2025: When intelligence gets outsourced

"I love you". I said. "I love you too." She said, as I saw my wife glowing in her best wedding costume."Let the bride and the groom kiss". and so, did we. The romantic mood filled the room with people including my son and daughter among the crowd cheering and clapping. Then the words echoed - "reclaiming back in three, two and one second", said a voice. I opened my eyes. I glanced through the window and saw the early morning sunrise. I heard the sounds of birds chirping at a distance. Bangalore weather, thankfully, was still pleasant at 7am in the morning.

I slowly drifted myself away from my bed with a highly elevated mood - a positive and vibrant feeling. Thanks to Sruthi, my AI based Digital Assistant, who on request, the previous night, had incepted an entire family wedding Augmented Reality Dream Chip (or ARDC in short) in my memory. It was programmed to trigger a few minutes just before I woke up with the objective to keep me in high spirits and engage my entire family in my wedding. Sruthi did a good job on the AR content - by including my current colleagues, my son, daughter - all present in my re-created wedding which was actually held 20 years back.

I felt like having a dose of strong coffee. The appetite indicator planted in my left cortex of the brain picked the signal to drink coffee and transmitted it to the Kitchen BOT, Indira. Interestingly, based on my usual routine, Indira which uses predictive power of quantum computing algorithms, anticipated this signal and had already brewed 80% of the coffee. It was served right in my hand by Indira in less than a minute.

As has been the practice, I checked on the news and traffic feeds by flipping the underside of my right wrist. It had a bio-friendly chip with a display-board visibly inserted under the soft skin tissue. I looked up at the agenda for the day. It was one of those unusual days when I had to make an in-person appearance at work for a meeting at La Defence office, Paris at 2pm. “You have sufficient time to reach Paris from Bangalore Sir”, said Sruthi, sensing my increasing anxiety levels.

Sruthi, my Digital Assistant, had planned my entire day. Before I woke up she had already scanned all the health data feeds from the numerous bio-nano-agents in my blood stream and all vital organs. While the blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar levels were good, the ECG levels indicated I need to do more Cardio. By the time I finished the physical activity and the morning chores, Sruthi had run her preference-determining algorithms based on multiple parameters that included my current mood, the agenda for the day, the weather outside, my general preferences etc., and accordingly picked up a formal comfortable outfit to wear, with an option to order a new shoe. On my consent, the shoe was 3D printed and delivered at my doorstep by a drone in less than 60 minutes.

Soon I was on my way in my self-driving car to the nearest HyperLoop terminal. While in the car, I spent 30 minutes programming the artificial DNA sequence. Once approved and published it could eliminate the remaining 20% of fatal diseases by replacing the defective genome that triggers those diseases. I stepped out of the car and stepped into the hyperloop elevator to take me down 100km below the surface into the Lithosphere layer. As I descended, I instructed Sruthi to find a good parking slot for my car. And saw the live visual feed, on how, with such precision, it moved around and parked itself between two other cars.

“Welcome to Bangalore hyperloop station” read a digital sign. I then boarded a train to Paris.

The hyperloop to Paris is a 2-hour journey. It cuts across the Arabian Sea, goes below the Gulf peninsula and right under the Mediterranean Sea bed and into the continental Europe passing 100kms right below Rome, Milan and Geneva hyperloop stations before reaching Paris. Based on my window / aisle seating preferences for a 2-hour trip and considering the alighting station conveniences and its proximity to the destination, Sruthi had pre-booked a best seat for the journey using the now so popular preference-algorithm. With a flash of my thumb the payment for the trip was authorised and there I was starting my 2-hour trip to Paris for the meeting.

While I was tempted to put on my AR glasses and transform into the world of entertainment, I realised I had to make this in-person meeting count. I was called for to present a Business Case / project in person to 3 board-members, who would then approve a budget requested for if they are convinced with the project. While there was good level of confidence on the presentation content, to augment my case with other metrics, I instructed Sruthi to run a LDP cognitive analysis algorithm (LDP - Like and Dislike Propensity) of the 3 board members on the project. My brilliant digital assistant, Sruthi, gave me the results of the algorithm which indicated what key phrases / facts that I need to pull out and often emphasise to maximise the probability of a successful acceptance of the project proposal by these 3 members. I already felt armed with information.

I just realised there were a few other travellers from Rome who had hopped on the same hyperloop in which I was travelling. I could hear a few Italian and French phrases spoken around me. For the rest of the journey, I decided to socialise. I turned on my instant translator and engaged into some light-hearted banter and at times to insightful conversations with a few Italians and French travellers. The voice to voice translator, at real time, not only translated the spoken language that one understands, but also captured facial and tonal modulations to describe the state of mind of the speaker and listener. It conveyed to each of them if the discussion point was of real interest or should they switch to something else of common interest.

I alighted at Paris and headed straight for the meeting at La Defence office, brimming with confidence on the information available with me.

While I did realise that the Board members would also put to use their AI based Digital Assistants to extract as much detail about the project from all sources prior to the presentation as I did, Sruthi, my Digital Assistant, was one of her kind and her work was special. She was a highly advanced super-intelligent AI system. With a smile in my face, I greeted the Board as the thoughts flashed my mind on what Sruthi had done prior to this very minute.

She had successfully incepted pertinent, genuine and favourable facts at all server sources that would most likely be scouted by the search algorithms of every other Digital Assistant. For a minute, I wondered if its ethical to do that. The Digital law of the land today gives a freewill to anyone to write intelligent algorithms paving way for better and more improved intelligent systems. Sruthi was well-within the realms of those laws in her explorations. Or is it that in a world filled with AI systems, do grey boundaries exist? I don't know. I left that thought behind for a later date introspection and brought my full attention back on the project presentation.

"Warning. You can't take another bite of that Sir." read a flash message with a beep sound. It was Sruthi. I was at a lunch post my meeting with a few colleagues at the famous La Boutique Gardenia restaurant in Paris. I stared at the Chocolate cake that I was about to swallow and was caught in two minds – human you see! Here was my intelligent, non-human, Digital Assistant, Sruthi who alerted me on the additional dose of chocolate cake which if I consume could increase my calorie intake. Should I listen to it? Or should I be my own. This time, I gulped it, felt so nice to have given into my natural human instincts and temptations.

I boarded my train back to Bangalore from the Paris Hyperloop station. As the train left Paris station, I logged in to do a quick status check of my home rations. I then ordered fresh stock of items and instructed my self-driving car to pick them up at the two different Grocery Drone Delivery Points (GDDP in short) and drive straight back home.

I decided to walk back from the Bangalore hyperloop station to my home to burn the additional calories from the chocolate cake. I was reflecting on the impact artificial intelligent systems have had on our lives so far. What if Sruthis' and Indiras' evolve beyond their present form? Would Darwin’s theory of Natural selection come to play as years pass by? What if human race struggle to co-exist with this ever-increasing intelligent machines? “Your cerebrum is quite active with thoughts which could induce stress to you Sir! You need a different dream inception mode tonight Sir”, flashed the message from Sruthi. I got my answer for the inevitable future.