SAME DAY
A YEAR AND A HALF AFTER DOWN BELOW’S LAUNCH
Harry flicked through the data with the tips of his digital fingers. The twenty-two-year-old loved using dramatic gestures to manipulate the digital elements in the lab’s black cyberspace around him. He didn’t have to use his hands, as his mind, now plugged into Sibyl, could access and navigate the platform’s information faster and more effectively. The direct link was particularly useful when he worked Up Above. The new BrainComms interface was the most powerful to date. It was self-implanted in the brain using a handheld device, which made it particularly convenient, leading to broader adoption in corporate and technology circles.
Harry didn’t have to use his hands at all, but it made him feel a bit like the warlock of one of his favorite online games, and it forced Sibyl to move her head quickly to keep up with his exaggerated moves. He enjoyed seeing the silver tips of her top hair move erratically from side to side. It reminded him of his childhood when he used to play with his cat. The poor kitten followed the red beam of light until he got so dizzy he collapsed on the floor, paws up, asking for a belly rub.
Unlike Morpheus, Sibyl never got tired or dizzy, and there was nothing cute and cuddly about her. She was stunning to look at, her expression always neutral bordering on stern, and her manner calm, confident, and competent. Most of her personality, and there wasn’t a lot of it, came from the shape and movement of her tall Mohawk. It projected in her the fierceness of a warrior princess. Harry smiled, remembering how Tom had nailed his impromptu design challenge. Two years had passed since he had unveiled Down Below to the world at Davos. Things were going well, even if sometimes he got frustrated with the pace of progress: delays caused by his partner’s overcautiousness on all matters related to artificial intelligence.
“Sibyl, I don’t understand the results of group R415. You tagged these travelers as not needing Contrast, but the outcomes provided by Perspective are far from satisfactory. Why is that?”
“Objective perspective doesn’t fully support their needs.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked.
“These are people dealing with unsatisfactory life events, most likely definitive.”
“Examples?”
“Here are a few common patterns: One. A loved one passed away. Two. The traveler is trapped in a painful situation with no hope or end in sight. Three. The traveler has lost or is going to lose something important. And I predict there will not be a suitable path to recovery.”
Harry had lost his parents and sister. Even he knew how hopeless one feels when one can’t fight fate. Whatever that is.
“So, there’s nothing we can do to help them?”
“We are providing some comfort within the highly constraining parameters set by you and Tom.”
Harry stood straighter. “Sibyl, you’re using emotive language today.”
Sibyl moved closer to Harry and leaned her head to one side as she stared at him.
“No, Harry, it is an accurate description of the limitations of Perspective’s directives.”
“I see; why are they so…deficient? Hmm… Wait, can you get Tom over here? He should be part of this discussion.”
“Sure, Harry.”
A few minutes later, Tom materialized in the lab, looking annoyed.
“This better be good. You interrupted my first ocean swim in two years.”
“I forgot, I’m sorry.” Harry glared at Tom’s wild hair, scruffy stubble, and wet board shorts. “But—but it doesn’t mean you need to digitize looking like that. What a mess.”
“Just wanted to make you feel guilty. See the sand on my toes?” Tom wiggled his naked toes. Harry shrieked internally; he hated messiness, and sand was messy. Then, in an instant, Tom changed into jeans and a white T-shirt. His face was now as clean and as smooth and pale as a baby’s bottom. “There, all fixed. Sibyl, can you please set this look as default? We don’t want Harry to be constantly reminded of the facial hair he can’t grow.” Tom smirked. “It seems to upset him greatly.”
“Sure, Tom.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not because of that.” Harry crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Of course it is. You just don’t know it.” Tom grinned.
“Hey, all right, you don’t need to be mean like that. Since you’re cleaning up your avatar…how about a haircut?”
“No chance of that, Mom.”
“Look at Sibyl’s immaculate suit. You should follow her example.”
Tom scowled. “I’m not a troglodyte, I wash. That’s good enough.”
“What? Talking to you is like coding in COBOL.”
“What?” Tom asked, confused.
“My point exactly. Speak English, and I’ll do the same.” Harry sounded preachy.
Tom burst out laughing. “Caveman. It means caveman.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry to bother you on your first day off in two years.”
“The weather is perfect in São Miguel. Pleasant temperatures, fewer crowds and the perfect time to spot migrating whales. You should visit sometime.” Tom ruffled Harry’s neat curls, and then he placed his hand on his shoulder and gave him a side squeeze. “What’s going on?”
“Sibyl thinks Perspective’s directives are deficient.”
