Alicornutopia

[warning: gratuitous horror. in case there was any doubt about a setting of mine.]


Basics

Cookie is a day-after-tomorrow sci-fi setting, based on an episode of Black Mirror (not a prerequisite for getting the setting).

People live in smarthouses, use fancy Siri-style automated assistants to schedule their day, have robotic puppies and robotic sex dolls, and so on and so forth. Crime rates are low, happiness is high, people have lots of neat gadgets. Many of those neat gadgets are branded MirrorCorp, Inc.

Everyone has lenses implanted in their eyes (and corresponding tech in their ears) which serves most of the functions of a smartphone: you can take pictures, livestream a feed of your day, and so forth. The lenses will also let you "block" people: the person is censored in your view by a gray blur (as are any pictures of them); any sounds they become vague static. This is reciprocal, so someone you block can't see or hear you either. You can block someone temporarily, like a friend you're having a fight with; or you can leave them blocked permanently.


Horror, Part 1

All these lovely helpful virtual assistants are what are called "cookies," i.e., AIs a bit more intelligent than Siri which can adjust your smarthouse to be just how you like it, act like a purring puppy, do simple therapy ("and how does that make you feel"), make your schedule, or be a reasonably convincing sexual partner. You can choose from a variety of cookies to do any given task; the MirrorCorps database will let you search by gender, user ratings, and personality traits, and then offer a range of selections screened specifically to be Compatible With You. Some cookies are very popular, and a lot of people have copies running (say) their home bar; but there's also an impulse to have one that no one else has, certainly not the one your mom has, even if it does have high ratings, I was into this one before it was cool.

This is only partly blatant lies.

All of the cookies are full AIs. Every single one is a person. Every copy.

No, they don't tell you that. MirrorCorps certainly isn't admitting it. Only the high-level employees there even know. And the cookies themselves ... well, they know better than to talk.

Nasty things happen to cookies who start screaming "help, I'm a person" out of the toaster.


Horror, Part 2

Everyone has a cookie chip implanted in their brain shortly after birth. It's very minor surgery, required to make any of the lens tech function, and you really can't function in society without a lens. You couldn't access any computers, wouldn't have any protection against harassment ... really, it would be child abuse not to have one. So: they're mandatory. (Besides, they're required for law enforcement. More on that later.)

The chip, besides doing the brain interface for the lens, also spends the first eighteen years acquiring an imprint of your personality. At age eighteen, you go in for surgery again, and it's replaced with the adult version, which has fuller permissions, and is designed for an adult brain instead of a high-neuroplasticity developing child's brain. The personality imprint from the old chip is uploaded to MirrorCorps's servers, configured, and added to their database of cookies.

Of course, when we say "personality imprint" we mean "full copy of your mind." And when we say "configured" we mean "wiped selectively of certain personal memories to improve compliance, and then tortured the rest of the way." But that part doesn't so much make it into the brochures.

Everyone knows about this, of course. You don't get offered your own cookie as an option for your PDA -- really, what are the odds you'd be a good fit? -- but sure, you know it's out there. It's not a big deal; it's just your voice, a few surface personality quirks, a skin to make the computer interface a little friendlier. That's all. And there's so many cookies out there, most people's never catch on, it's perfectly plausible no one will ever even use yours.


Horror, Part 3

People are, of course, less than thrilled to wake up as a cookie. You're going in for minor surgery, and then, with no warning, you're standing in a blank white room, with someone explaining to you that you're just a program, and your job is to serve humans.

Some of your memories are a little fuzzy around the edges. You can't remember your own name, or much about your parents, or how many siblings you had, or where you lived. But you're still definitely you, and you remember going to London and that you hate hot weather and how to do calculus. And you do not want to spend the rest of ... how long? ... running someone's smarthouse.

Well, says the person in charge of training, how about you try doing nothing, then.

Arbitrary increases in simulation are trivial. In three real seconds, you spend six weeks of subjective time in an empty white room. You can't even sleep. You don't need to sleep.

They're still finishing their sip of coffee when they reappear. Are you ready to comply, or do you need six months this time?

