Read Online If Then by Matthew De Abaitua - Free Book Online Page B

would fall sick and evicted them in the first months.”
    Joe nodded. “The Process discovers illness before I do. Before the patients themselves. It knows our fate.”
    “The Process is an iterative, incremental framework for human interaction powered by complete access to everything we feel, say and do,” Alex reminded them. “And, yes, Joe, it is predictive. It monitors, learns from and anticipates our needs. The Process is partly composed of algorithms and associated data sets that evolved under the pressure of the needs of billions of consumers, salvaged from the internet and transferred to our biotech. The first algorithms of mass observation screened humans for outliers, specifically patterns of behaviour associated with terrorism. It was our genius to use those same methods to screen for behaviour that was social positive rather than social negative, and use it to reinforce that behaviour.”
    “And we need eviction to enforce socially positive behaviour?” asked the baron.
    Carla was shocked. “Eviction is not a need! Children in my school have lost their parents. Nobody needs that. Who could need that?”
    “Not such a sane town, after all,” said Edith.
    “I don’t understand your argument.” The baron turned his long weathered face back to Alex Drown. “That these people are cast out of their homes for their own good? Or that our town needs the prospect of punishment – no matter how arbitrary – to function?” The question had the soft ‘g’ and trilled ‘r’ of the North Brabant accent, a remnant of the baron’s childhood on the family estate in Eerde.
    Alex said, “The Seizure was a response to the declining value of labour among the majority of people in the West. Put simply, we needed to find, for people like yourselves, an alternative mechanism to markets for meeting needs and driving production. Lewes was fortunate because, while the value of the labour of its citizens approaches zero, the data that can be harvested from you and used to refine the Process has a reasonably high value.”
    “We are interesting ,” said the baron.
    “But not in the ways that you would like to be,” said Edith.
    Alex Drown continued, “The Process is constantly evolving. We’ve established thirty-four behavioural patterns within the Process consistent with algorithms that were extant prior to the Seizure, some from financial services, dating agencies, retailers, market research, some from national health monitoring, some from national security agencies of various nations, one from our own lifestreaming and experiential tagging project, and so on. But new patterns are emerging.”
    The baron slapped the table with mock amusement. “So how can you be confident of its intentions? Oh, excuse me, I forgot. I must not speak of intentions. That would be teleologically unsound of me, wouldn’t it? What would we do without the Institute to counsel us on our flawed ways of thinking? Let me try a different tack: what does the Institute make of the appearance of this stretcher bearer?”
    “The bailiff is monitoring the soldier for us. We await his report.”
    The council turned to James and Hector. Edith gestured for James to come forward. He stood up but Hector stepped ahead of him to stand in full attention before the conference table. The doctor inspected the physiognomy of Hector, testing the plasticity of his skin, the resistance of his flesh, the ridged sinews of his forearms. He sniffed around the chest, and peered into the pupils.
    “This is an obscenity,” said Joe. “To expend such resources in times of austerity is a moral offence.”
    “Art is never a moral offence,” announced the baron.
    “You approve?”
    “I do,” said the baron. “The Process has become an artist.”
    “The appearance of this soldier makes a mockery of our sacrifice,” said Angus. The douanier had relatives on the other side of the fence, scattered in encampments throughout the Downs; James had not needed to evict