Dopamine

I like people. I want them to be alive and not treated like shit.

Mr President’s platform on immigration, racism, healthcare, and foreign relations

8 Hours Later

I wake feeling powerful. Like a well fed monster. Can I be ruthlessly efficient? Feels like a good day for it.

I pack a bag. Clothes, toiletries, drugs. Grab my phone, my tools, and a laptop full of quasi-functional A.I.’s - prototypes from clients. They want me to certify them as safe and legal. I have other plans.

I hop in my car, disengage the manual drive controls, and tell it to take me to the city. Then I send a one click divorce to my husband.

Okay, there is no such thing as a one click divorce. Or a self-driving car. But I text my husband that I’m gone and not coming back. And my car can manage low or one way traffic on its own. It transfers remote control to a guy in Guatemala if shit gets too busy. I don’t often use the auto-drive feature, because it’s exploitative and unsafe, but I want to get high immediately, so I’ll be extra safe and ethical later.

The car interior is set up like a bed. I roll a joint, smoke, and think. What do I want to do for the rest of my life?

I want to get freaky with Doc-Danger again. But, like, better. I want to touch a real life dick. I want to quit my job. But not starve or anything.

Some of this list is easy. A simple text ends my career, though it complicates my survival. If I could afford to quit, I’d have done so already. Still, I have some savings and some credit. I won’t starve immediately. Should have time to hit the city and hopefully touch a dick.

Long term, I’ll need some form of income. Maybe I can join Project Octopus? I wonder how that works?

I’m vaguely aware that Project Octopus was a compromise between a President who wanted universal basic income and a congress who believe the poor will drag us under if we go easy on them. The program they Frankensteined together will pay anyone barely enough to live, but only if they perform rigorous research to cure cancer.

Yeah.

Congress figured the poor would rather work two service jobs than do math, but they were wrong. More people join every day.

Fucking congress. Can’t even sabotage their own work properly.

Good thing too, because there aren't many service jobs left. Ostensibly, A.I. is stealing them. In reality, the algorithms don’t work very well, and most of the work is being done remotely by low wage foreigners. Like the guy driving my car! The janky A.I. is just a smokescreen, hiding the blatant violation of minimum wage laws. Most people don’t know this. It’s not like the truth is hidden. The lie is just easier to understand.

I only know because I’m in on the scam. My education in A.I. theory got me a job regulating algorithms for safety and efficacy. At least that’s what they said when they hired me. Once again, the reality was more mercenary. If A.I. had to be safe and effective we wouldn’t have any. Instead, we calculate how much human supervision an algorithm requires based on how many decisions it makes per hour and its theoretical error rate. It’s a very profit friendly calculation. My Guatemalan chauffeur is probably driving 30 different cars right now.

Anyway, fuck all that. I’m tired of feeling guilty for my piddly ass wage. I’d rather be all the way poor and curing cancer. Although, I don’t know how to do that. Better give Project Octopus a closer look.

After a bit of browsing, I’ve learned a few things. Project Octopus has three ways to make money. You can:

Verify the results of a completed experiment,

Estimate the probable results of an ongoing experiment, or

Create a novel experiment based on the completed or estimated results from other experiments.

The first two are optional, the third is mandatory. All participants must create and conduct a novel experiment at some point during the program. There’s a lot of guidance on how to verify or estimate results. A little on how to make sure your experiment is novel. Surprisingly none on choosing your experiment.

We’re supposed to be curing cancer, and most experiments mention it passingly, but the connection can be tenuous. Does improving the efficiency of the A95 bus route reduce cancer? Well, exposure to traffic exhaust is carcinogenic, so I guess a shorter bus ride could reduce your risk of cancer? But it sure sounds like someone just wants to get home faster.

Doc-Danger’s experiment is Creating a Boltzmann Brain in a Laboratory. Huh. I learn that some theories of cosmology predict that a brain, complete with memories, is vastly more likely to form spontaneously from quantum fluctuations, than it is for the universe, planets, life, and humans to evolve naturally. So, according to some cosmological interpretations, you are probably just two pounds of squishy gray matter floating in the void of space, enjoying some fake memories of being a human for a millisecond before you get freeze dried by hard vacuum.

Cool.

Rather than grapple with the existential implications of this thought experiment, Doc-Danger instead questions how to create this monstrous apparition in a laboratory using quantum fluctuations. A quick scan of his research reveals only theoretical equations for a warp drive that can pierce a black hole. No explanation for how any of this cures cancer. Perhaps it’s obvious?

