Future scenarios – Schaltzeit in 2046

“André,” the soft voice of 9, his AI assistant, said quietly, “the elevator isn’t working.” André turned around and saw that the floor indicators of the other elevators had gone dark as well. “What, all of them?” “Yes. In 2039, when all the elevators in Block 4, John-Schehr 2–32, were overhauled, SLRB chips were installed.” André sighed loudly. Why on earth hadn’t he just stayed home and worked from there? A few hours earlier, the Taiwanese Liberation Army had managed to blow up the control plane server of SLRB, Taiwan’s largest computer chip manufacturer, in Taipei. The event apparently triggered a previously unknown code sequence in several chip series installed in electric means of transport worldwide. The code deactivated the chips and paralyzed the affected machines. Despite countless studies, discussions, and administrative measures for risk assessment and mitigation, precisely in areas like these, everyone had once again been caught completely off guard. SLRB had already announced in an official statement that the company had been entirely unaware of the existence of such a sequence and was working flat out on a solution, but for the time being, almost all electrically powered machines in large parts of Asia and Europe had ground to a halt. In Berlin, too, hardly anything was moving on rails or roads – getting to John-Schehr-Straße had been bad enough after the maglev train broke down – and now eight floors on foot….

For a moment, André thought about how, 30 years ago, a few things had been simpler in the old Schaltzeit rooms down on the ground floor. But he consoled himself with the thought that, together with SelbstBau AG, he had at least prevented the eight additional floors.

He had barely sat down at his desk when Run Chu opened the door to his office; the young Chinese man, too, clearly showed the effects of the stairs. “I have finished presentation,” he said. His German was now almost flawless. The learn-in-your-sleep programs were fascinatingly effective. André was amazed every time at how fast the learning processes ran. As always, only the definite articles remained a persistent problem. Too bad they still only worked with low drug doses in people under 20. André’s Spanish was still miserable even after three months, and because of the strong side effects of the accompanying medication, he had recently given up. In any case, these learning programs were almost certainly the reason German was still spoken at Schaltzeit at all; and not only among the AI artists on the 6th floor was the transition to English often more than fluid. Covering the cost of this extra also proved to be a very good way, among other things, of getting young talent from all over the world interested in the company.

“Great, let’s see.” “356, open file bravenewhuman03_final_final2.” 356 darkened the room and started the presentation. The 3D projectors cast razor-sharp holograms into the room. Fifteen minutes later, the lights came back on. “Very nice, very convincing. The German Life Sciences Federation and the Ministry of Economic Affairs will both be happy. Then tomorrow we’ll do the run-through in front of the whole team – and the opening block of the ‘Bundeskongress Zukunft Mensch’ is done. 9, how’s the capsule coming along?” “According to the product backlog, it has been reassembled. The bug was logged as fixed at 9:57 am. It can be tested again.” “Excellent!” André’s mood kept improving. The capsule was really just a big toy in which people could use a sensor suit and an augmented reality visor to feel what technical enhancements to their own bodies felt like – or what it was like to be without them. After a project to optimize innovation processes for a major German medical technology manufacturer, the thing had for some reason stayed at Schaltzeit and ended up in the evidence basement. Schaltzeit’s staff had now managed to squeeze an impressive amount of additional reality out of the simulations and had modified the sensor suit so that it could be put on quickly with the standard adaptive clothing that conference participants tended to wear these days. Over the course of the events, that would surely help one person or another better assess the potential of augmented human measures. Hearing is one thing; feeling, even in 2046, is another. Developing the capsule further had become much more expensive than expected and was eating up resources that were urgently needed elsewhere. The AI assistants still had to be called up by number, because nobody had yet found time to implement UN Directive 2045/9482736 on preventing discrimination in AI assistant identification.

But the capsule was a damn cool gadget, now painted in Schaltzeit blue and fitted with a cool sound when the shell closed. It was still not part of the company’s philosophy to animate data and content in such a way that the audience had to stare at endless rows of colorful 3D pie or bar charts. Moreover, it was urgently necessary to make clear, especially to critics, what opportunities were being withheld from people in Germany and the EU if access to even simple technical aids was only available to those who could afford a flight to Dubai or Singapore. Schaltzeit had also only been able to obtain the accompanying medication for the learn-in-your-sleep programs since being added to the European Commission’s ICC list (importance capitale pour la compétitivité de l’UE).

“Maybe the SLRB chip shutdown will even help,” André thought, “nobody’s getting to Dubai for now.” He looked down at the street, where almost nothing but pedestrians, scooters, and bicycles was still moving.

“Oh, and 9, pull the folder on that EU data sovereignty project from the archive for me – six or seven years ago, together with MegaBitKom, for the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior, I think. Looks like we should offer it again.” Things couldn’t stay like this in the future, after all.