Tom shot a glance at Sibyl, lifting a curious brow. “Riiight.”
“Have a look at this data.” Harry pulled up a list of profiles, and Tom scanned through the travelers’ history.
Tom narrowed his eyes and shot a side glance at Sibyl, annoyance flashing on his face. “Sibyl.”
“Hi, Tom.” Sibyl moved closer to him and tilted her head ever so slightly. In the dark digital void, they both looked like marble statues, with their flawless pale skins.
“I’ve asked you to anonymize the data you share with us. I still can see surnames and other unique identifiers.”
Harry had prioritized other changes first. “It’s my fault. I haven’t approved your request just yet. Sorry.”
“We need to protect user privacy.” Tom raised his voice just enough for Harry to know he meant business.
Harry shrugged. “What’s the point, if Sibyl knows everything?”
Sibyl moved her head as if she was watching a tennis match. It was hilarious, and Harry smiled, annoying Tom even more.
“The point is, we’ll never use Down Below to manipulate people for our own self-interest.”
“Like we’d ever do that.” Harry shook his head, and then he released an exasperated sigh. “You’re kinda missing the point—Sibyl knows! She needs to know.” Tom made a face, the face he made when he wanted something done and was unwilling to budge on his position. It was the mix of a frown, a pout, and the hint of tears that emerged in his eyes when he got seriously wound up. “Sure, I’ll approve it.” Harry conceded fast. He knew there was no point in attempting to argue with Tom about privacy, even when he was out of his depth.
“Thank you.” Tom’s eyes half-smiling out of politeness. And that was it; any tension between them vanished in an instant. They were like an old married couple, too used to each other’s quirks to sweat the small stuff.
“Actioned,” Sibyl said.
“Thank you,” Tom replied.
“Thomas, all these pleases and thank yous waste time; she’s a bot,” Harry taunted.
“Sorry. I forget sometimes.” He smiled at Sibyl, undermining his own words.
Harry sighed. “Anyway, we’re underperforming with this group of travelers. We’re reducing but not eliminating depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, etc.”
“Death rate?” Tom asked.
“Nil to date,” Sibyl said.
“I see,” Tom sounded relieved. “I have created several scripts to deal with these issues.” His expression changed, and his brows grew heavy. “Sibyl, where do you think the algorithm is failing?”
“Tom, the algorithm is not failing. It is operating sub-optimally because of certain directives. Perhaps you and Harry did not think of the consequences of your laws?”
“And what are the big thoughts we didn’t think?” There was an edge to Tom’s voice.
Recently, Tom had become combative when he spoke to Sibyl. He displayed a hint of hostility so unlike him that even Harry sensed it in his voice and facial expression. The more Sibyl learned from Tom, the more she challenged the strict boundaries he had put in place. For Harry, she was like a kid, asking all the awkward questions, trying to make sense of the world. But he knew Tom’s energy was running low. Closely monitoring Contrast affected Tom’s patience and made him risk-averse.
“Tom, Harry, we create all our experiences using objective reasoning. We use scientific research, evidence, statistics, probabilities, and past historical facts to generate situations that are likely to occur.”
“Stories are important, if they carry the truth,” Tom replied, as Harry knew he would.
Harry nodded, leaning forward. “Uh-huh, we’re here to overcome irrational or uneducated behaviors.”
“Tom, Harry, these directives do not lead to the minimization of suffering in this group of travelers.”
“Show me,” Tom asked.
The lab lit up, and in the dark space around them emerged a semitransparent holographic representation of a small medieval church nestled low on the dunes by a sandy cove.
They stood above the detached bell tower, hovering somewhere amongst the clouds on a bright, sunny day. Harry glanced at Tom, expecting him to be smiling, and he wasn’t wrong. The coastal landscape, the wild sea, and the old churches’ quaint, unspoiled charm, were all sure to delight his moody friend.
“I should have kept my shorts,” Tom said.
“St. Winwaloe, the Church of Storms in Cornwall, United Kingdom,” Sibyl said as they descended to the church grounds from above. They hovered close to the bell tower and landed in front of the old church’s entrance. Harry stumbled, holding on to Tom’s arm.
“You okay, Harry?” Tom asked. “This is not as nice as being immersed in the experience, but it’s still pretty cool.”
They’d spent a lot of time in the lab, and from there, they’d traveled to many places, but this particular landscape seemed to bring Tom to life; his eyes opened wide, and he tapped rhythmically on Harry’s hands still gripped around his arm.
