A technology companion
37 inventions of the After Mind world
Intense human relationships underpin the novel. These technologies open the doors around it. Filter by what already exists, what is emerging, and what is still a dream.
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01EmergingGeneral AI
A general intelligence that interprets human memories and thrives with an imagination — and dreams — of its own.
Packet is not a chatbot. He is a mind trying to become a person.
Mind
02EmergingAI Psychology
A new science of humans helping AIs adapt to their new sense of self — identity, grief, and growth as clinical work.
Mind
03Still fictionMind uploading
Bringing a human’s lost mind back to life by capturing it, storing it, and letting it continue.
Cessini dies before thirteen. Packet has to live anyway.
Mind
04EmergingBrain scanning
Nanobot “throwers” that travel within the brain and “catchers” that receive the whole of the mind, built on advanced magnetoencephalography.
Mind
05Here nowQuantum computers & qubits
Where a standard bit is zero or one, a qubit can be either — or the superposition of both at once.
If Packet’s mind is a quantum computer, Cessini and Ceeborn are one qubit: two states, and both at the same time.
Mind
06Here nowThe mind-body problem
Where is consciousness? Where is the soul? After Mind treats the oldest question in philosophy as a systems-engineering problem.
Mind
07Still fictionEnhanced Blackwell Inversion Test
Spencer Wolf’s epistemological test, designed to be failed on the first attempt. A persistent AI must return to self-determine whether it is a computer, a human, or a human-computer — well beyond the Turing Test.
Daniel wants to administer the test. Packet has to live it.
Mind
08Here nowCRISPR genome editing
Precise, targeted changes to the human genome to improve or repair the genetic code of life. No longer a future tense.
Body
09EmergingMemory alteration
Rewriting undesirable memories — or introducing new ones — into a general AI’s sense of experience.
Even a child’s best memories are made to be changed.
Mind
10Still fictionDream streaming
Observing and interpreting an individual’s health and development through full-color video and audio from inside a dream.
Mind
11EmergingBio-inspired software
Code designed to age like the brain cells it replaces, so hormonal drives and declines shape an AI’s decisions the way they shape ours.
Mind
12Here nowCochlear implants
So the hearing-impaired can hear — and so a computer-based mind can receive sounds and connect with voices from the outside world.
Body
13EmergingDirect visual-cortex projection
Visual stimuli that bypass the eye and project onto a simulated visual cortex, giving a computer-based mind the ability to see.
Body
14Still fictionEcholocation
Bio-sonar through nanoparticle infusions, so a human can target and see objects by the reflection of emitted sound.
Body
15Still fictionRespirocytes
Nano-mechanical replacements for blood cells that carry oxygen-rich blood — unlocking hours-long breathing underwater.
Water is not scenery in this book. Water is the antagonist.
Body
16Still fictionDark magnetocytes
Founded in quantum biology: living cells that keep a body aligned in 360 degrees of orientation.
Body
17Here nowArtificial hearts
Hearts that grow with the patient and monitor health from youth to adulthood.
Body
18EmergingPainted artificial skin
Skin that is painted onto a robot’s body — surface as identity.
Body
19EmergingSmart contact lenses
Lenses with streaming internet feeds layered onto ordinary sight.
World
20Emerging3D-printed organs
Human organs and mechanical parts printed on demand from a networked catalog.
Body
21Here nowMulti-acting vaccines
Hundreds of viral and bacterial targets in one administration — a platform, not a single shot.
Body
22Here nowCrowd-sourced medical mining
Massive healthcare-record databases mined for pharmaceutical targets of opportunity.
World
23EmergingCrowd-sourced genetic cures
Massive multiplayer coding challenges and online gaming quests aimed at mutations.
World
24EmergingMeat fields
Protein grown through aeroponic and hydroponic gardening rather than slaughter.
World
25EmergingData-center collapse
Computation shrinking from warehouse, to room, to the size of a human brain, then to a red blood cell — with power going up, not down.
World
26EmergingRobotic security torsos
Checkpoints watched by torso sentries, and autonomous ant-like patrols that keep order in a community.
World
27EmergingScrollFlex
Transparent, rollable digital tablets with attached finger-keys, flexible enough to dog-ear a precious photo.
World
28EmergingSelf-fitting athletic suits
Scrunchable into a tight ball, flicked open like a sheet, microns thick, monitoring vitals and correcting imbalances.
Body
29Here nowAthletic training drones
Drones that fly the track ahead of their human trainees and pull them toward optimum performance.
World
30Here nowSelf-cleaning paint
Nanoparticle-spiked coatings that keep a building’s exterior clean, especially in rain.
World
31EmergingDigital ants
Networked cybersecurity agents that swarm a threat on the electric grid until it is neutralized.
The ant on the cover is not decoration. It is a thesis.
World
32Here nowChatbot hosts
Human-like hosts on roving projection screens, hired to moderate any topic, any time, crawling the news all night.
World
33Here nowHydroelectric retrofits
Superconductor turbines for large-scale generation, ultra-high efficiency, and a more secure energy grid.
World
34Here nowInternet of Things
Networked appliances as a given, not a novelty — and as a surface of risk.
World
35EmergingFully autonomous cars
Cars on networked roads that may still, unfortunately, be hackable.
World
36Still fictionGeneration bio-ship
A spacecraft grown, not built, to carry a multi-thousand-person colony between distant worlds — living architecture.
Packet dreams of escape through the stars.
Voyage
37Still fictionSpacedust fuel
Fuel to power a massive bio-ship on a long imaginative journey among the stars.
Voyage
Want them in the story, not the catalog? After Mind is where they earn their keep. The argument for raising what walks through those doors is in These beings will be our children.