I’m at a rooftop party for founders, investors, influencers. The DJ plays AI generated EDM as people in linen suits talk business, as well as pleasure. It was events like these that hosted some of the biggest innovations in the tech sector. Scanning the room you could see the inventor of NFTs, the inventor of shitcoin, the inventor of BonziBuddy – without them, the world would be a very different place. Supermodels were streaming themselves on the dance floor, service staff weave among them holding silver trays filled with cocktails, over to one side a group of men are vaping and talking Q4 projections. It was parties like these where Zuckerberg pitched Facebook, where Elon bought Twitter and how Bezos won ownership of Amazon over an arm-wrestle. Billions were made, and lost, at parties like this very one. If somebody was to be positioned on a nearby building armed with a rocket launcher, they could pull the trigger and wipe trillions off the stock market. Instead, the party goes on. People laugh, drink, dance, they are having a nice time. Two CEOs are talking beneath a light lined pergola.
“I’ve worked the cost/benefit analysis of replacing my workers.”
“Nonzero chance that will backfire bro. AI isn’t ready yet. Don’t believe the hype.”
“No, not with AI. Its human-augmented AI, as in you have human workers doing some of the stuff the AI could do. But they’re remote, non-unionised, cheap.”
“Bro that’s just the Mechanical Turk, we already use that.”
“I know man, but I’m rebranding it. Its AI 2.0. AI plus Human. Think about it.”
“What we talking about?” I say, appearing between them. I take a drink of the straight Grey Goose I had the bar make me, swishing it round my mouth.
“Who are you?” says one of the CEOs.
“The name's Pen McMadonna, I’m the founder of 4Box.”
“Haven’t heard of it.”
“Yeah, we’re seeking angels at the moment.” I say, kissing my praying hands and opening them up. “What do you fellas do?”
“Name’s Josh, I’m director of WeCare. We do crypto-based medical insurance.”
“Nice to meet you bro. Ryan. Yeah, I’m the CEO of Flag America, we do B2B with China.” says the other, shaking my hand.
“You must be thinking to yourselves, uh…what’s 4Box. It’s a new website me and my team have invented. We think its going to be the next Twitch. Bigger than Twitch even. This is going to be a full body spasm, heh.” I say, taking a sip of my drink, pouring too early, spilling vodka on my white shirt.
“What’s your elevator?” Josh says, smirking, glances over to Ryan, also smirking. I could tell they were thinking, how did this dipshit get invited to the party? I pull out my phone and show them.
“This is 4Box. As you can see, the UI is split into 4 boxes. These can tile vertically or 2x2, whatever. Here’s the thing. Each box will have its own feature.” I say, tapping at my phone.
“Four features? Wow.”
“Its just four. Fantastic four, you know? Heh, no, I mean, look. People only go on the internet for four things. Talking to people, gambling, watching little video clips and Other. 4Box combines them all into its own platform that utilises user-generated content to deliver a customer experience that’s going to be the next big thing. This is like me showing you Youtube back in 1999. Okay?” I explain.
The website is extremely basic, with the screen split up into quadrants. At the bottom right was a chat function, at the moment populated by AIs, but gave a hint how it might work. On the top right was the video section, automatically playing clip after clip of low-res memes (for the demonstration this was a 16 frame gif of somebody falling over), and next to it was another video screen showing softcore pornography (this represented by a 4 frame gif of a woman winking). At the bottom right was the beating heart of 4Box. The gambling game.
The gambling game was essentially Blackjack combined with Roulette, with the added feature that you could start a game with different modifiers to your hand of Blackjack. The roulette table was also twice as big, with 72 numbers rather than 36. The different modifiers had little impact, basically side-bets, but gave the impression to players that it was a skill-based game rather than luck. That was basically it.
“So, what do you think?” I say, explaining the features of 4Box. Ryan and Josh look to one another, then back to me, then back to each other.
“Good luck with it.”
“Yeah, maybe somebody here will like it.”
“Okay, just promise not to steal my idea. Or I’ll fucking sue you, okay? I should have made you sign an NDA.” I say, getting mad at myself.
“Relax bro, you’re among friends. We wouldn’t do that to you.” Says Ryan, clapping a hand on my shoulder. I thank them and make my way off, hoping to find a potential investor in my combined gambling, entertainment and social platform. They watch me leave and turn to each other.
