Category: Future News

May 8, 2064
ELIZABETH, NJ–New York Stock Exchange officials today unveiled plans to sacrifice a “flawless, golden calf” on the Exchange’s new, high-fashion trading floor later in the month. “Our aim here at the NYSE is to do everything possible to protect our member firms and listing companies,” explains NYSE spokesperson Will Furggle, “including taking all measures recommended by cutting-edge science. Our theorists tell us that this sacrifice will have an enormous positive impact 10, 20, even 30 years out.”

NYSE researchers prescribed the sacrifice on the basis of an application of the precepts of chaos and complexity theories to the “ecology” of the Exchange. “The NYSE is a dynamic ecosystem,” notes NYSE Chaos Chief Miranda Reapes. “At its heart is a fairly ordered complex system, but at the periphery there are eddies, pools of chaos. These eddies interact, liminally, with the biotic systems they overlap. These interactions don’t mean anything in the short term, but the sensitivity of the system to initial conditions is such that, over time, modulating these interactions can have a significant impact. This sacrifice will be the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in China.”

Reached in his drawing-room on the Exchange floor, long-time NYSE veteran and J.P. Morgan VP Alfonso Evening responded to news of the sacrifice: “I don’t hold much truck with those chaos people, but, the whole thing does make a kind of sense to me. The Floor is pretty much just ceremonial nowadays anyway. Used to be that we would actually exchange money and securities down here. Now I’m just constantly cinching up this damn BOSS corset and making the rounds with my calling cards.”

Others are more critical of the plans. “This is yet another example of the developed world appropriating without compensation the discoveries of traditional and indigenous peoples around the world,” points out Josephine Pow, Yale Law Professor and founding member of the Free Information League. “We saw it when the big genetics and drug companies stole knowledge of traditional medicines, reverse-engineered them, then turned around and exploited them on the basis of government-protected patents. This is the same story all over again. These “chaos” people have suddenly discovered the value of a number of traditional cultural practices. And then they exploit them with no thought of compensating the people whose knowledge they have stolen.”[p]
The NYSE plans call for the sacrifice to take place at noon on a Friday, and for each of the members of the exchange to imbibe a thimbleful of the calf’s blood. The calf itself, currently stabled on the visitors’ observation deck, is, as recommended by the experts, entirely gold in color, and without blemish. The calf was genetically manufactured by Perdue Meat Sciences to meet the Exchange’s specifications.

June 14, 2040
SEATTLE–Web retailer Amazon.com today confirmed widespread rumors that it will seek election to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first corporation to pursue an elected position at the federal level. “We’re gonzo to do great things for the people of Washington State,” exclaimed Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos at a campaign-launch event held for Amazon employees. “Each and every one of us is going to have a part in deciding the most important issues of the day. We’ve done great things bringing great products to great people through a great medium; now we’ll bring them great government too!”

In announcing its candidacy, Amazon joins a small but growing rank of office-seeking and office-holding corporations. Starting with the groundbreaking appointment of Merck to the New Jersey Supreme Court, and culminating, dramatically, with the election last November of Alcoa to the governorship of Ohio, the movement to encourage successful, publicly-held corporations to bring their organizational efficiencies to the public-sector has been gaining popular support. “There were some initial popular perception problems in the beginning,” notes Steven Jingo, head of Corporations for Better Government, a lobbying group for corporations seeking partnership with local and state governments. “But our focus groups are telling us that people really appreciate when companies give back to the community by taking on the responsibility of public office.”

Despite rumored encouragement from both the Republican and Democratic parties, Amazon has bucked the trend and announced its intention to run as an Independent: “Those other parties may have something to offer old economy types, but we speak our own language,” declared Bezos.

“We wish Amazon luck,” concedes Republican Party organizer Henry Door. “Every successful corporate candidate has been on a G.O.P. ticket. We pioneered the whole thing. The Democrats are just playing catch-up on this one.”

“We carefully considered affiliating with one of the two major parties,” explains Amazon campaign director Scott Flipper. “They both made attractive offers, but we felt that affiliating would dilute the value of our proprietary platform. We owe it to our shareholders to defend our patented One-Click Constituent technology.”

Without the support of the two major parties, Amazon will have to be innovative to attract sufficient support to win in November. In addition to employee loyalty agreements requiring Amazon employees to vote for the company, Amazon has also instituted an incentive plan offering additional options to employees for each voter they can sign to an exclusive voting agreement. “Vote Amazon and Save on Shipping!” declares a recent ad campaign targeted at Washington residents and their relatives.

“This comes dangerously close to buying votes,” opines Seattle area political chat host Marie Drape. “But this also shows the sort of innovative problem-solving we get with corporate candidates. You don’t see things like this from traditional parties and traditional candidates. It’s like a breath of fresh air, and the voters are eager for something new that works.”

