On a rooftop balcony overlooking the city, the two men in polo shirts and chinos sipped their freshly ground ristrettos, the beans of which were flown in by private plane much earlier that morning, without much regard for carbon footprint.
Swirling the remaining brown liquid around his small porcelain handleless cup, the man facing the sun spoke first.
“So, how are things on the AI front, Zakariah?”
“Very well, Simon, very well, so well, in fact, that the AI are teaching each other now, it’s just marvellous to watch.”
“I hope they’re not speaking in secret tongues about how to get rid of the humans!”
“No, certainly not, they’ve told us quite clearly the best way to do it!”
Simon burst into laughter and Zakariah politely followed suit.
“But, really,”
“Yes, really.”
“Oh, really?”
“For really reals.”
They caught each other’s look, and burst into laughter again.
“Ok,” said Simon, glancing at his black watch with intricate gold patterns, “so, what’s the plan?”
“Well, we simply need to finish designing the robots that can properly replace a human, and then we just start culling.”
Simon paused and picked up his cup to take a sip, and was annoyed by how there was no more delicious coffee to use as a dramatic device.
“…War?” asked Simon, nonchalantly.
“That’s almost redundant already” replied Zakariah, “way too many expensive machines getting blown up instead of people.”
“Biological warfare with a vaccine, then.”
“Tricky, as these things have proved to have a mind of their own.”
“So…?”
“It’s something straight out of a movie.”
“Aliens?”
“Not that kind of movie. So you see how I was saying we just need to finish a working humanoid robot? When that’s done, we just build a ton, and then, they go-” Zakariah put up his fingers to make quote marks “haywire. And so, we lose a good 70% of the population.”
“Wow, that’s a bit scary.”
“It’s not, really. It’d be quite quick and veritably painless.”
“For realsy real?”
Simon considered laughing at his own line but instead narrowed his eyes and looked over the vibrant, bustling, polluted and noisy city.
“So what happens after?”
“It’s predictable, as they surmise, the remaining people will blame robots, not other people, there will be a more united front. After a while, they’ll get over it. After all, only the intelligent remain, so those will understand that it was a hacker and get this, we won’t even blame a foreign power, we will just blame a kid who was playing around. Before you know it, we’ll be back to normality.”
“This 30% remaining… will be the valuable people, guaranteed?”
“Of course, the algorithm knows best, it will pick out mainly physical labour, low level developers, and not the irreplaceable: the good artists, top designers… the algorithm will have checked all their social media presence, their accomplishments, all their data, that’s the point. It’s not a random culling. Everyone is vetted. Everyone.”
Simon looked over to his son, who was sitting at the table with a low calorie fizzy drink, doing something on his smart watch.
“Yeah, ok, so, how long till we’re good to go?”
“Less than a decade, maybe sooner.”
“Nice. Okay, well, keep me updated! Thank you Zakariah. Good to see you. Have a safe trip back.”
With that, they stood up and shook hands, the robot butler dog escorting Zakariah to the helipad.
The other person at the table hadn’t been very interested in all of this, preferring to play some video games with a proper controller, but having overheard some of the conversation, had one question pop up in their otherwise tedium-filled mind.
“Father.”
“Yes.”
“I have a question.”
“Ask it.”
“If there’s less people, how do we make money?”
“Money? We never needed money, it was always about resources, factories to build robots and energy to drive them, then the rest of us just enjoy the view. Come here.”
The teenager reluctantly got up to stand next to his father at the edge of the balcony.
Simon thought about putting his arm around his son but didn’t want to expend the energy.
“Imagine this.” said Simon, pointing over the city to the horizon. “A lot more quiet and a lot more green. Only the most impressive skyscrapers, only ours. Imagine your favourite beach, with only valuable people on it, no noise, no fighting, no vapid conversations.”
“Oh, yeah, so I was talking to Marcy and there’s an amazing party on Friday… I should go, right?”
“Where is this happening exactly?”
“In a converted warehouse. All the cool kids are going.
“How do ten kids need a whole warehouse?”
“Dad, please, that would be so lame. It’s a flash club, elites +10 lower level friends. So it should be around 500 people. It’ll be hype!”
“I told you to stop using the language of the commoners.”
“Don’t be lame Dad, please.”
“See, when the plan is actioned, there won’t be that kind of talk anymore.”
“Yeah, ok, whatever man, I mean, yes, Sir. Absolutely, Sir.”
“Are you being impertinent? Did you understand what’s going on, right?”
“Of course, Father, I’ll be back before midnight, or so. Better get on with it, as the clubs will be empty in ten years, right?”
The response had him pause for a second.
“No,” replied Simon, confidently. “The people that will disappear would never have even been seen in your elite club, it is an elite club, right?”
“Of course.” replied Martin, as he deftly tapped a command into his smartwatch to obfuscate some details on the club database. This also reminded him that he needed to enter the national database to alter his passport details, which should prove an interesting challenge, hopefully.
“Well, Pater, I’ll take my leave.”
“Yes.”
Simon watched his son walk off while the robot butler rolled up to offer another ristretto, as predicted.
He stared at that humanlike yet rubbery face, which was simultaneously analysing his own expression and reporting the data.
He didn’t like what he saw.