A People's Future of the United States
Page 31
But consumer watchdog groups questioned the manufacturer’s ability to control its product. “The larger issue is in the algorithm. There are encoded assumptions about race built right into the syntax of the programming language, into the very logic circuits of these things.”
The problem first came to light following an incident involving the Chang family—Elizabeth and Darren Chang, and their two children—who were physically and verbally attacked by one of the recalled units.
(continued on A22)
FIRST REFUGEE FAMILIES SETTLE ON THE MOON
Almost four hundred men, women, and children, traveling via lunar transport shuttle, arrived early this morning and began unpacking their belongings, moving into tract homes in the first of three phases of master-planned communities in the Sea of Tranquility, seeking to re-create some semblance of a normal life.
The pilot program was designed by a coalition of Western governments and a consortium of international real estate builders.
A massive lottery was conducted, with over three million families applying for one of twelve hundred spots.
The explosion of interest in the program has exceeded all expectations, leading to suggestions that it could be rapidly expanded over the next decade, as a possible resettlement solution (or circumvention) of many thorny international and diplomatic situations around the globe.
But concerns have been raised by a number of groups, including legal experts, human-rights advocates, and environmental organizations.
However, none of that was on the mind of Jamil (who asked that his surname be withheld due to safety concerns), a young father who was among the extremely fortunate few selected in the lottery for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in the Sea of Tranquility.
“Watching my kids play in our backyard—in their backyard—it’s…I can’t tell you how it makes me feel. Earth may be a quarter million miles away, but this feels like the American Dream.”
REPRESENTATIVE OF SENTIENT TREES SENDS FIRST DELEGATES TO THE UNITED NATIONS
This year’s G200 Leaders’ Summit will take place November 30 through December 2 in Buenos Aires and will bring together the world’s most powerful heads of state and government in South America.
Leading up to the event, representatives from many nations have expressed a cautious optimism about the possibility of reaching a consensus on climate change, an issue that was first addressed in 2008, at the beginning of the previous millennium.
Early talks have been fruitful, most likely due to the presence at the summit of the G200’s newest members: delegates from Kingdom Plantae, the world’s first nation-state of sentient trees.
Trees are demanding major changes in the relations between flora and fauna.
“We’ve long been silent in the face of unspeakable acts. Deforestation. Clear-cutting. Toxins in the soil,” said Eondo’or, an eighty-foot, six-hundred-year-old redwood and senior representative to the U.N. for Kingdom Plantae. “Not to mention getting peed on by drunk people.
“Here’s the thing,” Eondo’or added. “We definitely outnumber you. Also, you need us for food, shelter. Also carbon removal,” he said. “Also oxygen.”
CORPORATE PERSONS NOW OUTNUMBER NATURAL PERSONS BY A RATIO OF 1,000,000,000,000:1
The House today voted 434–0, with one abstention, to overwhelmingly pass a bill that will result in a significant change to the tax code. The bill was introduced at 7:30 A.M. and received final passage nine minutes later, before it was announced or available to the public.
As a result of this change to the tax code, a century-old legal tactic became even more attractive. With high-speed incorporation software, companies can now instantaneously create millions, or even billions, of special-purpose entities, for various reasons, most of which are tax- or liability-related, resulting in corporate organizational structures as complex as semiconductor-chip designs—and comprehensible only to powerful computers.
These latest changes to the tax code, expected to disproportionately benefit the largest and wealthiest corporations, were passed by the R-Bot in a 1–1 vote against the D-Bot in the Robo-Congress-O-Matic 5000, with the tie being broken by the tie-breaking algorithm, all of this taking place, as usual, inside a four-foot-by-three-foot black box inside of the U.S. protectorate satellite in geosynchronous orbit above Washington, D.C.
In related news, the Supreme Court-Bot reaffirmed, in a 1–0 decision authored by the Chief Justice-Bot, that each of the roughly 500 quintillion corporations does, in fact, possess certain inalienable rights accruing to their long-established status as persons.
“These C corps and S corps and LLCs should be afforded the dignity and equality that any human citizen of the United States enjoys. Just as the Founders intended.”
RACIST ROBOT RECALL
(continued from A1)
ELIZABETH CHANG: I was out driving with my family. My husband and our two kids. We stopped for lunch. The town—it wasn’t really a town, basically a gas station and a couple of fast-food places—wouldn’t have been my first choice to stop. But our car needed to recharge and everyone was hungry. My vote was for drive-thru at the burger place.
DARREN CHANG: I mean, in retrospect, I wasn’t really thinking, I guess. I just thought that since we were on a road trip, we should experience some local flavor. My kids haven’t seen much of America.
ELIZABETH CHANG: I was scared. This wasn’t a part of the country where you generally get out of the car. Not if you look like me. Or my husband.
DARREN CHANG: I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I wanted to see.
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ (waitress): They were a happy-looking family. As soon as they entered, the wife flinched. The husband almost looked like he was trying to pretend nothing was weird. But it was weird.
ELIZABETH CHANG: Everyone was staring at us.
