Tldr it's a long read with a surprisingly realistic start, a less realistic middle and a utopian end where: Spoilers Chapter 1-3 A virtual manager is created to automate the job of managing...
Tldr it's a long read with a surprisingly realistic start, a less realistic middle and a utopian end where:
Spoilers Chapter 1-3
A virtual manager is created to automate the job of managing employees in a fast-food startup. It's basically a headset that tells you what to do. It's linked up with a lot of user data to do this really well. Since fast food has terrible work conditions, a virtual manager (hence the name) is preferable to a real one. After the success, the system is converted to other jobs and eventually, all of the lower class of employment is managed by it. After this, these systems morph their databases into a US equivalent of the social credit system.
Chapter 4-5
After 2 or 3 decades of Moore's law (probably where the history becomes decidedly fiction), robots become a viable replacement of human labor. (Sidenote: the narrator is a teacher with a masters degree, so they're only affected by this really late into the transition.) Once this happens, people out of work to do get put into welfare condominiums of public housing made of a material called terrafoam. You can't leave (or vote for change, democracy has been backslid out of existence in the US by now.)
Tldr it's a long read with a surprisingly realistic start, a less realistic middle and a utopian end where:
Spoilers
Chapter 1-3
A virtual manager is created to automate the job of managing employees in a fast-food startup. It's basically a headset that tells you what to do. It's linked up with a lot of user data to do this really well. Since fast food has terrible work conditions, a virtual manager (hence the name) is preferable to a real one. After the success, the system is converted to other jobs and eventually, all of the lower class of employment is managed by it. After this, these systems morph their databases into a US equivalent of the social credit system.
Chapter 4-5
After 2 or 3 decades of Moore's law (probably where the history becomes decidedly fiction), robots become a viable replacement of human labor. (Sidenote: the narrator is a teacher with a masters degree, so they're only affected by this really late into the transition.) Once this happens, people out of work to do get put into welfare condominiums of public housing made of a material called terrafoam. You can't leave (or vote for change, democracy has been backslid out of existence in the US by now.)