Mirror Test
Included in the anthology The Tomorrow Project: Seattle.
In 2011, Intel Corporation put out a call for science fiction describing the future of key R&D technologies. The stories were selected by Intel scientists. For the open call section, only five stories were chosen, and chosen blind (meaning that the editorial board had no idea who the author was.) Interestingly, my story was the only one written by a woman.
For my story, "Mirror Test," I combined virtual reality, machine learning, and facial recognition to explore what happens when software can tell intimate things about what we're thinking. And then what? Well, let's find out.
The Tomorrow Project: Seattle, Intel Corp, includes the rare and had-to-find story Knights of the Round Table, by Corey Doctorow. Partial audio reading here.
The full anthology is available here, courtesy of Intel.
Marguerite Allohay boarded the South Lake Union Transit train, followed
by snickering tourists who had just worked out the acronym. She slid
into a window seat and stared out at a suddenly overcast Seattle. Hadn’t it been
sunny just a bit ago, on her walk to the train? That must have been summer,
right there. An old joke but still somehow grimly hilarious to sun-starved
Seattle natives.
It was the final leg of her trip from Redmond via light rail from ULearnIT—
you’d think they could afford a decent name—where she had just finished her
second and perhaps final interview.
It had, to all appearances, gone well. Well enough that, barring a few
details, she might even make their short list.
As she was passing the Tesla dealership, she remembered a webcast about
a women’s version, not pink but mauve and cheap enough that someone like
her could afford it if she never ever wanted to own a home. For a moment she
imagined walking in, zeroing out her credit and driving off into the sunset. Or,
given this wretched overcast, into the slowly darkening gloom. Just putting this
whole silly job idea out of her head.
Details. Wasn’t that where the devil lived?
COLLAPSE
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