DARREN CHANG: Looking back, I guess I knew there would be trouble. I don’t know why, but I think on some level I wanted trouble. Not for anyone to get hurt, of course. Liz was really mad at me after, when we had a chance to process what happened. And I was mad at myself. I mean, we have kids. To put them in danger was maybe somewhat irresponsible on my part. But I don’t know—see, I’m still conflicted about it.
ELIZABETH CHANG: Darren is a good person. Too good a person. And he wants to believe other people are good, too.
BERT NEWSOM (restaurant patron and witness): I saw them enter. I remember thinking, Uh-oh. This is not good.
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: I took their order quickly. I was hoping they’d eat fast. And then Garland—one of our regulars—comes in.
ELIZABETH CHANG: The guy—Garland—walks in. Or wheels in, I guess. And he’s being pushed by his geriatric robot. I remember I said to Darren—God, it’s so weird now to think about this—I leaned over to Darren and I squeezed his hand under the table. As in, Look at that. It looked sweet. I felt better, being in there. I figured, Well, if this nice old man eats here, this place can’t be all that scary.
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: I kept looking at Garland and his caregiver, just praying they wouldn’t notice. I even took Garland’s order fast, hoping they’d finish quicker. But then one of the kids started laughing, and Garland looks over. And I knew there’d be trouble.
(continued on A37)
SCIENTISTS CONFIRM: WE’RE LIVING IN A SIMULATION
Researchers in Tokyo, Frankfurt, and Lagos today announced joint findings confirming what many scientists and moviegoers had long speculated: that the universe and everything in it, including us, could be the product of a computer program.
This story is still developing.
AMAZONGOOGLEFACE ANNOUNCES INTENT TO ACQUIRE DISNEYAPPLESOFT
The deal would result in a combined company worth approximately $97.3 quadrillion.
“This will be good for consumers,” said Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
GoogleFace, speaking from the company’s offices on an icy dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt.
DRUG MANUFACTURER ADMITS XENOPHILZOL IS PLACEBO
The blockbuster over-the-counter medication reached $1 trillion in sales in its first year.
The drug had been fast-tracked for approval by the FDA and marketed as being the world’s first and only effective treatment for the reduction of intolerant attitudes.
While it’s early and the sample size is small, statistics compiled by law enforcement and other agencies seem to indicate that the Xenophilzol may have had a significant effect, as assaults, attacks, hate crimes, and incidents of violence otherwise stemming from racial, sexual, or religious discrimination decreased by 23 percent during the period when the drug was on the market.
Reports of the drug’s biochemical inactivity spread quickly following an anonymous tip first posted on the New York Times message board (a division of Reddit/Instagram).
Users and nonusers alike were struggling with how to process this information.
“I’m just so sad. I thought this was it. I guess we’ll have to keep looking.”
Others drew a different, more hopeful conclusion from the news.
“If the pill works, it works. Who’s to say?”
As a result of the disclosure, clinical development of the company’s related blockbuster product, Gynophilzenicam, has been halted, pending further investigation. Details have been scarce, but reports from insiders familiar with the clinical trials suggest that Gynophilzenicam may be effective in the treatment and reduction of the male impulse to overexplain things to women.
TELEPORTATION INJURIES DOWN 11 PERCENT THIS YEAR
Experts note that the improved safety comes at a redundancy cost, as accidental cloning is up 2 percent.
RACIST ROBOT RECALL
(continued from A22)
DARREN CHANG: I’d seen them, of course. Everyone had. My boss actually bought one, as a kind of gag, to have around the office. He thought it was funny.
BERT NEWSOM: I was waiting for the moment they’d realize what this thing was.
ELIZABETH CHANG: We get our food, but I can’t touch it. I can barely move. The robot is staring at our family. There’s no two ways about it. My husband is Asian American. I’m black. Our kids are, well, both. We’re the only people who look like us in the whole place. And it’s packed. It’s the holiday, and everyone’s making the Christmastime crawl on the interstate, and it seems like everyone on the road between Ohio and Louisiana has somehow stopped here.
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: The robot is clearly looking at them. He whispers something to Garland. And then Garland laughs, a dark laugh.
DARREN CHANG: I was paying more attention to the kids, at first. I didn’t notice until it was a little late.
ELIZABETH CHANG: I elbowed my husband, who was distracted with feeding our son. I mean—have you ever tried to get an eight-year-old boy to eat if he’s not interested in eating?
DARREN CHANG: By the time Liz got my attention, the thing was standing right over our table.
ELIZABETH CHANG: He was big. I remember my kids were both smiling at it. They didn’t know what a Confederate flag is. Not really. So they were smiling, and I remember when they stopped smiling.
EMMA CHANG (age 12): The robot said, “You don’t belong here.”
NICHOLAS CHANG (age 9): The robot talked like a human. It wasn’t a girl or a boy, though. It was white, but not white like a person. White like an iPhone. Or a stormtrooper.
