Accept All Cookies

Written by Liam Hogan for ‘Tales from Cybersalon’, September 2021.

Elaine’s finger hovered over the green button. She’d always been data-wary, part of a generation who went through tediously unclicking sections rather than blindly accepting all — until an AI agent remembered her preferences and managed that for her. But it seemed there was little you could do nowadays without sharing your information, your location, your every desire.

Around her, boxes awaited their unpacking. This was a new beginning, a new life. A semi-retirement; working from her new town home rather than a city office, where most of the interactions were online anyway. Moving out from the big bad for a little more space, and a lot less pressure. Or so the theory went.

The button would hook her into the community net. An all consuming AI that knew what you owned, what you bought, what problems you had, what skills. And then joined the dots.

Opting out would mean she would be outside of that. Would be as lonely as she had been in the city. Time to be brave. Time for a fresh start.

#

Her doorbell went half an hour later, echoed by a buzz from her watch. A woman stood on the step, a plate held in front of her. “Hello neighbour!” she said brightly. “I made cookies. No nuts; I know you’re allergic.”

“Wow, that’s…” Elaine struggled for a moment. Home made. Handmade. Would they be sanitary? She was up to date with her jabs, but still… it was tempting fate, wasn’t it?

The woman, whose name was Jill, chatted on for ten exhausting minutes about the area, places to go walking, or shopping, or drinking, all while Elaine wondered if she should be inviting her in, to the mess.

“But I must let you get on!” Jill said. “Don’t worry about the plate, return it when you’re settled. Oh! Nearly forgot. I’m at forty-two, with my brood.”

Elaine was surprised: forty-two was half way down the street, a rather distant neighbour. But that was the thing about net communities. With an AI to manage the introductions, they didn’t need to be so geographically constrained.

When the gazebo in the garden turned out to be rotten, Mark from half way across town turned up with his chainsaw, and stayed to help with the job of dismantling the wooden structure. Possibly to make sure the chainsaw wasn’t returned blood-splattered, though it had proved remarkably easy — and fun! — to use. All from a throwaway comment on the community page. And when she needed a plumber, recommendations flew in, making the search so much easier. Someone even swung by and picked up all her emptied packing boxes, neatly side-stepping that particular chore.

All very useful, though it felt a little one way. Jill — who had become a regular visitor, so much so that Elaine updated her calendar to indicate when she was supposed to be working — pointed out that was to be expected, when someone new moved in. It took a while to fully integrate.

The community AIs had started as a tool insurers used to lower risk, by sharing feeds from doorcams and watching out for any unusual activity. They’d been co-opted by councils as a way of becoming greener, of reducing waste. Retail businesses had hated them, at first. It meant they sold only the one chainsaw, instead of a half-dozen that sat unused ninety-nine percent of the time. And there had been scandals, early on, over who had access to the data, and who could tweak the feed. But, over time, it had morphed into something more organic, and businesses as well as users had adjusted. To Elaine, it looked like a messenger board, and you didn’t see the sophisticated filters that kept it sane, and relevant. When the AI itself reached out, it was always as a gentle prod, a DM with a suggestion, or a no pressure request.

As autumn arrived Elaine joined a host of her neighbours to pick and share apples and other local crops, and often as not returned home to find some fresh produce on her doorstop. After an online chat with the horticulturists in the area, she ordered a heritage variety plum tree to sit where the gazebo had once been, an investment in the future.

Christmas, never usually her favourite time of year, was made tolerable by wassailing in the community orchard, by the nods of recognition from neighbours who had become friends, by shared recipes, and shared results. By a waifs-and-strays Boxing Day dinner, a gaggle of good-natured singletons that had led to a half-dozen new friends, and one or two date requests for the New Year.

The local school — also part of the net — offered yoga and other exercise classes in the evenings, for a nominal fee. Far cheaper than the expensive city gyms she’d never really enjoyed, or had time for. Art classes and language classes as well — something to consider for the future.

Elaine volunteered to help out once a month at the Reuse centre, the council-provided containers full of things people no longer wanted, but other people might. Her job was to tag the contents for the net, each re-homing counting towards the council’s ambitious recycling targets. She picked up a sturdy bicycle for herself, and registered her electric car on the local pool. She wasn’t displeased that others used it more often than she did. Slowly, her life expanded to fill the gaps that perhaps had always been there, hidden behind the hours she’d used to work and her addiction to box sets and pinot grigio.

Then, almost a year after she’d moved in, she got a DM from the AI. She went to her window, peered down the street, and clocked the removals van.

“Hello neighbour!” Elaine said brightly, an hour later, stood on the doorstep under the quizzical gaze of the newest resident and net neighbour. “I made cookies. Gluten free.”