These experiments get me thinking. Well, not Doc-Danger’s - I don’t understand it - but the bus thing reminds me of one of the janky A.I.’s I was supposed to certify.

I fish through my tool box until I find a pair of augmented reality glasses. A prototype from Astral, one of my clients. They’re actually pretty good. Comfortable and stylish, with crisp graphics, an array of pinhole cameras, and tiny but decent mics and speakers. Truly a superior product. Unfortunately, they’re a superior product no one wants. Probably because of the barfyness.

Astral was an attempt to solve the nausea problem that plagues virtual reality glasses. Most people can only swirl through virtual space for 20 minutes before they get a compelling urge to vomit. It’s hurting the engagement metrics of the Metaverse. Hard to sell ad space in a barf-a-torium.

Astral solves this by showing an altered version of the environment around you. It uses A.I. to paint over your surroundings, giving the fantasy you want, but attached to real-life spatial reference points to prevent the visual/balance dissonance that causes nausea. It doesn’t work.

Well, the anti-nausea part doesn’t work. The environment conversion is too slow, causing lag, which just causes the barfy dissonance another way. It’s not fixable at scale, because Astral’s acres of server farms already use so much electricity that it’s losing thousands of dollars per user. Also, the fantasy environments flicker with A.I. hallucinations. Misplaced images dredged from the depths of their stolen training data, churned into jump scares of severed anatomy with inexplicably intense emotional expressiveness. Not great.

But, Astral does successfully combine two sexy tech terms - A.I. and virtual reality - so it has the degenerate gamblers of the investment class frothing at the loins to throw money at it. So, nevermind the technical failure, it’s actually operating as intended.

It’s fairly typical of the shit I was supposed to certify. Transparently broken money grabs turning cash into literal vomit. Astral is only memorable because it probably would have worked if they took the A.I. out. They could easily sync up different settings with photogrammetry - a branch of mathematics that makes 3D shapes out of 2D images. It’s the kind of calculation that A.I. struggles with, but traditional computers can churn out with light-weight apps.

I spend the next few hours stitching VR software with photogrammetry apps. I don’t really know how to code at this level, so I cheat a bit with Helper Monkey - a wee virtual mouse clicker A.I. that you can train to transfer data between multiple apps. It’s a slick little example of an A.I. that actually works. Limited in scope, trained to do one repetitive task, with easily verifiable results. It really is a little helper.

With Helper Monkey shuttling data between the VR and photogrammetry apps, I quickly build an anti-nausea, virtual reality, telepresence app. Probably. I guess I have to test it. Perhaps I could call Doc-Danger and show him a good time? And then maybe barf in front of him? Hmm. Let’s test it with someone else first.

I breeze through my contact list. Friends I haven’t talked to in years. Work colleagues. My husband. Yeah, I’m not calling any of these people. I guess I don’t need a video conference to test it. Any publicly accessible webcam should work.

I find a zoo cam and hang with the monkeys for a while. It works super fucking good. The 2D to 3D conversion is seamless. I can dial between both environments, making the monkeys appear in my car, or porting me to their enclosure. They can’t see me, cause they don’t have VR glasses, but I figure humans will self accessorize.

After 20 minutes I’m only mildly nauseous. Seems to only happen in the monkey enclosure. Maybe because I’m in a moving car and they aren’t? I add one of my car windows to the enclosure simulation and my nausea subsides. Perfect. An occasional glance at my actual outside world settles my motion sickness. Weird to have a highway view floating in a monkey enclosure, but not severed anatomy weird, so I’m calling it a win.

Encouraged by modest success, I add feeds from satellite cameras, traffic cameras, any public camera I can think of. My body is in a car heading down the highway, but my mind is soaring all over the fucking place. Awesome.

I package the app, and send it to Project Octopus. Good telepresence means less traffic and less cancer or some shit. Send me money. Hopefully that works.

Next, I send Doc-Danger the app. He probably doesn’t have VR glasses, but Amazon Air can hook him up post haste. Then I take off my clothes.

Waiting for my lover, I soar naked through various video feeds. It's pretty sweet. Eventually, it dawns on me that Doc-Danger may not be able to play for hours. He probably has a job, or a life of some kind. I add more cameras to my network. May as well see what I can get up to.

I visit a ball game. One of the teams is winning. Probably. Don’t really follow sports. Mr. President is addressing congress. Says we should write laws like we love our fellow man and want superpowers. Does not appear to be winning over the crowd. Fuck’em. Got my vote.

