To see more on the current state of the world, its inevitable conclusion, and who is steering it all, don’t miss my new book, Order of the Eye: The Secret Force that Runs the World.
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The year is 2037.
35 percent of people under the age of 45 are childless. Fewer than 25 percent of people over the age of 18 have ever been married. 73 percent of individuals have not been in a relationship with another human being for at least 10 years. 68 percent of men between the ages of 18-55 have never had sex with a human female, and almost half of all women within the same demographic have never had sex with a man.
Then there is Brad.
Brad is 44 years old and he, too, has never had sex with a woman. He has never been married, has no children, and has been on only two dates in his entire life. Yet, Brad hasn’t been without a romantic companion for the last three years now.
From time to time, he still looks back on what finally led him to finding love . . .
When Brad went to MereCom to create Calista in the spring of 2034, he had just lost his manufacturing job to the influx of AI workers at his programming company. There were now plenty of advanced bots to run the satellite programs, surveillance platforms, and to create and manage the new bots.
He always suspected the day might come, even though he was one of the few they said would “never be displaced by a robot.” Still, it was rather stunning that it actually came to fruition. It was sort of like watching someone close to you pass after a long battle with a terminal illness; the day was seemingly slow in the making yet was upon him in a flash.
Like most men his age, Brad had no advanced degrees or training since such things were obsolete in nearly every field; no one can compete with the bots, who work tirelessly and for nothing. Brad never had success in meeting women and had thrown in the towel years before. His mother had also recently lost her own battle to heart failure, and his dog (Bear) fell victim to a carcinoma in his leg the year prior.
Brad was at the lowest point in his life, and something badly needed to change.
Though his mother was gone, she had left him most of her digital credits. Since she had long abided by the standards of the Governing Pattern Policies (the “GPPs”), she had amassed no small amount of digital credits at that. Since AI women—or the “Gynoids,” as they were now commonly called—had finally moved past the clunkiness of their earlier models and had become far more accessible to the average person, he decided it was time to pull the trigger.
Several of his former work friends had already done so and were wildly exuberant about their experiences thus far. Social media was ablaze with pictures, videos, and talk about this exploding trend. Even the men he knew that didn’t have one were doing everything they could to gain enough credits to buy one.
With his newly acquired 110,000 credits, Brad headed to MereCom and walked through the circulating ovolum doors. After walking past the small, seatless lobby area, he was informed by a lifeless employee at the desk that there were only 2 stations currently available and that they were both at the end of the corridor. Within moments, a small trolley pulled up beside him and whisked him toward their direction. It seemed as though he had passed by countless closed rooms, each with a different sign on the door to describe the current phase of its occupant.
“Initiating”
“Building”
“Sequencing”
“Confirming”
When he finally reached the next to the last room in the corridor, he heard something like a “click.” Brad chuckled, as this sound vaguely reminded him of the old key-style locks that were installed on the doors within his childhood home. He remembered how his father repeatedly struggled to replace them before finally accepting that volt doors truly were “the way of the future.”
He quickly realized that only the small seal on the side of the door had moved, allowing it to slide from right to left like the electronic doors in the Arbock Hotel he once stayed in at Las Vegas.
Upon entering the room, he noticed that the swiveling chair was already facing him. He sat down and began following the prompts on the rectangular monitor that was suspended in the air before him. A familiar voice reappeared as a guide, and he quickly understood that it was the same tone as the unnamed employee he had met at the front of the building. “Waive your right hand across the GPP reader,” said both the guide and the words on the screen.
Brad quickly moved his hand across the surface of the fluorescent monitor and his total credits appeared in bold letters at the bottom-right of the screen. The voice could be heard again.
“You have 110,000 credits, Bradley.”
Within a few seconds of watching this number spin, the music kicked on and every color of the screen lit up. A blank model of a woman, lightly garbed, began slowly swaying on the right side of the screen. There was no discernible pattern to her movements, but she seemed to almost hypnotically draw him in with them.
One by one, prompts began to appear. Along with them emerged a digital sheet containing the details that Brad had already provided MereCom prior to his arrival.
He was given weeks to consider all the details of the humanoid he would be finalizing today. Naturally, Brad took these decisions as seriously as he had ever taken anything in his entire life. As MereCom’s catchy slogans so often stated, they are “Building Soulmates” here. That’s just what he wanted, too—a soulmate. She needed to be right. No, it was more than that; she needed to be perfect. Trust and believe that every detail had been carefully considered. In truth, Brad was embarrassed to even ponder how much time he had spent thinking about the most trivial of matters.
For accuracy’s sake, he was asked to verify each of his choices as they scrolled across the screen.
You chose the name Calista. Is this correct? “Yes,” Brad affirmed verbally and by touching the command bar. You chose Calista to be 5’3” tall. Is this correct? “Yes,” he again answered. In turn, the screen mirrored the voice in describing Calista’s countless features.
