Consilium

1

Citoyens, il est à craindre que la révolution, comme Saturne, ne dévore successivement tous ses enfants et n'engendre enfin le despotisme avec les calamités qui l'accompagnent.

(Citizens, it is to be feared that the revolution, like Saturn, will successively devour all its children and eventually give birth to despotism with its attendant miseries)

Pierre Vergniaud (1753-1793)

CONSILIUM

I have very few memories from before the AI revolution. I remember quite vaguely - I was six or seven years old at the time - my father coming home and telling my mother that he had lost his job and that he was now completely redundant. It wasn't long before my mother became redundant, too, because the office where she had been working had implemented a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence system for handling applicants - yes, I remember her words, full of regret and maybe even anger.

Because I grew up in a world already dominated by artificial intelligence, I didn't understand why my parents were so negative about it. Everything seemed so cool to me - cool shops where you didn't even have to pay for the ice cream, because the computer mysteriously calculated the payment itself and took it from Dad's account; cool school, where there were basically no live teachers (except for one, whose role was limited to introducing students to particular classes and switching them on to the relevant programme); cool playgrounds equipped with interactive toys, virtual reality helmets and the like. I'll be honest - at one point I even started to consider my parents ignorant, probably jealous that in their day they didn't have the opportunities that my generation did. After all, what could be wrong with a world where everything is so cool, so easy and convenient?

***

When I was finishing my first year of medicine, a new system called Consilium had been completed in the United States. Two years later, after thousands of trials and tests, it was implemented experimentally in a few selected states, and the following year - nationwide. It arrived in Poland just as I was taking my final specialisation examinations.

Consilium was the first ever diagnostic system with Grade VIII efficiency (in other words: the data produced by the system was 99% more precise than that derived from human examination). The system assessed a patient's health by making a digital model of the body - as a result, it provided extremely accurate data regarding every possible organ, tissue etc.

However, this was not the main advantage of Consilium. Based on the data obtained, the system was able to estimate the remaining time until the patient's death, together with the cause of death, even after taking into account a potential change in lifestyle (so-called variants were then obtained, e.g. a variant in which an obese person sheds excess weight; a variant in which the patient quits alcohol altogether, etc.).

Initially, the use of the Consilium was entirely voluntary. However, as few patients opted for the examination, the Ministry of Health first introduced a recommendation and then an obligation for the system to undergo periodic examination. It was argued that, based on the results, the government would be able to implement optimal health policies so that future generations would live healthier and longer lives.

Today came to fulfil my civic duty.

***

-Doctor, welcome.

It was strange for me to stand 'on the other side of the barricade'. Behind the desk, facing the office door, sat five of my professional colleagues. I knew them all very well, because in the age of Digital Hospitals, the state of the medical profession had drastically reduced and it was increasingly rare to see a live doctor. The fact that they addressed me as "sir" was only due to the seriousness of the situation.

-Please strip down to your underwear and then lie down on the diagnostic table,‖ began the oldest colleague. -According to the procedure, I need to make sure that you are fasting.

I confirmed. I wanted to get it over with, so I took off my clothes with all speed and lay down on the cold and hard quasi-couch. The doctor in charge read aloud my data (again, I confirmed), outlined the purpose and method of the examination (again, I confirmed) and asked if I had any objections (I denied this, as it was a formality par excellence - if I had not consented, the examination would have been carried out under duress by court order anyway). I was given a sedative, after which I fell asleep like a baby. Silence, peace and quiet.