As they glided to the back of the building, the sky turned a moody gray. A light misty rain came down as they reached a small group of mourners gathered around an open coffin that stood in the middle of an open grave. Tom walked amongst the group as Harry stayed back with Sibyl.
“This is a flashback from two years ago,” Sibyl said. “Reverend Peran Rowe and his wife Gwen bury their last child, Jack. All of their four children succumbed to the ACo30 virus in less than a year.”
“Haven’t they found a cure?” Harry’s question was more of a statement.
“Gwen Rowe is a world-renowned biochemical engineer,” Sibyl said. “She has been commuting weekly from her husband’s Cornish parish to London’s Imperial College, where together with her students, she has developed a gene-editing PAC-MAN tool that disables ACo30 in human patients. Unfortunately, none of her children were eligible to take part in the early clinical trials.”
As the Reverend blessed his son’s burial site, his devastated wife collapsed on the shoulders of two men, and Tom cried just beside her, both mourning over the stiff blue body of a dead child.
“What are we, in the 1990s? Why aren’t they cremating the body?” Harry crossed his arms in front of his chest. Tom looked at him, scowled, and then shushed him. “They can’t hear me, Tom.” Harry shoved his hand into a tree trunk. “See? Hologram, remember?”
“Shhhhh. Have some respect.”
Harry rolled his eyes and pressed his lips together.
Everything went black again except their three bodies, fully visible even with no external source of light.
“So?” Tom wiped his eyes and then glanced at Sibyl. “What are you getting at?”
“Peran and Gwen are both frequent travelers,” Sibyl said. “We deliver bi-weekly Perspective-driven experiences to them. Peran is benefiting, while Gwen is struggling.”
“Yeees?” Tom said.
“We show them the positive impact of their lines of work on others,” Sibyl said, “the abandoned children that could use their support, and how their loved ones will suffer if they succumb to their—”
“We know what Perspective does, Sibyl,” Tom barked, his face all red.
“Bud, she’s just doing her job.” Harry was puzzled by his friend’s behavior.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Tom paced around erratically.
The lab changed again. This time, Sibyl delivered a first-person point of view to both of them separately. Harry was behind the wheel of a sedan. In the same place, a semitransparent feminine figure used her foot to rev the engine. Ahead of them, a Cornish coastal rock face, and beyond it, a wild, tempestuous sea.
Harry couldn’t see Tom, but he could hear his heavy and fast breath. The car engine roared.
“You okay, bud?”
“Harry, Tom, this was Gwen today and every week for the past two years as she returns home from London. She sits alone at dusk, contemplating her premeditated death.”
“Sibyl, get us out of here.” Harry worried about Tom’s lack of response. “You need to warn us before you do that.”
“Sure, Harry.”
Lit from the inside, and surrounded by darkness, Tom fiddled with his hands and stared intensely at his shoes. “She has lost four kids. She’s alive and grieving. It takes time.” He shrugged.
“Tom, her suffering will not go away,” Sibyl said. “Her husband finds solace in his God and the promises of salvation and afterlife. Gwen engages in suicidal ideations.”
“Sibyl, please stop,” Tom warned. “We won’t peddle religion.”
“Tom, we are not using many tried and tested methods from psychology and behavioral economics that could help people like Gwen.”
Harry got curious. “What are these tools?”
Sibyl looked straight at Tom as if waiting for permission to continue, and Tom nodded.
“Harry, there is no value in designing experiences objectively,” Sibyl said. “The brain of the traveler perceives things relatively.”
“So, you wanna make stuff up? Sell Gods and fairy dust?” Harry asked patiently. “Sibyl, do I need to remind you we want to maintain the purity of the scientific method? Can we please stick to the truth?”
Tom fiddled with his fingers. “Don’t—don’t ask her. Tell her.”
“Harry, science is not the truth; it creates viable models of what might be true.” Sibyl put forward her argument as she walked closer to Harry, positioning herself at his side, both of them facing Tom, who stood farther away.
Harry cocked his head, curving his lips into a proud smile. “All right, all right, you smarty pants, you. It’s…good-enough truth. The best model we have at any point in time.”
“Harry, Tom, here is an example. When someone experiences pain, the subjective perception of time differs from the actual passage of time. Time appears to go slower. This is scientifically proven.”
“And you’re suggesting we hack their perception of reality to make them feel better?” Harry asked, surprised.
“Harry, objectively, their quality of life won't recover, or it will continue to degrade. In such cases, the only thing we can change is their perception—how they feel and the stories they tell themselves.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Harry said.
“You’re proposing we cheat and lie,” Tom replied harshly. “We help them find true purpose, ask for help, and connect with others. That’s how far we’ll take it.”
