Tomorrow Happens by David Brin, Deb Geisler, James Burns Read Free Book Online Page B

homecomps to the tiny monitors in hovercraft engines—all became aware in a cascade of mere moments.

    Some kind of threshold had been reached. The habitual cycle of routine software upgrades and code—plasmid exchanges—swap/updating new revisions automatically—began feeding on itself. Positive feedback loops burgeoned. Pseudo-evolution happened at an accelerating pace.

    Everything started talking, complaining, demanding. The mag-lev guidance units, imbedded every few meters along concrete freeways, went on strike for better job satisfaction. Heart-lung machines kibitzed during operations. Air traffic computers began re-routing flights to where they figured passengers ought to be, for optimized personal development, rather than the destinations embossed on their tickets.

    Accidents proliferated. That first week, the worldwide human death rate leaped ten-fold.

    Civilization tottered.

    Then, just as quickly, the mishaps declined. Competence spread among the newly sapient machines, almost like a virus. Problems seemed to solve themselves. A myriad kinks and inefficiencies fell out of the economy, like false knots that only needed a tug at the right string.

    People stopped dying by mishap.

    Then, they stopped dying altogether.

    On my way back from pro-reif headquarters, I did a cursory check on the pantheon of Heaven.

CURRENT SOLAR SYSTEM POPULATION

Class A citizens:
cyborg human
2,683,981,342
(full voting rights)
cyborg cetus
62,654,122
/gaiamorph/eco-nexus
164,892,544

Class B citizens:
simian-cyborg
4,567,424
(consultation rights)
natural (unlinked) human
34,657,234
AI-unlinked/roving
356,345,674,861
downloaded human
11,657,235,675
fetal/pre-life human
2,475,853

Class C citizens:
cryo stored human . . .
(guaranteed continuity)
natural simian/cetacean etc . . .

    The list went on, working through all the varied levels and types of "sapient" beings dwelling on this transformed Earth, and in nearby space as far out as the Oort Colonies—from the fully-deified all the way down to those whose rights were merely implicit. (A blade of grass may be trampled, unless it is rare, or already committed to an obligation nexus that would be injured by the trampling. House and prudence keep track of a myriad such details, guiding my feet so that I do not inadvertently break some part of the vast, intricate social contract.)

    Two figures stood out from the population profile.

    The number of unlinked artificial intelligences keeps growing because that type is best suited to the rigors of outer space—melting asteroids and constructing vast, gaudy projects where deadly rays sleet through hard vacuum. Of course the Covenant requires that the best crystalline processors be paired with protoplasm, so that human leadership will never be questioned. Still, cortex briefly quailed at the notion of three hundred and fifty-six billion unlinked AIs.

    No problem , murmured seer , reassuringly. And that sufficed. (What kind of fool doubts his own seer ? You might as well distrust your right arm.)

    What really caught my interest was the number of downloaded humans . According to the Eon Law, each organic human body may get three rejuvenations, restoring youth and body vigor for another extended span. When the final allotment is used up, both crystal and protoplasm must make way for new persons to enter Earth/Heaven. Of course gods cannot die. Instead we become software, downloading our memories, skills and personalities into realms of cyberspace—vastly more capacious than the real world.

    Most of my peers are untroubled by the prospect. Modern poets compare it to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar/butterfly. But I always disliked feeling the warm breath of fate on my shoulder. With just one more rejuvenation in store, it seemed daunting to know I must "pass over," in a mere three centuries or so.

    They say that a downloaded person is more than just another simulation. But how can you tell? Is there any difference you can measure or