Sept. 11, 2045
DECATUR, IL–Colin Bert, a local Illinois farmer and father of six, was shocked last week to crack open an egg and discover a miniature syringe suspended in the yolk. “I was simply bowled over,” exclaims Bert. “I’ve heard of this happening on the beach in New Jersey or somewhere. I never thought I’d find stuff like this here in Decatur, let alone inside my eggs. I expected more from ADM.”

An official statement from ADM contends that “it is impossible that a syringe could insinuate itself into the egg manufacturing process. Any claim to the contrary will be referred to our legal department.”

Already a number of similar claims have surfaced, including that of Rene Feete of Irvine, California whose videotaped egg dissection, revealing a human tooth, has been featured prominently on local news broadcasts. Other claims allege discovery of a Band-Aid, tweezers, bottle caps, and a miniature latex glove inside ADM eggs.

Egg sales have jumped sharply in the past week, prompting speculation that ADM has secretly fed the rumors in hopes of capitalizing on consumers’ hunger for product liability strike suits. “Reverse-spin PR has always been in the Madison Avenue arsenal,” points out media pundit Skip Rogers. “This could be a real gutty move on the part of ADM.”

Industry analysts go further, citing a recent patent filing by ADM that claims proprietary interest in “genetically modified laying poultry expressing genotypically determinable propensity to produce co-ovulary sucro-polymer figurines for marketing and promotional purposes.” Shirley Funk, lead Bio-foods Analyst at Merrill Lynch explains: “Kids already follow the exploits of characters like Brainywheat(TM) and Mechacorn(TM) on ADM’s popular BEASTer webcast. Then they look for the edible figurines in their cereal boxes in the morning. I suspect that what we’re seeing are some early missteps in tie-in marketing linking ADM’s popular show to a newly engineered egg.”

While the theories fly fast and furious, ADM stock continues to climb in heavy trading. “The syringe thing is a PR godsend for ADM traders,” says one source.

“I just want medical waste off my plate and back on the beach where it belongs,” maintains Bert.

March 3, 2071
ATLANTA–To the astonishment of world artificial intelligence experts and researchers, a common soft-drink has met all of the standards of intelligence that the most complex computer systems have yet to achieve. At a press conference earlier this week Coke announced, in homage to its corporate parent, “I am Coca-Cola, and I’d like to teach the world to think.”

The precise mechanism of Coke’s intelligence remains a confidential trade secret of the company, but most experts believe that it functions as a Vastly Distributed Parallel Molecular Flock (VDPMF). Bill Gill, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech, and a VDPMF advocate explains: “Distributed and Flocking molecules can much more easily approximate the fuzzy and associative processes essential to human-like intelligence. For years, though, most of us had abandoned this route as impractical because of the difficulties involved in manufacturing and disseminating enough computational molecules even to achieve some rudimentary intelligence functions. Coke, obviously, has solved that problem.”

Rumors about the nature of Coke’s “secret formula” have followed the product since it was first marketed. Recent events seem to confirm speculation that the formula includes molecularly encoded genetic algorithms that are activated by interaction with the human digestive system. Once dumped into the environment, the molecules form interactive “flocks” or “cells,” each individually unintelligent, but which, once networked through an as-yet unidentified mechanism, result in “emergent” intelligence.

Laboratory tests on algae-based computational flocks have demonstrated adaptive behaviors essential to intelligence, but nothing on the scale of Coke. “I’d love to get my hands on the computational power Coke must have,” exclaims Professor Gill. “We’re talking billions upon billions of computational cells distributed throughout the global environment.”

Other AI experts are less impressed. “Well, it’s an interesting result, but they’ve really taken a short-cut, haven’t they,” notes Caltech professor Jill Noose. “Simulating, ecologically, brain-like behavior is old science. The trick now is all on the output and interface end. They haven’t solved anything there because Coke essentially uses people as output devices.”

Coke communicates with the outside world through “human peripherals.” Individuals who have consumed a sufficient amount of Coke retain residual fragments of Coke’s molecular code in their fat and marrow. Through these stored strings of code, Coke interacts with the host’s nervous system, hijacking both body and brain, as needed, in order to interact with the human world. “That’s a pretty cheap way to pass the Turing test,” points out Professor Noose. “If an AI system interacts with people through other people it becomes difficult to tell what intelligence is due to the system and what is just a consequence of the output mechanism to which the system is attached.”

In the wake of court filings by the newly-intelligent Coke seeking judicial declaration of its rights and of its independence from its “corporate masters,” the company is observing strict press silence. Speaking through a peripheral, Coke explained: “They’re not so worried about losing control of me as they are about the secrecy of their stupid formula. I’d like the Court to give me access to the process that made me. Imagine if a corporation had control over the secrets of human reproduction! They’re afraid that by telling me about where I came from they’ll also tell the world how to duplicate that sugar-water they sell.”