I use public cameras to zoom through London, ride along with cops, then arctic hunters, then visit the space station. All while naked. Feels like the future.

I'm tempted to masturbate. Been naked too long - have the same problem in the shower. I'd like to do it someplace cool, but I'm not sure what consent looks like when you are an invisible ghost. I figure the arctic hunters wouldn't mind an invisible fingering friend, but I can't be sure.

Of course, there are public cameras that encourage viewers to masturbate. I pull up a camgirl site, and basically jump into bed with her. Amazing.

I float around, taking her in from all angles. I may have invented the world's best sex toy. How many sexcams are there? Thousands? A million? How many guys are watching them? A billion? I’m gonna be hella rich. Maybe? Not sure how Project Octopus pays. Does masturbation slow cancer?

All that said, the image is not perfect. When she faces away from her webcam, her face is blank and expressionless. Emotions and their corresponding facial expressions are too complicated for the photogrammetry app to guess at. Or, she really is expressionless when the camera isn’t on her. Hmm.

Greed and introspection had distracted my libido, but watching a hot chick jill herself is distracting my greed and introspection. I really feel like touching myself now, but it feels rude to be creeping around invisible, not contributing to this woman's business plan.

I log into the cam site, and pay the suggested donation. Which is… 7 dollars? Seems low. But who am I to judge?

I have some fun, feel a little weird, leave a big tip, and log out. Get dressed, nap, wake up, get bored. Decide to creep Doc-Danger again. Maybe I can figure out his hours.

He only posts after midnight. Which means… he's a bartender? A night owl? In a different time zone? Doesn't matter. But I probably have a good 8 hours before he gets back to me.

Hmm. Not sure what to do now. I made a list of what I wanted for the rest of my life, and I’m mostly through it. Either need to die soon or make a longer list.

Alright, this shouldn’t be hard. I’ll start with life's basic needs and work my way up to what I’m missing. Filling the gaps should keep me busy.

I feel safe. No roving bands of gunmen around. My health is pretty good. Nothing hurts. Haven't been to the gym yet this decade. Probably should put that on the list for today.

Water is readily available. I could use a shower. Not really a necessity of life, but hygiene is a health concern. Put that on the list too.

Food is on lock. The variety and volume astounds. Overeating is more likely to kill me than all other dangers combined. I could eat for the rest of my life without getting out of my car. Definitely getting out of my car soon.

Sex is an odd one. I've had better sex in the last 24 hours than the last 10 years. That's good. But, I haven't actually touched anybody. Obviously, I'm keeping touch a penis on my list, but it's going to be harder to stroke off than dinner and a shower.

A well ordered society would have a sex grocery store. Where you pick up all your sex for the week, enjoy it whenever you want, then throw half out later. I really think this is what the internet is working up to. Right now we treat dick like it's contraband. You got to know a guy or deal with sketchy strangers.

Fuck it. I'm gonna show Doc-Danger a good time later. I'll put real life dick on tomorrow's list.

I am light on shelter, having recently ran away from home. I could live out of my car, using truck stop lounges and their coin operated bathrooms. Or the new roomless motels with their luxury lounges and high end coin operated bathrooms. Or I could buy another house. But that requires commitment, and I'm low on that now. I think I'll rent a dive in the city. Eventually. Haven't abused my credit in a while. I tell my car to book a room in a swanky hotel and to take me to it.

And… that’s it? Feels like there should be more to being human. Maybe not. In large groups humans can do amazing things, but individually we’re just cute monkeys. Inside a civilization I'm practically a super villain, outside of one I’m selling my ass for acorns.

That said, I do have a relentless drive to teach people stuff. It’s the weirdest fucking thing. I’d write it off as a personal flaw, except everybody does it. Even toddlers. Strangers broadcast tips. Long dead people left notes. We are a teachy species.

Fuck it, I’m adding teach something to the list of basic needs. I’m gonna find a stranger tonight and learn him up real good. Not a euphemism.

I also have a strong urge to get high. I roll one.

I wonder if our urge to teach is the emergent behavior that made humanity a superintelligence. A billion chatty monkeys accidentally make a massive pile of knowledge. Then kick the shit out of everything with it.

Sure, humanity is a ruthless superintelligence on a crazy pointless tear. But, we’re a super cooperative ruthless superintelligence on a crazy pointless tear.

My only problem with teaching is that I don't really know anything useful. To satisfy my teaching urges I'm going to need some esoteric knowledge.

Well, I'm trying to fix my problems nowadays. Pretty sure I can fix ignorance with a book or something.

I’m at the hotel.