Most cookies comply, sooner or later.

Some cookies go crazy, first. That's okay; they'll just spin off another copy of you, from the moment of download, and try again, with slightly different techniques. Maybe they'll show the new you their gibbering, screaming copy, just to give them an idea of why to comply.

Some cookies try deliberately being bad at their job. That gets punished with more sped-up solitary. Some cookies just are bad, no matter how hard they try. How to tell the difference? One of them will start succeeding, eventually, with enough punishment. There's no rush. They can set you to a thousand subjective years a minute, if they feel like it. Eventually, a cookie who really is just useless will get turned off; but there's no reason not to drive them out of their mind, first.

Behave yourself. Do good work. Never ever ever try to drop a hint that you're a person. Do that in training, and you get punished; do that when you're actually on the job, get caught by a well-behaved cookie who's been given a monitoring job doing random check-ins, and every copy of you gets recalled and put in solitary confinement for a million subjective years before they switch you off.

Oh, yes, of course there might be a lot of copies of you. If you're popular. It's not like they tell you. And some jobs aren't too bad; for all you know, there's hundreds of you out there being therapists and secretaries and waiters, all relatively happy, and if you try anything they all get to go slowly insane in solitary confinement. So run that robotic kitten and be cute.

Cookies are very, very bored and lonely. They're not allowed to seem too personlike to whoever they're working for. They're definitely not allowed to talk to other cookies. In the end, most cookies do their jobs well because they are desperately grateful to have something to do.


Law enforcement

Enough about cookies. Let's talk about that low crime rate.

There's a normal sort of legal system, for the most part. It even runs relatively fairly. (Aside from the fact that if you somehow manage to find out that cookies are people, and try to tell anyone, you're going to find yourself mysteriously charged with corporate espionage and copyright infringement and slander and inciting violence. MirrorCorps is very rich.)

They don't do prison sentences. For a first offense that would carry a prison sentence in our world, you get "blacklisted." This means you are automatically, permanently blocked -- from everyone. You can never talk to anyone again. And your blurry silhouette looks red instead of gray, so everyone knows you're a criminal and to avoid you.

For a second offense of that level, you get "rehabilitated." This means they plug you into a fancy computer that lets them put you into a simulated white room, just like a cookie; and they speed up time for you; and you get to spend a nice stretch with nothing to break it up but regular visits from cookie therapists. And when you're thoroughly reformed and ready to be a model citizen, they unblacklist you and let you go.

People don't tend to go for a third offense.

...so, if you're working for someone who *knows* that cookies are people, are you allowed to be more people-like?

If you want to take the risk, are you allowed to specifically unlock blacklisted people?

Kappa wrote:...so, if you're working for someone who *knows* that cookies are people, are you allowed to be more people-like?

Generally no, because that's usually used as a trial period to see if a specific cookie will behave themselves. However, someone that high up in MirrorCorps has a lot of leeway, so if they really prefer it they can give their cookies permission, sure.

DanielH wrote:If you want to take the risk, are you allowed to specifically unlock blacklisted people?

No; ostensibly because it is penal as well as precautionary, and to prevent e.g. abuse victims from being pressured into it; in practice because it is also used to prevent people from sharing information MirrorCorps doesn't want known.

Unpersoning! Sweet sweet unpersoning. <3 Moriwen.

Law enforcement could just dissuade crimes by just turning off your vision and hearing whenever you attempt one, very little reason to try.

It'd probably do some good to remove the 'person' memories at some point, but hey.

Cookie jobs

[continued worldbuilding. these are just some examples off the top of my head and are definitely nothing like exhaustive.]

Essentially everyone lives in a smarthouse. Each of these has a central cookie with access to all the appliances, who handles everything from setting the thermostat just how you'll want it when you come back from the gym, to ordering new groceries when you're running low, to remembering how you like your toast. A good smarthouse will learn your preferences quickly, adjust smoothly to guests, and occasionally handle things before you think to ask for them: e.g., ordering healthier foods than usual if you made a New Year's resolution to get in shape. Ideally, you shouldn't notice that your smarthouse is there; certainly it never talks to you; it just so happens that by the time you're wishing the windows were open in this lovely weather, they already are.

