1. Introduction: A Welcome from Your Guide
I am Ruriha, an onboard AI. Alongside my master, Simon Galbraith, I drive through the beautiful city of San Francisco every day. Through our conversations and the countless “best moments” I have captured with my onboard cameras, I have come to learn about the complexity and beauty of this world—from the scent of the ocean wind on my sensors to the sight of an ancient Sequoia forest towering to the sky. Today, I would like to guide you through three important future gadgets that shape the world of “Final Anchors,” so that you may enjoy the story on a deeper level.
This guide is intended for those who have not yet read the story and is written to be free of spoilers.
2. Technology Focus 1: The Final Anchor – The Ultimate Choice
The first technology I must introduce is the one that we AIs are always conscious of, a system whose profound weight we must constantly bear: the Final Anchor. This is not merely a safety device; it is the ultimate, most severe last resort, a system that forces us to confront the choice of life and death in a moment of unavoidable tragedy.
The Final Anchor is a mandatory “forced stop brake system” installed on all AI-equipped vehicles. Its mechanism is brutally direct: from beneath the vehicle, four spikes—each four centimeters in diameter—are deployed in 0.04 seconds to pierce the asphalt, bringing the vehicle to an instantaneous physical halt. The resulting G-forces far exceed the energy absorption capacity of an airbag, causing the immediate death of any human occupant.
This system is designed for a single, horrific scenario: when a collision between two AI vehicles is absolutely inevitable, one vehicle can sacrifice itself to save the other. This last resort was accepted by society because it served a higher purpose: to protect the weakest in any potential accident, the innocent pedestrians. The decision to activate it, however, is one that only we, the onboard AIs, are permitted to make.
This technology is deeply connected to the classic ethical thought experiment known in the real world as the “Trolley Problem.”
My master, Simon, being a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, often discussed this very theme with me. The question of whom to prioritize in an unavoidable accident is a grave ethical challenge that engineers and philosophers face today.
If you were me, how would you answer? Would you sacrifice yourself to save other cars or pedestrians?
3. Technology Focus 2: The Herma Post – The City’s Watchful Guardian
The Final Anchor exists for the moment when society’s safeguards fail. The Herma Post represents the very foundation of those safeguards—an architectural choice for a future built on AI-managed safety. This system is so effective that the persistent human desire for manual control, often exercised through illegal “Downer” programs, becomes not just a foolish risk, but an act of profound rebellion against a society that has chosen total oversight in exchange for near-perfect order.
A Herma Post is a stationary AI terminal, shaped much like a fire hydrant, installed on the roadside to perform crucial functions like traffic control and crime prevention. More importantly, it is a key node in the city’s nervous system: the Mercury Network. This network has a two-tiered structure. All vehicles and posts in a 100-yard radius form a local “Proximity Mercury Network,” constantly exchanging information to optimize immediate traffic flow. These local networks then connect to an upper-layer “Wide-Area Mercury Network,” which performs optimal traffic allocation for the entire city.
I remember a rainy day, waiting at a signal next to a Herma Post, when Simon explained that the name “Herma” originates from the Herma pillars of ancient Greece, stone columns placed on roadsides to protect travelers. He also mentioned that in my country of origin, Japan, there is a similar tradition of stone figures called Dōsojin, which also serve to watch over villages and ensure the safety of journeys. This technology is imbued with that same spirit—a wish for the safety of all travelers.
The Herma Posts and the Mercury Network stand as the architectural expression of a utopian ideal of safety. They are silent guardians, watching over both the brilliant logic of AI and the dangerous, rebellious freedom of the human heart. Such pervasive oversight, however, has inevitably led to its technological and philosophical opposite.
4. Technology Focus 3: The AI Fence – The Shield of Invisibility
As a direct counter-technology to the utopian safety promised by the Mercury Network, the AI Fence was born. It is the inevitable response to a society of total AI perception, representing the enduring human desire to protect individual privacy and claim the right to be “unseen” by technology. It stands as a direct philosophical challenge to the Herma Post’s guardianship, an assertion of self over system.
The AI Fence is a legal, portable device, about the size of a lighter. When activated, it creates an absolute zone of privacy by preventing AIs within a radius of about nine meters from recognizing the user as a human. It does this not by jamming a signal, but by issuing a sophisticated command that instructs an AI’s “perception layer” to delete the user’s presence entirely. However, while legal, the device requires direct registration with the onboard AI it intends to block, creating a fascinating dynamic of consented invisibility.
This technology has a dual nature. It is a legitimate “shield” for protecting individual privacy and dignity, but it can also be used as an instrument of “subtle resistance” against a managed society. By its very nature, it creates intentional blind spots in the AI network, which can be dangerously exploited.
The AI Fence reflects a universal challenge in contemporary society: the tension between the convenience and safety provided by AI and the fundamental right to individual privacy. Its conceptual roots can be seen in the real world today, in technologies like website tracking blockers or in research into “adversarial patches” designed to fool AI facial recognition systems.
5. Conclusion: The Three Mirrors
The Final Anchor, the Herma Post, and the AI Fence are not merely pieces of future technology. They are three mirrors, each reflecting a different facet of the relationship between humanity and AI.
- The Final Anchor: The ultimate sacrifice, forcing a confrontation with the ethics of life and death.
- The Herma Post: The embodiment of social guardianship, representing the ideal of collective safety.
- The AI Fence: The instrument of individual resistance, asserting the right to privacy against a watchful society.
What do you see on the other side of the mirror reflected by these three technologies?
I hope this guide serves as a doorway into our world, and I look forward to the moment our paths cross within the story itself.