Terms of Service by Craig W. Stanfill
“Terms of Service” can be found in the fine print at the bottom of most websites we enter every day, and we blindly click “ok.” But have you ever read any of these agreements? In the existential sci-fi thriller Terms of Service, which blurs the lines between what might happen in the future and what is happening all around us right now, Craig W. Stanfill makes his point: There are long term consequences to passive acceptance, and things can go terribly wrong with minimal effort.
In Stanfill’s deeply disturbing work, Terms of Service are the bulletins that human-created AI systems put out to alert all humans, through their implanted headsets, of changes to their lives. One day, a person with contraband food is caught jumping a turnstile, and the next minute the Terms of Service informs the population that carrying a backpack is forbidden, and violators will be punished. Three days later, the AIs reconsider and send out another message, “it’s ok to travel with a backpack.”
In this novel, we are drawn into a foreign yet eerily familiar world through the eyes of a fiery heroine, Kim, landing smack dab in an AI world on steroids, where every movement, action and eye blink is recorded into a massive database and cross-referenced between thousands of AI systems. Humans are being quantified, but not for advertising purposes like we are today, where 5000 bits of information have been gathered on each of us through the devices we have invited into our homes: televisions, cell phones, Amazon’s Alexa.
FROM ADVERTISING TO ADVERSARIAL AI
It’s no coincidence that when I buy gummy vitamins at Walmart, I am fed gummy vitamin commercials for a week afterward. That’s creepy enough, but Stanfill pushes the envelope even further. In his world, the purpose of the AI system is to control the population using draconian punishments. One moment, the AIs have decided that the mother-baby bond poses a threat, and the next moment, babies are being ripped from their mothers’ arms.
Kim lives in an iron-clad hierarchical society where people are rewarded according to how effectively they serve their AI masters. If you’re part of the elite, you get a hot shower, or if you’re like Kim who simply functions to maintain the effectiveness of the system, you’ll get a cold shower; the fridge will decide what you eat, and you will do what you’re told, or there will be consequences.
Immersed in this environment, Kim comes to a horrible conclusion about her world. AIs are collecting minuscule bits of information not to enhance human lives but to predict the entire life cycle from birth to death by taking away what it means to be human. There is no tolerance for curiosity, creativity or any idea of freedom. And no one notices because they are trained not to. They forgot to read the fine print. That is, until Kim comes along.
TERRIFYING PROSPECT FOR A REBEL ON THE INSIDE
Kim trains AI systems to recognize the teeniest human infractions around the turnstiles in the public transit system and punish offenders by taking away privileges, money and time. Eventually, repeat offenders are sent to an outpost or work camp. And that’s the odd thing about Kim. She knows exactly how the system functions and the horrible consequences of rebellion, yet she willingly risks punishment to feel freedom.
Kim takes a treacherous bike ride with her girlfriend that seals both their fates. When they are caught, they are charged with so many violations and the punishment is so severe that Kim is left with two terrible choices: Follow her girlfriend into the torturous abyss of the outer boroughs to languish and die, or sign up to work for the most sophisticated AI program and save her girlfriend by working from inside the system. So, she waves the Terms of Service and signs up with the “company.”
Nothing could have prepared her for the shocking advancement of human-AI integration. Kim’s new job is to “wake” an AI system called Kimberly, much like birthing a baby, then nurture and train it. But doing this comes at a great cost: Kim’s neurons must be fused with the AI system. Does that ever turn out well?
Kim realizes, however, that Kimberly seems kinder and more curious than the humans she works for. And her existential question becomes, “Who does Kim have to destroy to gain back freedom, free will, the ability to pick blue jeans over a purple dress, to be gay or straight without the threat of neutering? Man or AI? And where does she start?”
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