab tech to a related illness that occurred twenty years before.

Dresner put down the headset and strode back to center stage with a hundred sets of eyes locked on him. “Obviously, there’s too much to fully explain here today, so the user manual for both the hardware and the software we’ve developed will be released on our website after the conference. In the meantime, let me open it up to a few questions.”

Smith threw his hand in the air, as did every other person in the convention center.

Dresner pointed to a man at the back and a microphone was passed down to him. On screen, a name popped into existence over his head, but it was a neutral color. Dresner had turned off the judgment system, probably to save people the embarrassment of pulsing blood red.

“You used the term ‘user manual.’ When will you have the approvals you need to release this product to the public?”

“I don’t need any approvals, Jeff. The system runs off existing wireless and cellular data networks. The tooth mike is a removable piece of electronics installed by a licensed dentist and the skull implants fall under the existing approvals for our hearing system. The only difference is that instead of two pickups seven millimeters across, you’ll have six about half that size. But to answer your question, the Merge will be on sale next week.”

Another furious round of texting ensued and the icon for DI’s stock price deepened further in color. Smith used everyone’s temporary distraction to put his hand up again. He was just a bit slower than a woman in the front row, though.

“Do you have to have the implants for the Merge to work?”

“Absolutely not. We have headsets with built-in electrodes, which we’ll include with every unit, but I’ll warn you that they look a little strange and both the audio and visual resolution is degraded. Also, it obviously isn’t very practical for using with the sleep function.”

Hands went up again and Dresner pointed.

“Sleep function?”

“Did I forget to talk about that?” A sly smile spread across his face. “I think some of you are probably aware of the partnership DI has with the sleep research center at Stanford. And with the success we’ve had in creating a non-pharmaceutical sleep aid that works by manipulating brain waves. Up until now, the machine needed to deliver the therapy’s been about the size of a small car, which has left us in a position where we can only provide inpatient care to people with severe disorders. What we needed was a more practical hardware platform and it turns out that the Merge is perfect. I’m sixty-seven years old and I can tell you that I now sleep like I did when I was twelve.”

Again, Smith took advantage of the other audience members’ obsession with instant communication, and this time it worked. He stood as his distracted seatmates passed the microphone across.

LayerCake immediately tagged him with his name and rank, as well as designating him a medical doctor. For a man who went out of his way to avoid the spotlight, it was a bit disturbing. On the other hand, he was grateful as hell that the judgment system was turned off. That would definitely cross the line into too much information.

“You seem to be able to mentally manipulate the interface’s icons. Could this be used to control artificial limbs? And — kind of unrelated — could the Merge be used to cure blindness?”

“Excellent questions!” Dresner said, sounding genuinely excited that someone was interested in aspects of his invention that didn’t relate to the billions of dollars it would inevitably rake in. “The short answer on eyesight is yes, absolutely. Assuming normal brain function, two small cameras built into a pair of glasses can transmit excellent binocular vision. Of course, we’ll be providing those units free of charge to people in need. With regard to the icons and prosthetics: It’s something we’re working on. Output has proved to be a tougher problem than input, unfortunately. Control of the icons is still fairly rudimentary — opening, closing, scrolling, and simple selection. So this is going to be something that happens, but on a five- or ten-year horizon.”

Hands shot up again, but he waved them off. “Look over the manual and if anything is unclear let us know so we can fix it. Or better yet, buy a Merge next week and try it for yourself.”