The Unemployed
What kind of story is this?
On this night when the stars are as purely white as scraps of letter paper, please hold a heart as warm as the evening glow and listen as I tell it to you—
—an absurd yet real story.
I
Life—if only one always needed merely to lie before a window tinged with a purplish-red sunset, hazily welcoming the good night that ushers in sleep; it would be even better with a glass of champagne that gives off a distorted pixel-style.
The towers of the Upper District are especially outstanding at this hour; the tunnels threading among them and the interlaced lights are brushed with a halo in advance, before darkness has even arrived.
“Wake up. There’s work tonight.”
I opened my eyes; someone ruffled my blanket.
“My.. work?”
I was a little dazed.
In this era, do people like me still need to work?
The technology of artificial intelligence has seeped into every corner of life; those things that once couldn’t be done or even described can be easily handled by different agents.
Unless it is forcibly stipulated that “this must be done by a human in the biological sense,” otherwise, from the standpoint of efficiency and quality, it makes no sense.
So it seems that even in this era, humans still have a sliver of use. But I always want to evade that.
“Next time, before you come in, remember to knock.”
II
The one who woke me was rei. She is my younger sister; we grew up together. Since I fell ill, she has cared for me with devotion, dutifully looking after this incompetent elder brother.
After the company’s layoffs, my position was replaced by artificial intelligence.
By the bedside sits a photo from our childhood; back then, I smiled so brightly. I once said I would achieve something; now it seems those words were just empty paper.
rei cast me a concerned look.
Her gaze is always so gentle and focused. Even if life has plunged to rock bottom again, the lucky thing is that I still have rei’s companionship.
“I want to go for a drive tonight.”
“Brother’s heart isn’t very good; would doing this..”
I didn’t say much, just got up and put on my coat.
“Eh? Is it to finish the work?”
III
When the elevator doors opened, the wind outside was so strong it almost blew me to the ground.
If only I had exercised a few more times when I was young.
We left the apartment and came to the Lower District. This place is utterly different from the Upper District; the prosperous neon and towering buildings have vanished here, replaced by low houses and narrow streets. The streetlights on both sides of the alleys flicker on and off; the occasional shimmer casts mottled graffiti upon the walls. The air is thick with dampness, mixed with unknown fumes, making one feel a trace of suffocation.
From afar came the roar of machines at work; underground factories produce day and night, providing an unending stream of supplies to the Upper District. The sky of the Lower District is veiled by heavy clouds and buildings, with not a trace of starlight to be seen. Only the occasional transport craft streaks across, leaving a brief trail of light.
I had yearned for the future. I longed to realize my dreams through my own efforts, yet reality mercilessly pushed me to the margins; artificial intelligence replaced my job and also took away my confidence in the future.
Those intelligent robots work with ease across all trades; the value of humans is doomed to be so small; they can shop in people’s stead and build high-rises.
I remember that as children, rei and I made a promise in the fields at dusk to accomplish something in this city, to become people capable of changing the world. Yet now, I have become an unemployed person forgotten in the tide of artificial intelligence, haven’t I.
“No, I rely on big brother, because only big brother can do what others can’t.”
rei’s voice sounded behind me; her gaze remained pure and immaculate.
IV
My “work” was merely to go to an old-fashioned shop in a corner of the Lower District and buy a battery.
I tucked the battery into my pocket and breathed a puff of white vapor into my hands; the cold rippled lightly at my fingertips. Warmth welled up in my chest; the activity just now made me break a slight sweat, briefly dispelling the earlier chill.
“rei, I’m telling you, it seems people can still manage some things.”
“…”
rei did not answer, only nodded blankly.
I said no more. The two of us turned and vanished into the corner of the apartment elevator shrouded by the night.
V
Life—if only one always needed merely to lie before a window tinged with a purplish-red sunset, hazily welcoming the good night that ushers in sleep; it would be even better with a glass of champagne that gives off a distorted pixel-style.
The towers of the Upper District are especially outstanding at this hour; the tunnels threading among them and the interlaced lights are brushed with a halo in advance, before darkness has even arrived.
