Year 2050
A reflection on tomorrow’s life
Source: Alex Knight, from Unsplash
My name is Aos, I am a category E citizen, it means I am not too poor and not rich enough. Our category is influenced by our social score, I don’t really know what are the criteria but as long as I don’t oppose the authorities I should not be downgraded to F or worse.
Today I woke up at 6 thanks to my connected bed, while I was sleeping it was collecting data on my sleep so I can sleep better next time, isn’t that amazing? At the same time it is also sending these data to the social score system and a few companies, this will help them better adapt my needs. I put on my Meta Clothes – those ones are amazing, they are the only clothes you need as you can program what they display. I configured them to display my standard combinaison: black T-shirt and black jeans, nothing fancy as I am sparing some WCoins to buy new skins for the clothes.
WCoins are the best currency, in 2020 everyone was relying on something called « crypto currencies » for their daily transactions, but it was very problematic as many people were avoiding taxes or contributing to terrorism, I know it because the government said it. So countries came together and settled on a unique system: the WCoin for « Worldwide Coin Network » it is safer and faster than any other alternatives – other currencies are illegal anyways – plus it is connected to the social score system.
After taking my Nutri pills, I put on my Augmented Sense lenses, they are the latest augmented reality tech, given for free to every citizens with an higher score than F. Of course all these devices such as clothes and lenses collect data on us, this helps keeping the population healthy! I then got out to take the autonomous bus, normally we should not have to work due to the Universal Basic Income system but I am an E and our income is deducted from our social score, and if you don’t work your social score is lowered, so you can’t really avoid to work…
In the bus, I like watching others get in, everyone has some ads on its back, our Meta Clothes display them, it uses our geolocation and the people around us to choose what to display.
My work consists of assembling robots, many of my coworkers are past Uber drivers but with the arrival of autonomous cars they had to find a new job. These robots can range from drones for children to law enforcement models.
A sad event happened this morning, Sahia, a coworker was grabbed, apparently she had stolen some materials, there is a whole black market for this, we all know she will never come back, most probably she was « reformatted » and sent to a working camp. Some of my friends think it happened in the middle of our working session so that we see it and take it as an example, I am happy I never talked to her, else my social score would have been downgraded, that’s what happen when you frequent criminals.
At lunch I took a new ration of Nutri pills, this afternoon I had to work on a new model of combat drone, it will be used in case of manifestations in the streets or to protect an event.
I took a new bus to the city centre, shopping time! I saw many cleaning robots and various home helpers, one day I will be able to buy them, I hope. Most of the things we use are sold via an application: news skins for the clothes: Nutri pills rations thanks to a distribution device installed in all flats, videos and books, apps for the lenses… Speaking of my lenses, I activated the GPS on them, today I need to find a new store.
The store is selling next gen shampoos, I have a rendez vous at the end of the week. I took one that is designed to augment the hormonal response of the people around you, it is quite trendy nowadays, I paid with the NFC chip in my hand, people were against this system in 2030 until the government implanted one in all of the new babies, no more ways to exit this system. This chip is not only used for payments but also to authenticate us and to store or identity documents, it features a kind of Security Module to keep everything secure and is connected to the social score and various third parties system, this helps them better know us.
I got back home via a new bus, took new pills and started my evening by browsing Grid. It is a new kind of social network, they have an app on the lenses and represents all data in VR. I then got to bed, won some social points bonus for going bed at a good hour, not too early and not too late.
Liked this story? Don’t forget to clap and follow! Written by Eliott Teissonniere.
