So there’s this great episode of The Orville, which takes place in the 25th century, where a time capsule from the 21st has been dug up on Earth. It winds up on the ship, where Lt. Malloy is fascinated by its contents. It includes a young woman’s cell phone, which they manage to power up, with all its pics and text messages and other artifacts of its owner’s life.
Malloy can’t help himself; he takes all the phone’s data and uses it to program a simulation of the woman and her life on one of the ship’s holodecks. The results, of course, are surprising and revealing, and Malloy falls down a rabbit hole.
I couldn’t help but wonder: what would a simulation of my life, based on my cell phone data, look like?
Let’s imagine that scenario. My iPhone is discovered; its contents are studied; a holodeck simulation is created. A future historian observes the simulation, dictating to a vast audience of intellectually curious academicians as she goes...
Simulation begins.
A tall, elderly bald man wearing blue jeans and a Star Wars t-shirt enters a room lined with books. He turns on a black device that emits highly unusual music. He drinks a hot beverage from a cup he had carried into the room. A large picture of a Norse demigod wielding a mighty hammer adorns the wall in front of him, alongside another picture of a cylindrical spacecraft exiting a wheel-shaped space station.
“Observe our historical subject, Scott Taylor Robinson,” comes a narrating AI’s voice. “Here he is shown in his home in the year 2023 A.D., reimaged from photo images in the source device, which has been identified as an Apple iPhone, a combination audio/visual transceiver, computer, music repository and data storage device.
“Note the wall hangings. The spacecraft/space station image are consistent with our biographical profile of the subject, who stored many such images and references in social media pages archived on the device (though we note that there is no record of such a ship or station extant in the year claimed on the picture, 2001). The other image is Thor, a semi-divine Norse being whom we initially took to be a deity worshipped by the subject.
“Our subsequent analysis has caused us to doubt this conclusion: the data stored in the device contains a great many quotes, both inspirational and instructional, of a man named Bertrand Russell. Our records are scant where he is concerned, but the subject’s devotion to him, coupled with the intensity of his sociopolitical observations and arguments, suggest that he was a cult leader of sorts, holding Robinson in thrall, even more so than Thor.
“As for the music you are hearing, it was stored directly on the device. Note its unusual structure, eschewing the conventions of popular music of that era; listen for the deployment of classical instrumentation with deliberately poor articulation; note the grotesque imagery suggested by the singer, clearly intended to shock the listener. Listen for the – here they are! - sounds of hooting primates, followed by maniacal laughter; note the repetition of nonsense syllables, possibly suggesting the babbling of infants; finally, take note of the singer’s repeated assertion, embedded in the work’s title, that he is a walrus.”
Simulation continues.
Robinson sets down the cup containing the hot beverage and takes the very device used to create the simulation from his shirt pocket. He activates it, then begins to brush his forefinger against it repeatedly.
Narrator: “This bizarre behavior, our team found quite remarkable. Robinson is using his forefinger to browse through hundreds of images, messages and interactions with others in minutes. Let’s observe...”
An hour and twenty minutes passes.
“See how Robinson occasionally pauses in his frenetic forefinger motions and makes an occasional single touch of the device with his left thumb - there it is, in the corner sub-display! - in a gesture we have determined as ‘Liking’. We have correlated his use of this signaling mechanism to his aggregate profile of interests, and concluded that this signal is meant to indicate approval of the image or message he is observing, which is then transmitted to others in his tribe over the nested series of networks that facilitated digital communication in that era. Notice – here it is! - how he creates messaging of his own, using his thumbs, to interact with others who possess similar devices.
“Our broader conclusion, based on an assembled time series of simulations, is even stranger still: as the device tracks Robinson’s day-to-day physical motion via an application that communicates with a ‘global positioning system’, we have established that he seldom leaves his home, ever (which is why there is no expansion of this simulation beyond the building in which he is sitting).
“The implication is as shocking as it is obvious: if Robinson is typical of others in his era, the societal norm was to maintain all social relationships through iPhone devices!”
The audience, shocked, mutters one to another for a minute.
Robinson presses the surface of his device several times, then lifts it to his ear.
“Here we see Robinson making just such an attempt,” the narrator continues. “He is ‘calling’ one of his children. Note that nothing happens.
“This was a failed attempt at real-time voice communication. Examination of the logs associated with this function in the device reveal that real-time connection with others was almost never achieved. From this, we might infer that voice communication was less frequent a social choice than ‘texting’, a process of using an ‘app’ to send coded messages through the polynetwork. It is also possible to infer that neither Robinson’s children, nor the other persons stored in his voice-communication catalog, were particularly interested in speaking with him in real-time.
“Based on our examination of the stored text messages, we find partial support for the latter: while those messages show a number of substantive and occasionally lengthy exchanges with both professional and personal acquaintances, the response rate of Robinson’s children to his texts is virtually nil.
Simulation: Robinson rises from his chair, proceeding into a different room. He approaches a counter next to a cabinet and reaches for a glass cauldron with an attached handle. He pours warm liquid from it into the cup in his other hand. He then blows on the liquid, presumably to cool it, and returns to his chair in the other room.
Narrator: “The music you are hearing now is telling. It is a narration of real-world events of Robinson’s era.
“There are two singers, each relating personal experience: the first singer is simply engaging in a recitation of the same experience Robinson is having as he listens – let's listen for a bit...
“What you heard was two accounts of events the singer ‘read’ in ‘the news’ - a tragic transportation accident resulting in death, and a military victory. The singer repeats the phrase ‘oh boy,’ which in context seems to be an expletive.
“The second singer tells of falling to the ground upon waking, then drinking a beverage – exactly as Robinson is doing! - thereupon fleeing his home in order to indulge in exactly the form of transportation that has cost another his life, per the original singer.
“We can naturally conclude that Robinson listens to these particular works because he personally relates to them very strongly: they embody his own mournful, solitary existence.
“Are there any questions?”
“Is there more to see, professor?”
“Sadly, no; based on our analysis of Robinson’s available social data, what you have seen in this simulation is a solid summation of his daily existence. Its implications both for the society that produced him and his own regrettable life are unsettling, of course; but the insights gleaned from our analysis of his life data, though tentative, incline to confirm our understanding that the destruction wrought by the Billionaire Wars of the mid-21st century spared all of us a similar fate.
“We will leave the simulation active throughout the month for public study and entertainment. Please contact me or any member of my team if you have any questions.”
In the simulation, Robinson is in his chair, sound asleep...
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