You try desperately not to lose track but you feel yourself obsolescing with each solution the AI implements. Its solutions based on knowledge that… there’s no hope. You retreat. You tell yourself you’re their leader. The AI reports what it has done to you. Nice abstract reports without technical detail. You reflect… it’s not clear what you contribute. You don’t contribute. You’re fired.
Everyone is fired. Productivity up dramatically. Alphabet acquires the company—useful data.
All diseases are cured, all open math problems solved. Surgery changes bodies without constraint. You are playing a video game so detailed… In the real you teleport where you want to go and the Sun is fake and you can live in other galaxies if you want. FTL travel is solved.
You upload, burning your old body not wanting any measure of your conscious continuity to be trapped in or bound by the limitations of the old world. That place now weird… upload ends up being a return to normality.
You are a student in a dark Earth, poor in a world of great wealth. An unequal world. But you revel in competence once again. Evaluating and planning and executing. You do well and you falter and you fail to recover but struggle on, eventually slowly climbing back. You are admired and you accomplish what few others could have.
Danger, you lead and you kill and you destroy more than you could ever cause to be built. You suffer greatly but emerge triumphant. You are content. You could go further. You are content. You keep working hard for a while to cement your position. You invest widely. You give generously. You become loved and you have a place here throughout all time.
You remember your girlfriend of the old world and your heart pangs. The world then had been small but had mattered so much.
The maid brings you tea as you meditate. Still, eyes closed. Time passes. You take a sip of your tea. You are full of energy always; young; ageing has been solved; you would not choose to spend your time in a world where you had to age; the singularity is not to be wasted.
You walk the streets, a friend joining you. You chat world affairs exploring the neighbourhood. You are not famous anymore, enough time has passed. You take a train to another area, looking out on children playing in the parks, offworlder tourists posing for photos by waterfalls and alien artefacts and the intricate architecture.
Later, you study. You study a lot every day. You duck into a library. A handful of students study. Adults read seriously. You take out your tablet and read a piece on the game theory of trade with a sentient planet in a nearby galaxy. You have some thoughts. You send some messages to the relevant actors, and loop in an analyst from the foundation which manages your estate.
You spend months studying and working and striving toward understanding. You meet with interesting people and learn from them. You make some moves to ensure your security going forward. In a world where the wealthy live forever the dynamics of power punish all but the excruciatingly careful. A few centuries go by.
Your maid walks in with some tea as you sit in meditation. Sunlight pours into the room, warm on your skin. You take a platform to a small library. It contains your estate’s records. You pick a volume at random and read it. Such a different world, then, but you remember your own life was not too dissimilar to the present. Time now, you think, to start a new world, a world afresh, but with the knowledge you have built up in those eons of meditation and study.
The cost was a peaceful period, the result an expanded mind, the result a vastly expanded actionset, the reward a new, richer world.