Mastodawn

“No computers.” the guard said harshly, holding out a metal box.

I put my phone in the box. He didn’t budge. I took off my smart watch and added it in.

“Are you sure you have no more computers? The detector sends out a brief EMP. It would be a shame to destroy any gadgets. Or injure you." He was staring at the side of my face.

Ah. I removed the Connex from my temple. I’d forgotten it was there.

He ushered me into what looked like an old electronic doorway, then pressed a button. A light flashed.

"You're free to enter. Enjoy." No smile.

I passed through a corridor to desk where a receptionist smiled. "First time?"

"Yes, is it obvious?"

"Don't worry. It's simple. Through the double doors there you'll find the main selection of books, by era and topic. It's colour-coded and easy to follow. You'll need these if you want to touch anything." She put a paper mask and thin laboratory gloves on the desk.

"Behind you is the iffy section, as we call it. Books printed after 2015."

"2015?! I thought AI printed books only appeared in the mid 2020s."

"That's probably true, but we can't be sure. Preserving authentic pre-AI knowledge is our raison d'être. We can't be too safe."

Her look turned serious and I saw the devotion to the cause in her eyes. Since the Big Corruption of '32, no digital files could be trusted to replicate original human knowledge. This library was a time capsule.

"Can books be taken out?"

"No, I'm afraid not. We couldn't let them back in, as they could be fakes."

"So, can I copy things? My phone and Connex were taken away. Do you have a camera to message me chapters?"

"No, we're strictly machine-free. but we have several scribes. They're very good." She was enjoying my puzzled look.

"They can copy down whole pages for you. With pen and paper," she answered my unspoken question.

"Pen and paper?" these were words of tales and myths.

"Come, I'll show."

#devotion #MastoPrompt #microfiction #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

@noam I'm unsure if this scenario fills me with horror or hopefulness. Probably a bit of both. Loved it!

Noam writes May 9

@saua Thank you! I feel the same.

GravePapaya May 9

@noam I enjoyed this but I had problems suspending disbelief when I encountered scribes as the only choice. While I may be a fountain pen enthusiast and enjoy writing on paper, I wondered why the library in this would not make full use of mechanisms that predate the introduction of the computer. In particular photographic reproductions such as microfilm were quite normal for decades and this fictional library likely has newspaper archives on microfilm.

If they're concerned with knowledge preservation they should be well aware of the risks of transcription errors from scribes.

Noam writes May 9

@gravepapaya Thank you for your thoughts! I was going for a technology aversion vibe, but it's not perfect. I think that's the nature of microfiction, putting out an idea and not making it full-proof.

Stanley Black-Decker May 10

@noam @gravepapaya I think the choice of scribes vs. typewriters is mainly about genre.

As written, the scribes are a clear indicator that it's satire. Process engineering is often the first victim of satire.

If it were typewriters, we'd be leaning in a speculative sci-fi direction

Julis 🦊 Fox Grrrl May 10

@pleaseclap @noam @gravepapaya would you mind elaborating further on this? The points sound interesting but I am missing the knowledge to understand where they come from😅

Stanley Black-Decker May 10

@nominom @noam @gravepapaya

It's about the priorities: satire is inherently a criticism and it relies on the absurd to illustrate points. So if you're writing satire and you have a choice between an accurate prediction of future technology and an absurdity that makes the point clear, you have to go with the absurdity

If you're writing speculative sci-fi you can be absurd sometimes but you generally don't want to compromise too much on functional details: you rely on those for your credibility

Stanley Black-Decker May 10

@nominom @noam @gravepapaya Futurama (satire) vs. Ghost in the Shell (speculative)

Julis 🦊 Fox Grrrl May 10

@pleaseclap @noam @gravepapaya thank you for explaining^^

cognitively accessible math May 10

@noam @gravepapaya A manual typewriter would be a fun aspect, too.

Benjamin Sonntag-King May 10

@gravepapaya @noam I guess it was because of the great corruption of '32
Maybe we couldn't trust microfilm reproduction either since the last machines to do those were digital, too?

@benjamin @gravepapaya @noam

Guess mechanical typewriter were museum pieces by then, with no ribbon manufacturers left.