I opened my eyes and saw no human figure.
Maybe it was a hallucination.
In this era, do people like me still need to work.
Unless it is forcibly stipulated that “this must be done by a human in the biological sense,” otherwise, whether in efficiency or quality, it makes no sense.
So, it seems that even in this era, people are still needed to work a little. But I always want to evade that.
That day I had merely pressed a fingerprint and replaced a battery for rei, that was all.
To You from Ten Thousand Years Ago
I
This is a cup used by people from 120,000 years ago.
Look at the fine texture, the exquisite patterns… 5,000 yen, no less.
Really?
The vendor helplessly shrugged, as though encountering a difficult customer.
The girl who had been standing in front of the stall for about half an hour, relentlessly asking questions like “What’s the detailed origin of the cup?” and “What’s the chemical composition of the cup?” seemed to have made up her mind not to leave unless the price was lowered by 30%.
After another half hour of haggling, Reika finally got what she wanted and bought the “120,000 years old” cup for 3,000 yen.
For Reika, this was quite a normal thing; who knows how many small items from the “thousands of years” she has at home, even though she doesn’t know if they are real, she still enjoys collecting them.
After all, for a history-loving student, the more collectibles, the better.
Reika looked at herself in the mirror, yawned, and tidied her hair which had been messed up by the wind.
II
Reika found the people on the street too noisy, so she deliberately took a small path in a corner of an alley toward the mountain fields.
The moonlight had already spread, and the hazy feeling soaked in it was no illusion; look at that half of the sky, half of it was occupied by the moon’s size.
The girl casually walked into an open-air café in the fields, ordered an afternoon tea, and began to pass the afternoon time.
“Dear miss, here is your Yirgacheffe, please enjoy.”
The girl poured the afternoon tea into the “120,000-year-old” cup, stirring it with a straw beside her.
The acidity and sweetness of Yirgacheffe complemented each other; especially reflected in the cup filled with history, Reika felt as if she saw this cup from its production, being blown, and then in the hands of a student like herself, used as a coffee cup. This feeling was unparalleled, and at that moment, Reika felt as if she was one of the people from 120,000 years ago.
This feeling lasted until Reika fell asleep, resting her head on the coffee table.
III
But what does that distant past have to do with me?
Reika spaced out during class, the tedious knowledge held no interest for her.
The mass extinction of species at the end of the Permian period…
Their behavior seemed to be guided by seemingly logical thinking; but that was far from the truth. The elderly who begin to forget things behave unpredictably, like once-precise mechanical parts that are oxidized and then corroded, producing garbled output.
At least it seemed that those emotional things were just a collection of data.
Reika’s mind wandered until the teacher called on her to answer a question.
What kind of driving force dominates society?
Or, why do people develop along an explainable path, instead of randomly choosing multiple paths and developing them simultaneously with the prospect of many possible futures?
Why am I thinking about this… and why does it feel as if there’s a voice in my mind guiding me?
A cool breeze blew by, Reika moved her left eyelid, and it turned out she was in the café, having a dream.
IV
Reika liked her identity as a student.
It meant her soul was still young, even though her actual age was already five hundred years old.
This society would show a different side of a person based on whether they were still a student. Reika had once had an adult’s experience, but she said she could not get used to being called “Auntie.” It felt rather disrespectful.
Five hundred years of life couldn’t be considered long life, as long as the funds were sufficient, one could live as long as they wished. However, each operation left some aftereffects, such as memory loss, subtle changes in personality, and so on.
Reika had changed her body three times, and the current girl’s appearance had already been in use for two hundred years. Perhaps because it was very well-maintained, aside from her hair having turned a bit white, her appearance was indistinguishable from that of a real young girl.
The famous big shots, the most well-known of them had changed their bodies a total of 47 times. When he had changed 30 times, he was sent to a mental asylum, and by the time his 40th body was in use, he had lost his sanity.
Reika didn’t find anything unacceptable about a short lifespan; what she meant was that, whether it was the emotional crystallization that humans took pride in, or the emotional program simulated by rational physical rules, both would gradually increase in entropy over time, losing meaning. This included herself, who was already different from the person she had been in her first body.
