Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 18 - The empLink Story
~ First extract ~
The Quantum-Linked, QSID-ready, Heuristically Controlled-empathetic Communications Neural-Link Chip, otherwise known as the empLink was first conceived, designed, and brought to fruition by the legendary genius KoppKe23, circa 2047, for use on the original Qblock.
The technology that allowed a quantum-generated virtuality to link to the Qblock, was relatively new at the time of Koppke23 inventing the empLink. She did so as a reaction to the complaints from many users, that even though being in an enhanced virtual environment was visually stunning, there was something missing.
Further to the point, users were in the habit of losing their human basic shape on the Qblock. Thus when two people met onblock, if one was say a mythical alien, and the other in the body of some imagined mechanoid. Then it was very difficult for those people to assess each other’s mood.
By and large, human beings found it quite disconcerting to jump into bodies that were not their own. In fact, the further away a user got from the human basic shape, the greater the feelings of disassociation.
In one fell swoop, the empLink solved the onblock problem of disassociation-through-lack-of-empathy, and became the standard on the Qblock almost immediately.
The original version of the empLink was a piece of software that patched into a user’s NPlants upon connection to the Quantum blockchain. However users of the empLink claimed that human interaction became so much richer when linked with others, that it wasn’t long before the 2.0 version was upgraded to allow for use over standard N-Link communications to be used in the real.
It fast became the norm in polite society to open an empLink channel when speaking to strangers and acquaintances alike.
It was the Simul Collective Company [SCC-TM-2053] (the same company later responsible for the Quantum Sampled Integrated Displays (QSID)), who first developed public empLink broadcasters, machines that allowed users to log into a hub and gauge the general mood in a public place.
Less than a year after the SCC-protocols were added to the empLink codes, there were a further three hundred upgrades supplied by over a dozen different companies. Within five years of the first SCC-protocol, the empLink was completely unrecognisable from KoppKe23’s original design.
The original empLinks contained single entangled channels, however today multiple channels allow for not only a range of emotions that can be experienced and broadcast, but also allow users to experience, and transmit emotional states. Therefore it is possible to walk into a room and feel exactly what type of people are in attendance.
It is said that two or more people who have shared extensive empLink-ups together, form a special bond, in that they create complex emotional signals that cannot be easily read by individuals who have not been part of that particular emp-bond.
Even though it is possible to open and close channels, and even shut the empLink off completely, very few people do so; preferring instead to have an ambient channel constantly receiving and transmitting. Thus when you pass someone in the street, both of your emotional states are read by each other.
It is impossible for a modern human to imagine life before the empLink, how did relationships work for instance, if the lovers involved didn’t know how they both felt from moment to moment, in crisis and in calm!?!
Of course the hardest situation for a modern human to understand, is that of murder and war, the empLink has made it virtually impossible for one human to harm another, as the antagonist would feel exactly what their victim was feeling, and the remorse would surely be too great to bear.
The net result of so many humans being emotionally bonded together, is that the empLink has become as natural a part of human biology, as the feet, lungs, or any other vital organ. It is extremely distressing and painful for a modern human to go for more than a day or so, without any kind of empLink communication.
It is for this reason that for most people the game of Empires is so difficult to play, as it does not allow any empLink transmission within the game.
With all that being said, it is an easy conclusion to arrive at, that to this day the empLink is the single most important, and widely used piece of discrete technology in human history.
~ From Life On The Qblock by Maze66
Previous Chapters
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 17 - A Problem With Time
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 16 - Neither Here Nor There
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 15 - At The Edge Of Madness
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 14 - A Sense Of The Real
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 13 - The Search For Truth
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 12 - Empires
Original artwork by @nekromarinist
Original words by Cryptogee
@cryptogee, this says a lot about communication presently. People tend to display less and less of their true emotional state. As the years go by, the new generation is losing touch with each other as most of their focus is on their device; phone, laptop, etc. Emotional interaction is slowly fading.
The emplink is indeed a singular technological breakthrough in communication. To be able to know the mood in a room full of strangers, to be able to know what your spouse is feeling at every given time, to have that kind of bond with another human being; wow that is something awesome.
But it creates a dependence that can be dangerous. Intuition which is the sixth sense will die as a result of such dependence. The ramification of such a change in the human senses is what I feel the game, Empires, intends to correct by removing that emplink connection from the game.
What would we become if we indeed had such tech in our hands in this generation of abusers of trust, of greed and manipulation?
@cryptogee I believe that so many posts in steemit, they display a wide range of talents, but ... beautiful and nice postings I just found in your post, I'm so glad to be able to visit your writing
I find fascinating on the one hand that technology allows for replication of natural Human abilities like that of empathy, yet irritating on the other that technology caused the extinction of very same natural Human abilities.
I mean, empLink is surely something I see in the next decades and centuries, and it will become the norm and very successful. Yet the natural empathy will vanish.
This shows me only once again, that there should not be any judgement as to whether Nature or AI is better. We are just experiencing ourselves as consciousness with nothing being more or less important, more or less valid an experience. We are all free to express ourselves as we wish.
Amazing description of empLink, teeming with details! Thumbs up!