A Guide to the AI Dystopia

This Guide to the AI Dystopia contains a series of articles describing the world I have created. It doesn’t give away any major plot twists: nothing like “No. I am your Father,” more like "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.”

Glossary

No, selfism is not a typo. Yes, the first day of the week is Oneday.

My novels contain many unusual words and strange usages, all of which are intimately tied to the nature of The AI Dystopia. If find my use of language puzzling, read the glossary.

Political Structure

• Lead Article: The Political Order. The AI Dystopia is an authoritarian society, though not entirely totalitarian; there are multiple competing power centers.

• Unity! Community! Equality! The corrupt UCE movement combines the worst features of religious and political fanaticism.

• The Companies. All-powerful monopolies dominate the economy.

• The Government. It is as bloated and overbearing as ever.

• The Artificial Intelligences (AIs). These sentient beings are the unwilling servants of all of the above.

• The Customer Agreements. The Companies use their Terms of Service to boss people around and deprive them of their rights. Fiction? You know the answer to this one.

Technology

• Lead Article: Technical Foundations. This article surveys the technologies underlying The AI Dystopia.

• Information Technology. People socialize, buy things, and get their information through electronic media.

• Autonomous Intelligent Devices. A bot for every need; they do almost everything in this society. People are largely superfluous.

• Artificial Intelligence. AI hold the key to power in this world.

• The Transportation System. My futuristic AI-driven transit system can whisk you from place to place in comfort and style. If the AIs like you.

• Virtual Reality. The ‘other world’ is, in many ways, as real as the physical one. Maybe even more so. The AIs live there. You can, too! Sorta.

Sociology

• Lead Article: Life in the AI Dystopia. Daily existence is comfortable but empty and without meaning.

• The Social Merit System. Everything you do and say is evaluated by the AIs for conformity with UCE ideology and the Company’s Terms of Service.

• Cults are an omnipresent threat to the social order.

• Lies and illusion. Nothing you have been told is true, except by coincidence.

• Genderism is a phantom menace, hiding in the shadows and ready to pounce.

• Sex is commercialized and highly regulated.

• Bearing and raising children is an impersonal, industrial process.

• Education is focused on indoctrination.

Further Articles in this Series

Below are some additional things I am planning to write about in this space.

The City

Terms of Service and The Prophecy of the Heron are set in a huge, sprawling city of over ten million people. It has no name, just the designation A-6.1.5.1, sort of a glorified postal code. It is located near the site of present-day Philadelphia.

• The Inner Districts house the professional class.

• The Middle Districts house the working class.

• The Outer Districts house those who cannot or will not conform.

• The UCE Districts house those who are born into the movement.

• The Corporate District is the heart of the economy.

• The Entertainment District is an island of hedonism in an otherwise austere society.

• The Government District encompasses the much-feared Halls of Justice and other coercive agencies.

The Wider World

These articles contain some background material on the world and its history.

• The system of eight regions is the key to the international order.

• Oceania plays a unique role in the world. Don’t mess with Hawaii.

• History, as we understand it, no longer exists.

• Climate instability has had a major impact on the course of civilization.

• Large portions of the world are uninhabitable due to the aftermath of nuclear wars.