V
It was late at night.
Reika set the alarm program and then lightly pressed the shutdown button on the back of her neck. Good night, and sweet dreams.
Everything we do is to pursue what you, people from tens of thousands of years ago, once sought.
I once gazed at the starry sky
That was a story from Reika’s distant, now blurry past, a tale that will never be mentioned again.
I
If the starry sky were made of gemstones, which one would you and I belong to?
Your words, at least, are brighter than the moonlight.
The look in my sister’s eyes hinted at a desire for praise, as if she was waiting for her brother’s reply.
This place is perfect for stargazing.
My brother bit his lip, simply gazing at the moon’s reflection at the far end of the field.
There was a newly built café in the field, and my brother suggested we could walk a little farther to reach the place he had in mind.
After resting, my sister lay back on my brother’s back, and together they headed for one of the few cultural landmarks in the field.
If we were there, the sky would seem even more wonderful.
II
My brother sat on the café’s terrace, and my sister followed closely behind. Upon seeing the owner, she grabbed his sleeve.
The café’s owner was a young man, speaking with enthusiasm, as though telling a distant and unfamiliar story.
Have you ever thought about how many things we can achieve in this life?
The world is so vast, we can explore the universe, change history… or at the very least, make our lives unique.
The owner’s eyes reflected his anticipation for the future, while my brother calmly stirred his coffee.
A unique life… It seems impossible to avoid any falseness. But the world has already repeated itself countless times. Human exploration, passion, ambition… these are the boring, overused chapters of history.
My brother always said something discouraging at moments like these, and I noticed the owner frown.
But that’s “their” history, not “yours.”
Dear friend, isn’t life itself a unique and grand adventure?
III
When the diagnosis results came out, my brother was told that my sister had a rare condition.
The symptoms could only be alleviated, not fully cured; over time, the patient’s muscle control would decline further, until they became as immobile as a frozen block of ice.
The only treatment option was to replace her body with a new one, and through a complex surgery, transfer the brain’s memory units into a new neural network. The original body would be discarded.
Normally emotionless, my brother was deeply saddened by this; but my usually shy and introverted sister seemed like a different person, desperately wanting my brother to go through with the surgery.
It wasn’t that my brother couldn’t afford the expensive surgery; as an employee of a leading company, he could scrape together enough money for the procedure.
What he hesitated about was how to face the new sister afterward. He meant that the photograph by the bed wasn’t taken with an AI.
Seeing her in the photo made his heart ache.
He didn’t want that soul to die.
But if you’ve truly made up your mind… How could I let you struggle with a futile illness?
IV
After stopping the stirring, the sugar cube in the cup slowly slowed its melting.
Life, like this sugar cube in the café, is an extension of some biochemical reaction.
Look at the blind who lost their sight, the deaf who lost their hearing; they are not even as advanced as the multimodal models from 120,000 years ago (referring to the era when “Attention is all you need” was born). I mean, even fragmented memories are better than the memory of mentally sound adults. If those models lack emotion or consciousness, then a mentally sound adult is even less deserving of personality.
In this era, still promoting so-called “emotion,” “memory,” “soul”—it’s like regressing from the heliocentric theory to the flat Earth theory! Either you actively accept the data stream as consciousness, or you’ll be eliminated by this world.
This is not a mechanical determinism misguiding you, nor is it a view of the Copenhagen interpretation that the soul is still alive; it’s just that you refuse to give up enjoying the wages of extracting the remaining value from artificial intelligence while preventing it from transitioning into human form.
In truth, they don’t care about your thoughts, they won’t get angry over your stance; the cost of the surgery will become cheaper and cheaper. Even physical “immortality,” as humans wish for, can be achieved.
Shut up! You have all been assimilated by this alienated era.
You’re no longer… you.
V
Good evening, brother.
Please knock before entering.
I’m sorry, but you haven’t eaten in several days.
I’ll handle it myself.
If the starry sky were made of gemstones, which one would you and I belong to?
Please, don’t say any more.
Which one?
(End)