Jean-Baptiste "JBQ" Quéru May 10

@M0KHR @benjamin @gravepapaya @noam https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_are_switching_written_numbers_when_scanning comes to mind

Xerox scanners/photocopiers randomly alter numbers in scanned documents

Xerox scanners/photocopiers randomly alter numbers in scanned documents Please see the “condensed time line” section (the next one) for a time line of how the Xerox saga unfolded. It for example depicts that I did not push the thing to the public right away, but gave Xerox a lot of time before I did so. <iframe width="700" height="394" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c0O6UXrOZJo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

D. Kriesel

Elizabeth Sudduth May 10

@jbqueru @M0KHR @benjamin @gravepapaya @noam I had this happen on a research poster that I was presenting at a conference. It was so weird.

Good article, thanks.

@M0KHR @benjamin @gravepapaya @noam

Julie Sqveakaroo May 10

@M0KHR @benjamin @gravepapaya @noam They'd all been stripped for parts to be made into, and sold as craft and art projects, by the late 2020s

@benjamin @gravepapaya @noam

This deminded me of a very good short anime I had watched some decades ago, called Pale Cocoon.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1506448/

Pale Cocoon (Short 2005) ⭐ 6.9 | Animation, Short, Drama

23m

IMDb

Benjamin Sonntag-King May 10

@M0KHR @gravepapaya @noam I will look at it. Thank you !!!

Gaëtan Perrault May 10

@gravepapaya @noam

I was going to say microfiche or typewriters. Both old tech, but not electronic, and both faster than hand writing.

@gatesvp @gravepapaya @noam The scribes have to use the typewriters, because the visitors no longer understand how to work the mechanical buttons and ink ribbons and correction tapes and whatnot.

Lohan Gunaweera May 10

@noam
This made my day! Good stuff! Thank you for writing and sharing :)

Noam writes May 10

@lohang Thank you, glad you enjoyed it! 😎

@noam I'm not gonna lie, I thought of a similar world in the future where our "human knowledge database" was also protected by library time capsules, from all digital entities just the other day. In my imaginary story, AI is trying to erase all non-AI knowledge sources so we had to become reliant on them, completely. I told my friend of this possible grim future and she laughed at my "extreme" scenario! I guess I'm not the only one! Love your writing. Will check your other work!

Noam writes May 10

@eclecticpassions Thank you! Glad you like it.

Jay Stephens May 10

@noam @technihilism.bsky.social

Florence Maraninchi May 10

@noam
Excellent! Thanks.

Julis 🦊 Fox Grrrl May 10

@noam Great story! I'd also add that the scribes kinda took me out of the immersion, because my mind was thinking about why you'd use scribes with pen and paper, but as you put it in a different reply its a microfiction, you cant make everything perfect in that little space^^ Thank you for writing such a nice bit of microfiction, i am hooked and would have loved to read on.

blobcatinnocent

Mer-fOKxTOwl May 10

@nominom @noam analog photography could be another option. but on the other hand it could have become unfeasable as it requires some nasty chemicals and a relatively complicated chain of production.

Julis 🦊 Fox Grrrl May 10

@glowl @noam i thought about typewriters tbh and for mass reproduction about printing presses🙈

@glowl Some of the older photocopiers were by and large analog as far as the scanning and xerographic process for putting toner on paper.

Code of Amor 💘May 10

@noam @jaybird110127 This is far too believable.

O‘Mimesis May 10

@noam very probable future! Thx for sharing 🙏🏻💫

Tom DB 🦣May 10

@noam Reading this and right after in my timeline the one below is telling…

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/114482638209848588

Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social)

Marks & Spencer bureau de change staff are being forced to use pen and paper to serve customers as a result of the cyber attack on the retailer and cannot accept card payment. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-14696595/Hack-rocks-Marks-Spencer-bureau-change.html

Cyberplace

sarah tonin May 10

@noam typewriters

Shrirang Kahale May 10

@noam I see a tinge of 1984 in this 😅

Tane Piper ⁂May 10

@noam this is why I've been buying hordes of books at second hand stores, so I'll have an untainted set

Mama Hörnchen May 10

@noam cc @levampyre

Siegfried.May 10

@noam This reminds me of a discussion on Wikipedia. I had written something whereby I was an eyewitness to this in the early 1980s, but the text was removed because I couldn't find any digital evidence of it. I have no problem with that, but it leaves me with a bad feeling that history gets lost over time.

