In this week’s Futures, Jack McDevitt returns with some Good news. Jack is no stranger to Futures — his first story for us appeared back in 2006. More recently, he co-wrote a tale with Tom Easton. You can find out more about Jack’s work at his website. Here, he takes a look at the themes that informed his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Good news

During the 1930s, when we were struggling with a worldwide depression, the global population was approximately 2 billion. It has almost quadrupled since then. Many scientists maintain that we have already surpassed the planet’s sustainable limit. We are taking over animal habitats and driving many species into extinction. We are ruining the oceans and polluting the skies.

The good news is that we are taking measures to compensate for our behaviour. But ultimately none of these measures will matter if we cannot, or will not, do something about our runaway population.

As land and resources become less available, conflict will grow and conditions will worsen. In the end, wherever the limit of sustainability is, we can be certain of one thing: we cannot continue this mindless expansion forever. Unless we are seriously considering shipping large segments of the population to Mars.

Futures this week gets a sneak preview of a new exhibition courtesy of Alex Shvartsman. In Catalogue of Items in the Chess Exhibition at the Humanities Museum, Pre-Enlightenment Wing, Alex explores the artefacts on show that help chart the demise of Earth culture as we know it. Regular readers will know that Alex is no stranger to Futures, and more of his stories can be found at the foot of this post — although you can also find out more about Alex’s work at his website or by following him on Twitter. Here, Alex kindly reveals the ideas behind his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Catalogue of Items in the Chess Exhibition at the Humanities Museum, Pre-Enlightenment Wing

I’ve got into the habit of writing chess stories that aren’t about chess at all. Like this one. Or that one. Chess exhibition is no different.

Historically, native cultures have not fared well when they have encountered the more technologically advanced explorers. Who’s to say things will go any better for humanity if we’re ever discovered by an alien civilization? Will small handfuls of people struggle to preserve the human identity while the majority willingly embrace the language, fashions and values of the visitors, until it is only the visitors themselves who are interested in the artefacts of human ingenuity, even if only as gift shop curios?

In this story, the aliens conquer and absorb Earth into their society without firing a single shot, which makes it all the more chilling to me.

Special thanks to Ken Liu for suggesting the idea of the Xiangqi segment. He taught me that xiangqi literally translates as ‘elephant game’ and the word xiang is a homonym for both ‘elephant’ and ‘similar’, making it easy for a foreign scholar with limited scope of knowledge to conclude that the game is called ‘imitation chess’.

More Futures stories by Alex Shvartsman

Ravages of time | The tell-tale ear | The epistolary history | Coffee in end times | The rumination on what isn’t | A one-sided argument | Grains of wheat | Staff meeting, as seen by the spam filter | A perfect medium for unrequited love

This week, Futures is very pleased to introduce you to Alfred. No, he’s not an author, he’s the key character in Legs-11, Hugh Cartwright’s latest story. Alfred is up to something — but what? Hugh is a retired Oxford chemist and you can find out more about him at his website. Here be reveals the sinister origins of Alfred — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing Legs-11

In hospital? An AI is checking your X-rays. Bought a Tesla?  AI is your chauffeur.

Impressive stuff, but current AI programs are single-purpose: they can read an X-ray or drive a car, but can’t do both.

By contrast, we humans can tackle many different tasks (although not always successfully). A prime aim of AI research is to replicate human versatility.

So what happens when, some time in the future, we create an autonomous, multi-purpose AI? How do we stop it getting distracted, veering ‘off-task’, or behaving in an unpredictable manner?  An AI that starts setting its own agenda — and acting upon it — might make decisions that seem to us to be stupid, random, even vindictive. And if the AI cannot, or will not, explain what it’s doing, its behaviour may be not just an irritation, but a significant threat.

Alfred is such an AI. We don’t know why he has been delivered or what his goals are. He may be harmless, but seems to have his own, unknown (to us) agenda. Why is he keen to get upstairs? And why is his owner eager to stop him from doing so?

Single-purpose AI tools have value, even without explanations. Once multi-purpose AIs arrive, embedded with their own goals, an inability to explain their operation may be the least of our worries. You’ve got an AI with an agenda, but it won’t tell you what that agenda is? You are really are in trouble.

Alfred and friends are outside the door.

This week, Futures enters the sinister world of Anna Novitzky, in the shape of her story The ghost in the machine. There’s something in the library — and it’s not particularly pleasant … Anna is a professional pedant, but when she isn’t correcting people, she enjoys knitting, learning things, taking pictures of umbrellas and watching films. She also tweets occasionally. Here, she kindly reveals the origins of her tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing The ghost in the machine

The ghost in the machine has its roots in the short stories of M. R. James. As an unabashed fan of both libraries and ghost stories, I’m inexorably drawn to James’s ominous vignettes of creeping dread in antiquarian settings. His work is chilling, but the endings are often unsatisfactory or anticlimactic, so I particularly love 1911’s Casting the runes, a classic tale of academic jealousy and occult intrigue in which, for once, the villain gets his comeuppance.

A couple of years ago, I jumped at the chance to attend a screening of the 1957 film adaptation Night of the Demon at the British Museum, the location of the original British Library Reading Room and a key scene in the short story. There, I began to think about how the surroundings had changed, first since the story was written and then since the adaptation was filmed — and yet how much of it was still recognizable. Working in scientific publishing myself, and with a partner in academia, it didn’t seem like too much of a stretch to imagine a thwarted researcher putting a deadly curse on an unfavourable reviewer!

From there I started to wonder how the cut-throat occult academic of the future might plan their deranged revenge, and The ghost in the machine was born. The action moved across London to the current British Library on the Euston Road and I imagined a new technological platform for it, but I made sure that the villain would still get her comeuppance.