AI, aliens, rain control, & how voting/election systems might change

September 20, 2020 5:57 AM

"One Hundred Sentences About the City of the Future: A Jeremiad" by Alex Irvine (2008) and "Reliable People" by Charlie Jane Anders (March 2020) depict future elections, including personal media feeds, aliens, and Humans of Distributed Network Origin. And: in October 2018, Mozilla invited two speculative fiction authors to describe elections in the future. "Hello, I’m Your Election" by Genevieve Valentine (caution: dark) and "Candidate Y" by Malka Older (audio for both) take different approaches to integrating data mining and Q&A into voting processes.

Caution: dystopian. "Hello, I’m Your Election" by Genevieve Valentine (audio):

Hello. Welcome to Election 2040. I’m Betsy Ross, your Ballot Assistant. Thank you for coming out to vote. Let’s get started! Please transmit your citizen ID number.

"Candidate Y" by Malka Older (audio):

“... Have you got any thoughts so far?”

“Yes, but I don’t feel confident about my choice yet.”

“Do you want to talk about the candidates first, or work the other way around, from your preferences?”

“The latter, I think.”

"One Hundred Sentences About the City of the Future: A Jeremiad" by Alex Irvine:

71. We call for a thorough re-examination of the ways in which the City’s environmental, climatological, economic, information, and social policies contribute to the quest for the next becoming of the City of the Future.

72. This call has been circulated to all subscribers of our popular programs in children’s cookery, intermediate saxophone, and sexual experimentation.

"Reliable People" by Charlie Jane Anders:

We have no quota, no set hours. We keep going for as long as burnt coffee recharges us, slouching in lumpy plastic chairs that scritch on the parquet floor of a ground-floor office whose single plate window is blotted by standees of the Candidate, wearing a reassuring smile and a dark pantsuit. We repeat phrases like “bringing back forward thinking” and “the bronze path to the light,” as if we know what they mean. We never look at each other, but we imagine that all our faces wear the same look: professional, focused, ecstatic. Everything smells of sweat, pizza, and overcooked coffee. Nobody ever ventures inside the office, apart from the Candidate and us.

posted by brainwane (1 comment total)

"Hello, I’m Your Election" by Genevieve Valentine

Well, that was grim.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:08 AM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]