Sweet Harmony — By Claire North
For those who have read my first blog post (link at the end), you will know I am a big fan of Claire North. I try to read all of her books. They often involve incredibly inventive concepts and challenge many of the “trends” present in everyday life. Sweet Harmony is no different. This time it is about a worryingly realistic imagined future: where there are Nanos in our bloodstream taking care of our health with an AI function that allows real-time upgrades to our body. The catch? If you can’t afford the subscription, AI Superior will strip back the functions until you lose the ability to see smell or colour, let alone the ‘natural’ physique of a ballet dancer.
“Dazzling Smile–no more sad mornings! Before we created Dazzling Smile, women would have to regularly inject themselves with a deadly, paralysing toxin to bring the joy of youth back to their faces. How relieved they are to have a better, nano choice! In the event of sudden blindness, contact your healthcare provider.”
This black-mirror style novella is short and punchy. I wouldn’t be surprised if North’s nano-fixer-uppers becomes a reality. It might have already been cooked up in some super-secret lab the general public is blissfully unaware of! I love the 15-seconds into the future element of North’s writing. Here, North examines the moral, ethical and economic dilemmas that come with progress. The main character, Harmony, becomes addicted to upgrades (which run on a subscription basis) until she finds herself heavily in debt with no way of paying it back. As her nano-boosted functions are stripped away, so is the public standing her Dazzling Smile and Hale and Hearty upgrades have bought her. How different is this, really, to paying for Instagram filters and photoshopping apps? You create an ideal image of yourself online, drawing in followers and rewards. I searched #gifted on Instagram to find 2.4 million posts… #ad has 14.6 million posts. Your virtual life diverges further and further from reality. You get addicted to the social status it all creates. All it takes is arrears or a sudden mistake, and it can all come crashing down.
“One week later, her debt to Fullife for unpaid medical services hit £1000, and to encourage swift repayment while still supporting essential medical services, they cut off her sense of smell.”
I did feel that some things in the book could have been fleshed out a little more, but perhaps that’s because it’s a novella. I tend to steer away from these. However, there was little reference to the Big Wide World and how technology had revolutionised society. This lack of a big picture led to the book feeling a little shallow. Nevertheless, it is thought-provoking and a clever spin on current society and its future.
I wonder if Charlie Brooker has read Sweet Harmony (probably not). Indeed, it would be a great TV show.
Things to think about
Social media
Social media has infiltrated all aspects of our lives. I have tried to delete Instagram more than a few times and always find myself back scrolling a few days later. Even now, when I haven’t posted for over a year, I can’t seem to fully shake the app. I’ve recently turned off notifications and have a self-implemented social media ban in the morning. The “like” model used on these apps (or on Facebook these days, the like, heart, celebrate, laugh, cry, angry) is addictive. It actives the reward pathways in our brain. Humans like talking about themselves too, so social media allows us to indefinitely. But why then, now that I don’t post and therefore don’t receive these serotonin bursts, can I not get off it? I think it may have something to do with social groups — wanting to feel “in” the crowd. I am going to do some further investigations and weaning and see how I get on.
Technology for technology’s sake
A year into the “new normal” and it’s fair to say Covid-19 has expedited the technology revolution further than anyone could have predicted. Working from home, Zoom, webinars, even ergonomic chairs are things I did not think would have taken centre stage in my life. They are great though. They allow me to go from work, an art class and then to a legal webinar, all on a standard Monday morning. One such webinar I attended recently, hosted by Mishcon’s Academy that focussed on sustainability and technology, really got me thinking about this idea of technology for technology’s sake. It needs to be nuanced, and it needs to be applied smartly. It also needs to have an impact and not throw up any moral or legal conundrums. Last year, a Big Tech company in America used AI to predict how many times a job applicant would be late to work based on typical traffic patterns in their postcode. From a data perspective, great! From an applied perspective, dreadful! Job applicants living in a postcode with better infrastructure were more likely to be middle class and white, therefore leading to bias. Machines can only work on the data they are given. If this data is skewed by societal inequality, so be the output. A better bit of technological development I’ve come across recently is the added Zoom feature that allows you to hide self-view. While perhaps a little more trivial… if you didn’t know already, thank me later.
https://lilymunro99.medium.com/the-beginning-and-a-look-back-21e9b94f1250