BenAveling May 10

@realSiegfried @noam yes it does, and computers have made it worse. Paper lasts. Computer storage does not. We capture more than ever but most of what we capture will not last long.

rostundrad May 10

@realSiegfried @noam Das kenne ich, in den Anfangszeiten hab ich auch Artikel zu technischen Belangen korrigiert. Mein Argument: "ich hab einen Messschieber und das fragliche Objekt in der Hand" fand keine Gnade.
Hab nie wieder versucht etwas zu Wikipedia beizutragen.

@realSiegfried @noam
That's because Wikipedia is strictly not a primary source. You can publish your story anywhere else, then reference in Wikipedia. The same rule applies to any encyclopedia.

Zu "original knowledge". Mit Stand von heute ist Wikipedia eine der wenigen ziemlich zuverlässigen Wissensquellen. Mit LLMs erstellte und bearbeitete Artikel sind verboten und werden gesucht und wenn identifiziert entfernt oder korrigiert. Die Bilder in commons.wikimedia.org müssen, wenn sie computer-generiert sind, markiert werden (durch eine kategorie).

wikipedia publiziert zu jeder Medien-Datei einen Message-Digest. Von allen websites von Wikipedia wird zweimal im monat ein Backup erstellt und im bz2-Archiv-format veröffentlicht. Zum Download werden die Backups der letzten zwei bis drei monate angeboten. Zu jedem dieser Backups gibt es einen Message-Digest. Mit diesen Message Digests kann die authenzität von Dateien und von Backups verifiziert werden. Dateien mit den gesammelten Message Digests der letzten Monate von 1008 websites der WMF können bei @Data_is heruntergeladen werden. Wenn möglichst viele Leute diese Dateien herunterladen und aufheben, kann so etwas wie eine manuelle menschliche "Blockchain" entstehen, mit der (insbesondere wenn wikipedia nicht mehr zur verfügung steht, zB wril das projekt von Trump und Musk geschlossen wurde) Backups von Wikipedia auf echtheit geprüft werden können.

Bitte dem Account @Data_is folgen und bestehende und künftige Posts des Accounts beachten.

Jonas Schäfer May 10

@noam Libraries are my only hope for preservation of knowledge at this point.

Colette Libertine May 10

I guess it's time for me to start writing again. This is excellent!

THIS!! I love it.

Reminds me of when I was at the community college library in 2013, taking classes for the first time in 11 years.

I started looking around for a copier, and was about to ask the front desk, when I realized that it was in my pocket. 🤦‍♂️

Tech is weird. I'm hating the #AI #Slopageddon.

@noam
cute but a shame people with non-removeable implants like pacemakers can't visit

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ May 10

@noam not exactly unrealistic and kind of scary by it.

@noam this was a fabulous flash piece! Well done.

Noam writes May 10

@LJ Thank you! 😀

@noam
I see some replies have suggested typewriters or analog cameras instead of scribes, but with replies to them suggesting those might no longer be possible due to absence of manufacturing plants for ink tapes / chemicals.

Another reason for scribes might be cost! The library might be purely volunteer-run, with little money available for low-tech gear but dedicated humans willing to spend hours in careful writing (a hobby for some people even today).

Thank you for such a thought-provoking story!

@noam this is really fucked up. I hope to God it doesn't get this bad

Gallen 🔜 EF May 12

@noam
I had goosebumps at the end.

DaveHowe May 12

@noam - confused though. I get that they want to preserve a research library of non-AI-contaminated materials; I don't get why they don't want AI to even see photocopies of those materials, nor why that reason goes away if the reproduction is via handwritten text.

Is there going to be any further expansion of this concept?

Noam writes May 12

@DaveHowe The idea was a 'purist' anti-tech movement. With even cameras and photocopiers containing AI, they don't want them in the library. It's just a microfiction, so easy to pick holes. I suppose the story could be expanded to discuss remaking computer-less technology.

DaveHowe May 12

@noam - fair enough. it could be a new Dark Ages, with books only reproduced by hand, and a mother church to decide WHICH books are worth preserving....

@noam "Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind" is something that won't come up for 9000 more years.

@noam back to middle ages we go

@noam That's a good start to a full novel. 🤔

Noam writes May 15

@jmht Hmmm... I was thinking of expanding it to a short story. Not sure I have a novel in me...

@noam Many a series have begun with a short story 🙂