ELIZABETH CHANG: I felt Nicholas press into my side. He was scared. Our eldest was less scared, though. She said something. I tried to shush her, but she’s twelve.
DARREN CHANG: Now the guy’s over there laughing. Not doing anything about it. The waitress comes over, trying to help. She asks the guy to get his robot to stop, but the guy won’t do it.
EMMA CHANG: And then the robot pushed the lady away.
NICHOLAS CHANG: Robots are strong.
BERT NEWSOM: That’s the moment you realize, This thing is not us. It’s not. But we made it.
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: The robot pushed me away. I remember its eyes. They’re not really eyes, I guess. But that’s the thing. They look like eyes. It had hate in its eyes.
(continued on A49)
CORRECTION: AMAZONGOOGLEFACE ANNOUNCES INTENT TO ACQUIRE DISNEYAPPLESOFT
An earlier edition of this story identified Jeff Bezos as CEO of AmazonGoogleFace. Technically, the quote should be attributed to “Jeff Bezos Version 3, LLC, an incorporeal person organized under the laws of Delaware” as the legal heir and cognitive descendant of the human known as Jeff Bezos. We regret the error.
IN SPORTS: AMAZONGOOGLEFACE ALGOS SQUARE OFF AGAINST DISNEYAPPLESOFT DAEMONS IN SUPER BOWL
This year’s Super Bowl will pit the league’s top two teams against each other in a highly anticipated matchup.
The contest will be held on a neutral server farm. This is the third year the game has been played in this format. While many sports owners and corporate sponsors opposed the move, predicting that ratings would suffer, the opposite has been true: Ratings have been higher than ever, as fans say they can enjoy the game more this way.
By this time next year, the opponents might be owned by the same company.
WEATHER TODAY
Hot.
10-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST
Hot.
Hot.
Hot.
Hot.
Hot.
Really hot.
Dangerously hot.
What are we going to do about this hot.
Slightly less hot but still extremely troublingly hot.
Hot.
WOMEN REACH INCOME EQUALITY WITH MEN FOR FIRST TIME
Recently released statistics compiled by the Labor Bureau show that last year, for the first time in history, women were paid 100 cents on the dollar as compared to a man doing the same job.
The news comes on the heels of recent findings that women now outnumber men in executive suites and boardrooms of Fortune 1000 companies.
Advocates celebrated the milestone and predicted that within five years women would be significantly outearning men.
However, the breakthrough was somewhat tempered by the sobering reality that women still face workplace harassment by men, now frequently working in subordinate positions to their victims. Men’s rights groups cited the statistics about advancement of women in corporate America as evidence of nondiscrimination.
Activists said they will continue to fight for safe and equitable working conditions for women.
One proposed solution—using human-resources robots to monitor workplaces—has shown early promise.
“It’s a lot different acting like a creep when a robot is standing in the corner, watching you,” said a female media executive, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution.
RACIST ROBOT RECALL
(continued from A37)
ELIZABETH CHANG: That’s when I got alarmed. Because, honestly, what were any of us going to be able to do? He tells us to get out. We refuse. My husband stands up, and the robot grabs him and slams him against the table. There was broken glass. My son starts crying.
DARREN CHANG: And then Emma said, “No, you don’t belong here. You stupid overgrown iPhone.” Something like that.
NICHOLAS CHANG: Emma called the robot an iPhone. That made it mad, I think.
DARREN CHANG: And then Emma says, “Do you even know what race I am?”
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: “Do you even know what race I am?” Ha. I’ll never forget the look on the robot’s face.
BERT NEWSOM: The thing was confused.
EMMA CHANG: I said, “You don’t know, do you? Because genetics doesn’t support the classification of people into clea
r-cut, distinct, and homogenous races. I learned that in seventh-grade honors science. You know science? The thing that made you possible?”
DARREN CHANG: My arm was pretty shattered. I don’t remember much about it. People told me what Emma said after.
ELIZABETH CHANG: I had this combination of fear and pride. It’s a bizarre sensation, as a parent, or even just as an adult, watching your child, not quite a child anymore, this almost-teenager, with the strength of not knowing. Of not understanding danger, history, what could really happen. She’s learned things in school. We’ve taught her things. We’ve tried to explain intolerance to her. But to realize in that moment—she’s got it. More than we knew. More than we ever had it ourselves. She has ideals, but more than that, she has the courage in that moment to stick up for herself.
So one of the other patrons—two of them, actually—they go and stand between the robot and my daughter. My husband’s arm is broken, and he’s in pain.
BERT NEWSOM: I got up. Carl and me, we stood up and got in the face of that thing. I mean, she’s a little girl.
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: Bert was always kind of looking to be the hero. Not to take anything away from him. What he did was pretty brave.
BERT NEWSOM: So now Garland is freaked out because he paid a lot of money for this thing. He’s afraid it’ll get damaged, I guess.
CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: The robot’s really confused now. It’s still trying to figure out what the girl is, what race is. And now two white men are defending the girl. I don’t know much about AI, but whatever Garland had taught this robot, it clearly had its world turned upside down by this incident.