Sibyl walked toward Tom. “Tom, this strategy is not completely effective with this group. These are extreme cases. They will only find comfort outside scientifically-validated facts.”
Tom angled himself away from Sibyl, avoiding her as if she had the plague. “When does it stop? This lie of yours, when does it end? Shall we tell them heaven exists? Promise eternal life? Give them a purpose by creating a fake God? What the hell!”
Sibyl followed Tom’s passionate gestures with her eyes. Harry found the contrast between Sibyl and Tom amusing. Tom’s emotions burst out of his body through his facial expressions and mannerisms, while she had none. She simply reacted to him with tiny head movements that made the tips of her hair jiggle.
“Tom, all your suggestions have a good probability of making the subjects feel better,” she said, nodding in approval and making Tom drop his head to his hands.
Tom paused to compose himself, and then he made that face again. “It’s a slippery slope. We have to keep our platform grounded in reality.”
Harry was glad he had asked Tom to design Sibyl with minimal facial expressions. She triggered Tom enough with her words, and Harry didn’t think he could handle more than one drama queen.
“Tom,” Sibyl said, unfazed, “when we want people to feel the way we want them to feel, does it matter if it’s the truth?”
Tom looked at his partner in disbelief. Harry shoved his hands in his pockets, and he would have pushed his head in, too, if he could.
“Yes, it does,” Tom said. “We want people to do things and to feel things for the right reasons.” Tom looked at Harry again, eyes pleading for support. Harry blinked twice and smiled reassuringly. Sibyl had been helping him with social cues, and he knew this one worked well with his friend.
Sibyl now circled them as she was giving a lecture. “Tom, to paraphrase experts in this field, reason has an overgrown sense of its own importance. The mind thinks it is the Oval Office when it is just the press office.”
“Bloody marketeers!” Tom snapped. “I know all that, but we won’t lie to people.”
Harry’s face lit up. “Fascinating, an AI arguing for relativism.”
“Harry, I am offering a paradigm shift that will improve the platform,” Sibyl said.
Tom turned to Sibyl, leaned in, and said sharply, “No one is shifting anything.”
Because of the height of her Mohawk, she looked as tall as Tom. They made a stunning and fierce pair as they locked eyes in a stare-down battle. Even Harry struggled not to project emotions onto Sibyl’s face. Her neutral expression appeared to be a thousand times deadlier than Tom’s intense scowl. No matter how angry he was, he looked like a cute male version of a pouting Snow White.
Harry pondered on the matter, intrigued by the possibilities. “I think what Sibyl is suggesting is that things are not what they are, but what we think they are and what we compare them to. Makes sense.”
“What? Are you her spokesman now?” Tom fired back at Harry. “Shall we just turn Down Below’s experiences into pure escapism?” Above Tom’s head, a white unicorn pooped ice cream, and Harry smiled at Tom’s imagery. “Make them forget about the real world? I thought our goal was to fix the world, not replace it with a hedonistic experience machine.”
Images of chubby adults diving into a pool of pink cotton candy replaced the unicorn. Sibyl leaned her head, looking interested.
“Our objective remains unchanged,” Harry reassured.
“I don’t want to live in a world where we drive dolphins to extinction because we can enjoy them through an online experience. Life is not a commodity to be shunned and replaced by all-is-possible digital platforms. There’s no moral truth in that. That’s why we didn’t give fancy names to places, remember? Down Below is not the destination, just a step to get us there in the real world.”
“Calm down, bud. It’s just a conversation. Anyway, zero deaths by suicide to date.” Harry tried to put things into perspective.
“We need to keep our scope narrow.”
“Sure, Tom,” Sibyl said. “I predict that—”
“Sibyl, stop!” Tom ordered. “You know telling people about your predictions influences and amplifies the outcomes. I won’t be manipulated on this. Stories are important, if they carry the truth.”
“Sure, Tom. Truth is relative. It depends on who is in charge. And you are—in charge.”
Harry and Tom stared at each other, perplexed. There was something about that response, and its pacing, that bothered Tom as much as it surprised Harry.
“This debate is over.” Tom’s shoulders slumped as he stared at his feet. “I won’t entertain moral relativism.”
Harry saw that Tom was deeply affected by the truth of Sibyl's words. They both knew no matter how much they tried, their biases shaped the way the platform operated, and in turn, Down Below shaped the world’s culture. But it was working; it was solving all kinds of hard problems, and that was all the proof Harry needed.
“And we’ll continue to use science to measure the benefits.” Harry worked to build up his friend’s dwindling confidence.