“Holy shit, we need to steal that.”
“We’re going to be even bigger billionaires! What should we do about bro though?”
“Look at him, he’s a loser. Who pitches a product on a cellphone with a cracked screen? We just change the idea a little, get a good law firm behind us, we’ll be sipping Mai tai’s on our megayacht by 2030.” Josh says. Ryan starts laughing, downs his drink and the two CEOs hit the dance floor to start networking.
I had been eavesdropping on the conversation with a miniature microphone I had dropped earlier whilst pretending to fumble my drink. A smile played across my face as I sat in the chill out area, a finger to my ear piece, taking pleasure in what was to come. I was a fisher of men, and the line I had cast was moving.
Hours pass. Josh and Ryan leave, getting in separate self-driving cars that join the road and took them from the party and away to their beds. Josh sat by the window, thinking about 4Box, wondering how quick he would need to move. He was going to set up a new company in the morning, but then wondered if Ryan would beat him to it. Should he set the new company up that evening? He thought about phoning his accountant, but relaxed. He was getting ahead of himself again. The CEO listens to a Web3 podcast and drinks bottled water. He looks at his phone for a while, lost in reading comments, noticed his ride was taking long.
“Where are we?”
“We are arriving at your destination.” the onboard AI says. Josh looks out of the windows, looking at the empty industrial park around him. Another car arrives, pulls into the lot, ultrabright LED headlights blinding the seated CEO who started to panic, wondering if he was going to be kidnapped by MS-13 gangbangers. Then he saw Ryan get out of the car.
“Ryan? What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Our cars must have malfunctioned.”
“Weird. Maybe everyone at the party will end up here.”
“I mean, I’ve been to worse after parties!”
“Bro, where the fuck are we? It’s like two in the morning.” He says, checking his phone. Josh scans the industrial estate, the Pacific Ocean a few miles away, reflecting the moon in the rolling waves. All the buildings here were concrete, straight lines, boxy silhouettes against the air polluted night. There was the hum of heavy machinery.
“You know, while you’re here I thought we could talk about that 4Box thing.”
“We need to call it something else bro. 4Box? It’ll remind people of foreskins.”
“What about Quad?”
“What about Lucky 4?”
“What about Coinchat?”
“What about Cashfuck? Clubbly? Ah, I don’t know. I’m too tired to brainstorm right now.” Ryan says.
“Yeah, I need to get off. See you tomorrow.” Josh says, getting into his car, finding it dead. Ryan had the same experience. The two CEOs meet again on the cracked concrete.
“Shall I order an uber?”
On the other side of the lot there is a noise. The men turn. A Boston Dynamics Big Dog is walking towards them. On its front are two shapes that slowly come into view from a distant security light. There are two dead calves attached to the robot, white veal. They hang with their heads twisted upwards, maggots falling from their mouths and festering eye sockets. The Big Dog stops a few metres away and it is quiet again, save for the gentle sounds of the maggots eating the two pale carcasses. The men look on, confused, mixed emotions. As soon as they comprehended what was going on, the two calves were launched from the robot towards the men. Each of them had a robotic trap fastened to it, wrapping around the men, pushing them close to the rotting animals, falling and rolling on the floor, screaming in a panicky disgust. I watch all this through night vision goggles, hiding in a nearby bush.
I reach down to the Lenovo laptop and using the little red button to control the Big Dog. The machine makes its way over to them, stops. The two men are still trapped. From its top a robotic arm rises, holding a remote-control whistle that plays a note beyond human perception. In the scrubland behind me the wolves start to howl.
“It’s just a prank.” I whisper, searching through my pockets for some tabs of LSD I had saved for the occasion. Something tells me that the CEO’s wouldn’t be stealing ideas anytime soon. As I walked back to the Hyundai Sonata, I reflected on the evening. It seemed the more that power was concentrated, the worse it made people. Was this a clue that we should be ruled over a higher being, perhaps the aliens that visit the Earth, or maybe even machines? Or was power a herald for evil with whatever held it?
The acid started kicking in as I made my way back towards San Francisco and the city seemed to burn in a neon fire.