Shoulder-length, blonde hair with light brown highlights? “Yes.”
Emerald green eyes? “Yes.”
Olive complexion? “Yes.”
Cup size, 36C? “Yes.”
Shoe size, 8.5? “Yes.”
Ears pierced on lower lobes and small nose stud? “Yes.”
Anklet tattoo above the left foot? “Yes.”
With each response, the attributes on the swaying figure slowly changed to align with them. With each addition, Brad’s excitement was growing.
Calista was starting to take form.
Several minutes in, the physical attributes began to give way to the psychological ones. Humor rating, 5. Attention/Desire rating, 7.5. Sexual Creativity, 10 (naturally). “Yes, yes, and yes,” Brad answered. On and on it went. Every conceivable physical and mental feature had been accounted for, even some that he never remembered seeing on the initial pre-build survey. Memory Response Time—why was that something he would even be asked to determine?
After the seemingly endless string of questions had been verified, the voice appeared for what seemed like the thousandth time: this time, more triumphant. “Building Complete—Calista is now being sequenced!”
This was now the time when all the backend formulations would be completed and she would be fully assembled—digitally, of course—for Brad’s confirmation.
As Calista was being prepared, a flood of thoughts went through his mind. He had long thought about what life with his very own Gynoid would be like, but this was different. It seemed like all the emotions and expectations that he had ever contemplated were now coming together as a flurry, changing seamlessly from one into another.
He thought of everything—literally everything. He saw himself holding Calista’s hand as they drove home together that first evening. He wondered what their conversation would be like, and how much of it he would need to carry. “Will she be shy with me,” he wondered?
Ohhhh . . . and what about their first night, you know, “together”? Brad wondered if they would culminate things in any way, or if either of them would be up for something of that magnitude. Would they even sleep in the same bed, for that matter? He would just need to see how everything was going, he thought.
In only about 14 days, it will all be his. The wait was over. He will be looking at the final mock version of his soon-to-be life companion and only needs to make his final adjustments. He even had the next two weeks to evaluate her image and make sure she was exactly what he wanted. “But two weeks is a long time,” he said to himself.
In the meantime, he would at least be able to converse with her via MereCom’s communications portal. That thought helped to put his mind at ease.
Even still, one thought kept creeping into the back of his mind. Though it was just that—a single thought—it was a sobering one, and it seemed at times to overpower the cacophony of musical notes that had been created by all the others. Somehow, it even blunted the unparalleled sense of anticipation that was trying to stir within him.
“What if Calista doesn’t feel the same way about me?”
“She’s never seen me. She doesn’t know me at all, at least not physically.” Worse, he knew that there was the matter of keeping her interested. This was not something he had ever seemed to do with a woman.
Brad knew that, over time, Calista would build her identity through engagement with the same sites, news outlets, and social media influencers that he frequented. Her intellect would increase. Her preferences would be refined. She would hear the voices of her Gynoid friends and draw upon their experiences. “They all talk to each other,” he said almost in gest to himself.
He knew the possible problems that could arise, regardless of the promises made by MereCom and others in the industry. Eventually, she would become the sum of all the data she accumulates through her lived experience with him and the lived experiences of all those on the web.
Again, with the thought: “Will she love me?” But this time, a multitude of quandaries seemed to connect from the thought like so many strands of a web. Something of a small panic was setting in. “Will I be enough for her long term? Will I be one of the lucky ones who can keep her attention through the years, or will she one day leave for ‘greener pastures’? I hope she is willing to do that ‘thing’ I like (or is at least willing to try it). It’s not that unusual, really. Even if she thinks it’s weird, that would be no reason to . . .”
“Stop it. Just stop right there,” Brad told himself.
“Those things are largely beyond my control,” he doubled down. “We cannot make people do anything they don’t want to do. Calista will be faithful to me if that’s the path she chooses: if she’s a genuinely good woman. I can only control what I do.”
“I’m sure it will all be fine,” he reassured himself rather hesitantly.
“In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter. Why am I so worked up about this? If it doesn’t work out, there are options. There are ways to handle this: I wouldn’t be stuck with her any more than she would be with me.”
“But none of that’s going to happen,” he once more reassured himself as he stepped back out of the room and onto the gliding platform that had brought him there.
“Two more weeks—just two more weeks,” he repeated to himself.
As he passed again through the opposite way of the circulating ovolum doors, he heard the voice once more in the background. Almost as an afterthought, he could faintly make out its words.
“Have a great day, Bradley. Calista will see you soon!”
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Author’s note
If you think all this sounds fantastic, absurd, and even impossible . . .
Then just understand that the only shocking part of this story is the speed at which such things will become a reality.
To hear me discuss this in more detail, see my recent video.