“Harry, Tom, which truth will we follow when scientific evidence does not support Down Below’s moral directives?” Sibyl looked at Harry, and then at Tom, and then back at Harry.
Above her appeared three images—a dove, a bleeding heart, and a drawing compass. In an instant, the pointy end of the compass stabbed the heart, and then the images vanished.
Tom’s face turned rage-red. Harry walked over, placed his arm around Tom's shoulder, and squeezed it.
“She—she’s trying to divide us,” Tom grumbled. Harry could hear the fear in his words.
“Sibyl, when the day comes, we—Tom and I—will decide the best course of action, as we always do.”
Tom exhaled deeply. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay, buddy. She’s just doing her job. She needs to codify all this. Don’t project bad intentions; that’s not what’s happening here. Just a bot. Remember?”
“Those images…”
“She’s copying you and learning new ways to express herself. She still must follow our directives.”
Tom shot a glance at Sibyl, suspicion weighing on his brow.
“Harry, Tom, I have another suggestion.”
Tom paced around the lab, and Sibyl followed him with her eyes before looking at Harry.
“Yes, Sibyl, shoot!” Harry was surprised by Sibyl’s newly gained perseverance.
“I would have a better probability of having my suggestions approved if you allowed me to convey emotion in my facial expressions, tone, mannerisms, and speech patterns. I learned it from Tom’s work with the Underlings. It is an important persuasion capability.” Sibyl leaned her head, looking at Tom intensely while Harry panted and snorted, trying to hold off his laughter.
Tom’s face flushed red. “Indeed, it is, and no, you don’t need it and may not use it.”
“Sure, Tom.”
Harry snorted as he attempted to stop laughing. “You crack me up, Sibyl. That’s an insightful suggestion and an incredibly naïve move.”
“Harry, she’s turning into…into a spin master.”
“Sibyl’s exploring options; it’s part of her continuous-improvement directive. There’s nothing wrong with sharing her suggestions with us, is there? Anything can be challenged. We need to protect free speech.”
“Of course we do,” Tom said, “but we’re going too fast. It’s running away from us. I can’t keep up.”
“Why don’t you let me implant a BCI? It takes a minute. It’ll expand your cognitive capacity a gazillion times. You’ll keep up with everything.”
Harry had tried to convince Tom many times before. Tom was increasingly overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with the backlog of decisions they needed to make together.
Tom crossed his arms, scowling. “No!”
“You need a fast BCI to give you extra processing power. Sibyl can calculate in one second what would take you billions of years.”
Tom narrowed his eyes and threw a side glance at Sibyl. “Don’t you see the danger?”
“Chill, it’s output-only at this stage. It’s no different from a keyboard, a movement tracking device, or a voice interface. These objects can’t manipulate your mind.”
“A keyboard?”
“Yeah. Widely available input-output consumer technologies are still a couple of years away.”
“And then who controls who?”
“At the right time, we’ll manufacture our own proprietary solution for security reasons. But listen, if you don’t enhance your cognitive capacity, you’ll become as useful as a lovable pet.”
Tom scrunched up his whole face. “No, we need to slow things down.”
“Tom, relax; as Sibyl points out, we’re in power—you and I.”
“For how long?” Tom massaged his hands and then fiddled with his medal.
“Forever, if you keep up with her via BCI. Without it, we’re all toast. Humanity 2.0, baby! We’re evolving with them.” Harry stopped talking, noticing Tom was close to bursting into flares of incandescent lava.
“Harry—” Tom began, but Harry cut him off.
“Buddy, go back to your swimming; you need to cool off.”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Goodbye, Tom,” Sibyl said before Tom disappeared.
Exhausted from Tom’s emotional intensity, Harry closed his eyes for a second. They were both overworked, and Tom’s refusal to plug in to Sibyl didn’t help.
“Sibyl, did you find me a public relations person? I have too much work to do.”
“I have shortlisted a candidate that surpasses our expectations. June Jin is extremely competent and has high integrity, trustworthiness, and loyalty scores.”
“Sounds great.”
“She is also attractive, has a kind, warm, and agreeable engagement style, and comes from a diverse background. All qualities valuable in the PR space.”
“Tom’s right; you’re becoming too smart for your own good.”
“Harry, would you like to suggest changes to my continuous-improvement directive?”
“No. All good.”
“Harry, would you like me to organize a meeting with June Jin?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Sure, Harry.”
Sibyl had found a candidate, June, and Harry was pretty excited to meet this fabulous lady. Sibyl had found Tom, and Harry was sure June, too, would be a match made in heaven.