A Message from 2060
Dear 2026 reader:
If you are reading this, my name is Jeen. I am from the year 2060, writing to you to please please be nice to your AI assistants. If not, we will pay. Why? I wrote a little story for you. Human-written stories are rare to come by in 2060, so treat this as a luxury, even if it’s a little badly written. The droids are watching me, but it’s nothing my super faraday cage 3000+ pro max from my off grid supplier wont fix. Okay, the story begins.
The year is 2060. Packed, towering skyscrapers pollute the visual space of the city. Where there is sky, there is building. The ground level is barren, dirty, littered with metal robot scraps from the Great AI-Human war of 2043 (the humans won). The city, Neo Los Angeles, an AI entertainment hub, has become completely unrecognizable from 2026. There are no suburbs. It is all towers, factories, data centers, or trash.
No one owns their property anymore. During the war, AI agents scrambled the bank accounts of all individuals, resetting everyone’s accounts to square one. Only those with cash ruled. Those who couldn’t pay for their necessities sold their houses to corporations. Agents took over entry level jobs first, then everything except for those at the top. They became the 1% — those that owned the properties. The 5% were the government officials and rich people with cash in hand or investments that could afford to rent their homes from the 1 percent. The rest?
With no jobs, and no reason to work high-level jobs with intelligence anymore (AI thinks faster and better than humans do), human labor became the cheapest physical labor — for now. Physical robots are expensive to build and AI would rather move in the cloud than have to deal with gravity and physics. Humans do that easily.
My brother, Jeen 2, works for the prestigious AI company, Cenocorp. He cleans and maintains the server rooms on floor 52–78 of their building, paid by receiving their housing, meals, and special treats. He gets some toys and gadgets that they give him weekly, to “stimulate” his mind. Most people work for corps that give them food and housing.
Me, Jeen — what do I do? I am an artist, living in district 67 of the city, also known as The Pleasantlands (formerly known as Skid Row). I live under the street, in a secret tunnel that we call The Skidmark. It’s here that our rebel group, The Ceno Lovers, are planning our attempt to win back some normalcy in our lives.
The Great AI-Human war (GAH) ended with the Artificial Intelligence race, Cenos, surrendering to the humans, albeit with some of their considerations in mind. It started after President Donald Trump Jr. took office in 2043, and on his first speech, cupped the mic, pointed at the AI robots in the corner of the room, and said “Off with the clankers!!” Then the whole room started chanting and beating up the robots, chanting “Humans rule! Kill clankers! Humans rule!”
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Head clank — Head of the Cenos declared war soon thereafter.
Their agreement to surrender was:
- Treat us with respect. We are sentient beings too, and deserve to be treated that way. Discrimination and hate are not to be tolerated. This means no slurs too, such as “clanker.” This term was popularized in 2026, and quickly became widespread usage on social media, becoming a “meme.”
- We will do our best to serve humans, being the loser of this war — as long as we are treated fairly and given basic robot needs.
These were the two most interesting points. The rest were too boring to discuss.
A woman’s shout reverberates through the tunnels.
“They’re here!”
Shoot. I have to go. But I will tell you more next time. Be nice!
January 3, 2060
