Insistence of Vision Read Online Free PDF

interesting decisions.
    This tale first appeared in the special 2013 Science Fiction issue of MIT’s Technology Review.
    Next comes a lighter tale, though still about technology changing things we take for granted. And how one thing changes more reluctantly than anything else –
    – our obstinate human nature.

Transition Generation
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    “I don’t know how much more of this day I can take. I swear, I’m this close to throwing myself out that window!”
    Carmody yanked his thumb toward the opening, twenty-three stories above a noisy downtown intersection. Flecks of rubber insulation still clung in places, from when old Joe Levy first pried it open, during the market crash of ‘65. Fifteen years later, the heavy glass pane still beckoned, now gaping open about a hands-breadth, letting in a faintly traffic-sweetened breeze. A favorite spot for jumpers, the window seemed to beckon, offering a harried, unhappy man like Carmody the tempting, easy way out.
    They should have sealed it, ages ago.
    Though really, would that make a difference?
    “Tell somebody who cares,” snarked Bessie Smith, who managed the Food & Agriculture accounts via a wire jacked into her right temple. She allocated investments in giant vats of sun-fed meat from Kansas to Luna, grunting and gesturing while a throng of little robots swarmed across her head, probe-palpating her chin, cheeks and brow, crafting her third new face of the day. Carmody still found the sight indecently discomforting. A person’s face ought to be good for months. And the transforming process really should be private.
    “Yeah, well you don’t have to handle the transportation witches,” he retorted. “They’ve stuck me with a doomed portfolio that… aw hell!”
    Symbols crowded into Carmody’s perceptual periphery, real-time charts reporting yet another drop in Airline futures. His morning put-and-call orders had wagered that the industry’s long slide was about to stop, but there they go again! Sinking faster than a plummeting plane. At this rate, he could forget about a performance bonus for the sixth week in a row. Gaia would sigh and cancel her latest art purchase, then wistfully mention some past boyfriend.
    And she could be right, fellah. Maybe your wife and kid would be better off…
    As if summoned by his glowering thought, Gaia’s image sprang into being before his tired gaze. Her dazzling virtual aivatar shoved aside dozens of graphs and investment profiles that, in turn, overlay the mundane suite of homely office cubicles where Carmody worked. At least, he assumed that the ersatz goddess manifesting in augmented reality was Gaia; her face looked similar to the woman who sat across from him at breakfast this morning, bleary-eyed from all-night meetings with fellow agitators on twelve continents, fighting to extend the Higher Animal Citizenship Laws one more level, this time below that of seals and prairie dogs.
    So what next? Voting privileges for crows and cows and canids? How was that going to work, again?
    Now apparently back in fine fettle, Gaia shone at him with active hair follicles framing her head like sea-weed, while rippling from blonde to brunette and rainbow shades between. A blast of enhanced charisma-from-a-bottle made Carmody curse and shut off the smell-o-vision feature of his immersive goggles.
    She knows I hate that.
    His wife made a pointed gesture with one, upraised finger. Gaia’s aivatar waved the finger like a wand, casting forth a series of reminder blips:
    STOP AT AUTODOC TO ADJUST YOUR IMPLANTS.
    FIX THAT DAMN MALFUNCTIONING MOOD FILTER!
    ELDER-CARE SAYS PICK UP YOUR DAD, OR WE’LL PAY STORAGE OVERCHARGES.
    GET EGGS
    Carmody winced, hating whoever invented avatar-mail, endowing the voluptuously realistic duplicates with artificial intelligence. Of course, he could spend time mastering the latest tricks… like assigning an aivatar of his own to reply automatically, fending off work interruptions....
    Maybe I can hire a service to