Talescope Vol. 1

PreDestiny

"I once watched a movie starring the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, quite a famous movie, perhaps many of you have seen it as well. Though it was released maybe more than fifty years ago, the idea of it still fascinates me. To those of you who haven't watched it, don't worry, I won't give out spoilers. So, the story revolved around a group of people, or rather I'd say a team, who had a unique technology of getting into people's dreams and going through their minds and seeing a variety of events, those people have experienced. And by using that technology, they got to know about some of the most distressing experiences of people, which were seemingly unpredictable from their outside behavior. Seems superficial, right? Well, to be honest, my team and I thought about it for some time, that's how true it was. And it is so relatable to almost all of us, even now. Almost all of us in this room, and in this world, have experienced some regretful events, despite us being responsible for it or not. We all have some incidents in our lives that we regret forever, no matter how successful we become. Am I wrong?"

Many of the audience nodded their heads up and down. Mr. Brooks walked towards the center of the stage, subtly holding the stylus.

"Those incidents provide a hitch in our journey, some help us in being better, while some break us. Those which break us, remain within us as a traumatic experience. And that thing stays as a permanent mark. But what if we could change it?"

Everyone in the room listened attentively. Mr. Brooks smiled and continued to address.

"I am not any psychologist or anything like that. There are other people better than me in those fields around the globe. So my team and I thought about something we could do, from our side. So, what if we could change it? What if none of that happened, or what if we had some knowledge about its occurrence back then so that we could have done something about it? What if...what if. There always lies a big question mark. But the amazement lies within the answer. No, I'm not talking about going to the past and reviving things, it isn't possible yet. We thought upon reframing it within ourselves, in the world within us...our mind."

Mr. Brooks adjusted his spectacles.

"What if we could relive our last moments with our loved ones? What if we could re-experience our best moments with the lost ones? Our happiest moments with them. Or, what if...we could change our memory of the worst ones? I think, at some time or the other, these thoughts have crossed our minds. If yes, then ladies and gentlemen..."

Pointing the stylus at the screen, Mr. Brooks said, "Introducing to you all, PreDestiny."

The surroundings became warmer as the intrigued audience sat up straight, as they heard the announcement. Seeing this excitement amongst everybody, a bright spark shone in Mr. Brooks's eyes. One of the journalists went on to ask him about the technology's working.

"PreDestiny collects and learns the spatiotemporal information from the fMRI data through masked brain modeling, multimodal contrastive learning, etc, with the help of an augmented imaging model, that incorporates network temporal inflation. Well, I know that sounds elusive, right? I'll cut it short. PreDestiny collects the brain imaging and studies the nerve signals, after collecting and analyzing the data, it generates similar neural activity, and uses augmentation of its imaging, and recreates the scene as per the collected data. This process may take up to twenty minutes. While this process is ongoing, the person is in a state of semi-sleep, which is a partial subconscious state that will prevent them from being distracted by the surroundings. It means the person will not be active in their surroundings but will be fully aware of what's going on in their mind. No need to worry as there is an emergency exit from the state. But once the process ends, bingo! We can change, edit, or recreate the memories of our mind, inside our mind."

Journalist: "Is it being tested?"

Mr. Brooks: "It has passed the testing phase. Our team has tested it on themselves, and also on some volunteers. And they say it is quite enjoyable! Anyone can read its article and the journal on the internet."

Journalist: "Is this available for public use, like pre-booking?"

Mr. Brooks smilingly approved.

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