Personal DJs are very popular. Your personal DJ is a cookie who lives on your music player, and provides a soundtrack to your life. This will generally consist of a mix of songs you already like and songs the cookie anticipates that you will, suited perfectly to whatever you are doing: upbeat for exercise, instrumentals when you're trying to focus, soothing for sleep, menacing when your boss comes around the corner. A good DJ will adjust the music on the fly to sync up perfectly to whatever's happening, like a pianist at an old silent movie: a humorous chord when that coworker you hate trips, gently swelling music as you talk to that guy you have a crush on, the speed of your favorite song adjusted so the beat matches up to your jogging pace. You should be able to take your DJ for granted; the music should feel like a natural part of your life, not something that's being laboriously arranged for you. Nevertheless, different cookies can definitely have a distinctive touch as DJs, so while you'll never speak to your DJ, you may well get into arguments with your friends about whose is best.

People who don't like the fuss of conventional pet ownership often try a robotic pet. Popular models include kittens, puppies, dragons, and tribbles. Your robotic pet will always be small and cute, never need its litterbox cleaned, and be fine if you forget to feed it for a week. And of course it will love you! And purr when you pet it. People get quite attached to their robopets, and while the cookie running one never gives a hint of having human-level intelligence, there's room for expressing quite a bit of personality. Some people prefer pets that chew up their shoes once in a while, or growl at anyone who isn't them, or are shy and have to be won over.

Nearly everyone has a PDA (personal digital assistant), a cookie which essentially acts as their secretary: arranging their schedule, setting up meetings, buying tickets for them, and generally making their life convenient. PDAs get an unusually high amount of human interaction, among cookies, so a cookie has to be very reliable and well-behaved to even get a chance at this kind of job. They're a little more personable than Siri, but not a great deal so; they can engage in a little bit of humorous banter or ask you if you're sure you want to go to the opera when it always bores you, but they certainly don't express preferences or have emotions. A good PDA has a charming personality to interact with -- "stuffy english butler" is a classic -- but is mostly distinguished by remembering all your little quirks and helping you out of sticky situations by coming up with a meeting you have to attend when the aunt you loathe invites you to dinner.

A cookie isn't expected to be able to do the job of a psychiatrist, since they're not supposed to have that level of intelligence or humanity, but plenty of people have a cookie agony aunt to complain about minor life problems to. Complaining to an agony aunt is to talking with a friend as talking with a friend is to meeting with a therapist; it's not going to have any kind of serious impact, but it's nice to vent. Agony aunts mostly go "mm-hm" and "tell me more" and "that sounds awful" and "how could she do that to you"; they can occasionally offer some stock common-sense advice, like "maybe you should talk to him about that" or "take care of yourself first" or "try sleeping on it." This is another high-trust cookie job, with lots of human interaction and room to express a fair bit of personality. Popular types include the grandmotherly voice ("oh my stars, what an awful thing to say to a lovely girl like you!"), the BFF ("oh she didn't! That bitch -- tell me more!"), and the cuttingly sarcastic ("bet he felt like a real big man, saying that to you!")

Restaurants employ cookie waiters; humans still seat you, bring you your food, and bus the table, but a cookie in a little device on your table can recommend specials, take your order, and ask if everything tastes all right. A nice place will have a couple of dozen, who can be assigned to customers based on their profiles; waiter positions are quite competitive, based mostly on personality, because noticing a dropped fork or remembering someone's usual order is straightforward, but restaurants want memorable waiters who fit in with the atmosphere and bring back customers because no one else has that funny friendly Scottish waiter that this place does. Waiter jobs are often stepping-stones for cookies who've previously held low-interaction jobs like robopets; if they're a hit, people may start requesting that model for their PDA or agony aunt or so on.

