Dystopian Tales: AI and EHRs.

Way back in 2014, at the start of the AI Boom, Gartner asked for writings, Dystopian or Utopian on where we thought AI would go. They provided a list of considerations/assumptions to categorize against four scenarios (bottom page 14 in link). Over 50 submissions were provided from across the world. Mine was one of them. An article this morning on why hackers are targeting your EHRs reminded me of it, so I wanted to see if it still played as well as the screenplay I intended it to be. Unfortunately, it does.

Now before I introduce you to Ali — my protagonist — I want to unequivocally state that I believe the good that AI can do is worthy of its pursuit. I agree with many that we have to be attentive to and plan for its use to augment our intelligence. I also posit that it cannot replace our fundamental “humanity,” that quaint notion of compassion, fraternity and spirit. That being said…here goes. It’s a quick read.

My underlying premise: D7: Cybercrime changes; from hacking systems, to hacking data, to hacking people.

It’s 2025; Ali and some of his colleagues were what is now referred to as “The Breach.” It doesn’t need a year, everyone knows it, no matter what language you speak.While hackers were continuously assaulting the financial systems, the digitization of money, communications and medicine was what led to an unprecedented “identity” theft.

The thieves didn’t make demands. They had no intention of having a bidding war on the DNA and full lives of people. They were going to “engineer out illness, program for smart and healthy, prevent obesity, diabetes and cancer.” They were going to create a race of super-smart people — reconstructing at the cellular level the identities of the smartest people on the planet.Then, slowly, they would release them back into society.They would be part cyborg, sure, but then who wasn’t these days? We’d added intelligence to knees, hips, shoulders, hearts, ears, and finally the pancreas, once the guys at Duke Med started 3D printing body parts for real. And at one time we tried to outlaw performance-enhancing steroids in sports. It seems quaint now when any player could be rehabbed and put back out with exoskeletal or endoskeletal jewelry in the space of weeks not months.

Once we had the means to enhance our bodies, were our minds to take long to follow? So it was that right outside of Cambridge (Mass), Oxford, Rotterdam, Taipei and San Jose that the Borg (it was funny in a trite sort of way, and played well in the infinite news stories told) set up shop. Their real base of operations was a satellite which was seemingly taken offline from a solar storm, and directed from Romania.

After combing through billions of records and samples, and hacking every major government, they started stealing people’s complete identities — down to the healthiest, smartest individuals. They stole Stephen Hawking’s, but he was the exception, not the rule. He took it with more good humor than most.

Being able to assemble a human being from its component parts isn’t all that hard.The data needed to be reassembled after decrypting it from ecdh-84 and a host of other new standards.Then they wormholed into Council Bluffs and started stealing capacity in wee increments.

When Brin declared it was impossible, he misspoke. Yet, a culture and a set of governments so intent on spying on their citizenry absolutely made it easy.

Now, Ali faced the bigger problem. Finding himself in the new world — literally.

The thieves weren’t shy about letting you know when they released the new you, but they wouldn’t tell you where. (Pride is still the biggest sin.)

He kissed his wife goodbye, activated the black market trackers in the roof of his mouth and between two of his toes and left, not knowing if he would come back.

He met with Aya and Martin at their own hub. Fifty-two affected MIT students and alumni set up their own secret center with resources from DARPA, the Israeli government and Anonymous (who had fractured as parts of the group were also parts of the Borg). Using the patterns he had established all his life — what kind of company he’d work for and what role he’d take, how far he was willing to live from work, what he bought at the market, what he looked for in a vehicle, how he picked a place to live — the team started to reconstruct Ali’s life through digital records; his entire health history (including his carpal tunnel disorder — did they fix in the new him?).

The doctors introduced a slight new mutation into his DNA.It wouldn’t affect his150-year lifespan, but at 77 he wasn’t sure how much he should care — he was in his prime. Within 63 days the team had located 15 potential versions of him, including one eating curry three miles away.

He walked out — ran out — really. There, in the shadow buildings reflecting their green status on meters everyone could see, he parked his electric bike, ignoring the display of calories burned and effort expended, he searched for the location of his new self using his smartglasses, synched to his own original DNA.

The onslaught of other noisy data was tuned out by extreme focus.It was hard in a world where data constantly flew at Ali. “He” was dialing a call on his hand when Ali walked up, gripping the 3D-printed gun in his pocket. He released it, sat down, and asked,”Why?”

Only in humanity can we continue to find answers.