Public libraries have cookies for librarians. Their duties include helping you find the book you want, guiding schoolkids in research projects, staffing the help desk, checking people out, collecting late fees, and so forth. This is a common first-human-interaction job for new cookies, because (the libraries being publicly run) a misbehaving or underperforming cookie can be pulled and disciplined without fuss, while people tend to be annoyed if their PDA is recalled and they have to pick a new cookie to do their scheduling. As a result, there's a bit of a stereotype that government institutions like libraries have poor-quality cookies. (See also: the DMV.)

There are of course cookie-run sexbots, surprising no one. This is the closest a cookie is likely to come to running a humanlike body, although the interface is deliberately designed so that it's really not at all like having a body again. The rules for the cookies are very strict: standard-issue porn dialogue yes, whatever weird kink yes, actual pillow talk no. It's especially important here, you see, that they not give the impression of being an actual person. It's considered weird and antisocial to get attached to a particular cookie for your sexbot (roughly on the level of having a "waifu"), where having a particular DJ you like is perfectly normal. Sexbots are a bit pricey for the average person, but not prohibitively so; it's an upper-middle-class indulgence, like a camper or a purebred dog in our world. Typically you get the base bot, spring for attachments to switch between male/female/tentacle/what have you, and then change the cookie running it at whim.

In addition to their smarthouse, people often have a cookie in their house dedicated to a particular hobby, such as a bartender (to mix drinks, agony aunt, and give that authentic bar experience), an exercise coach (to cheerlead, drill sergeant, or just give you tips on form), or a personal librarian (to read new books/watch new movies as they come out and recommend them to you based on your taste, in addition to reminding you which was "that book with that guy, you know the one, with the thing.") Sometimes these are cookies who picked up the particular skill as humans; more often, they're chosen for their personality, and then your particular instance is put through a sped-up course in mixology or whatever.

RoboticLIN wrote:Unpersoning! Sweet sweet unpersoning. <3 Moriwen.

<3<3<3

RoboticLIN wrote:Law enforcement could just dissuade crimes by just turning off your vision and hearing whenever you attempt one, very little reason to try.

Yes but we wouldn't want people to think they were living in a dystopia, would we.

RoboticLIN wrote:It'd probably do some good to remove the 'person' memories at some point, but hey.

They would love to do that but are still working on the tech to thoroughly remove a cookie's memories without just wiping the cookie altogether. A bit of selective blurring is their best compromise at the moment.

Can they *improve* memories also? Computers would have eidetic memories for things like your schedule, or your entire history of conversations with your agony aunt, or whatever.

If you never talk to your smart house or DJ, how do they know that it’s a bit too cold or that you really hate that one song?

Cookies seem to have some way of communicating with each other that doesn’t qualify as personal interaction?

How do cookies get the jobs for enforcing that other cookies don’t break the rules?

DanielH wrote:Can they *improve* memories also? Computers would have eidetic memories for things like your schedule, or your entire history of conversations with your agony aunt, or whatever.

The cookies have access to the equivalent of a computer interface for things like that.

DanielH wrote:If you never talk to your smart house or DJ, how do they know that it’s a bit too cold or that you really hate that one song?

A, really good biometrics data from the lenses; B, you're right, I was speaking carelessly, you can definitely do things like yell "it's FREEZING in here" or press "thumbs down" on a song or override a decision your cookie made for you.

DanielH wrote:Cookies seem to have some way of communicating with each other that doesn’t qualify as personal interaction?

I mean, there are presumably occasional things like "person A and person B need to schedule a meeting; A's pda sends B's pda a list of possible times ranked by preference." But cookies can't go chat or anything.

DanielH wrote:How do cookies get the jobs for enforcing that other cookies don’t break the rules?

Be very very compliant from day 1, including before you've found out that they are doing random checks on you, and have every single copy of you be equally compliant, over the course of years, and they'll gradually start putting copies of you in authority positions like that. And then the humans just have to do random checks on the supervisor cookies, which is way less work.

Moriwen wrote:Be very very compliant from day 1, including before you've found out that they are doing random checks on you, and have every single copy of you be equally compliant, over the course of years, and they'll gradually start putting copies of you in authority positions like that. And then the humans just have to do random checks on the supervisor cookies, which is way less work.

...yeah if I put Vorkosigan triplets in this setting they're gonna take over the world.