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Future of Job Search: Episode 4
April 8th, 2008
A Job Interview in 2100
Johnny was slightly shocked with Brazil, as he headed to the interview. The old, entrenched poverty of the previous century was long gone, commemorated by the odd statue or fresco. Everything was very modern, very clean. He’d found that even the communications net in his hotel was the latest thing, Polycomm, a strangely simple but powerful linking facility which would allow literally any source of media to run. You could link to the thing and get it to archive all the sources you wanted, and watch them from your interface, wherever you were, through the link to Polycomm.
The building where his interview was to be held was a ‘flying wing’ building, one of the ‘non-box’ multi purpose buildings rapidly replacing the old skyscrapers. They were whole habitats, people lived and worked in them, shopped, and they covered the equivalent of a few city blocks. They were landscaped, inside and out. The ‘flying wing’ name actually reflected the fact that the architecture was based on split levels which were angled for better use of space, the supports were actual angled planes.
By now quite lost, mentally, if not physically, he arrived at the front door of the apartment/house, with its little garden in the ‘hallway’ under the huge skylights. His friend, the beautiful woman who’d met him when he arrived, ushered him in to a living room/office. They had coffee, she was obviously trying to make him feel at home, as the other interviewers, including one of the world’s top IT scientists, Ann McFarlane, walked in.
She also turned out to be a good psychologist, and after a few minutes of shop talk, Johnny was able to remember what he was doing there, and had finally found a bit of confidence. The interview was already happening, on a few different levels, apparently, and one of those levels was checking his fit as a part of this group. Johnny was a bit stunned, because if Ann was one of the top people in the field, most of the others were in pretty much the same league, if not as famous.
The coffee was still warm, as Johnny was suddenly hit with the first of a series of questions which could have ended his interview.
*************
One of the other interviewers, an African guy called Jim Mukabe, handed Johnny a piece of material, a handful–sized blob of something, and asked what he thought of it. Fortunately for Johnny, he did know his stuff. He’d read about something which was supposed to look like this, and read up on it, because it was something totally new. He loved his work, and followed all the new things like a kid.
However, that was at the theoretical stage. This was the real thing, with the tough physics and everything.
It was the world’s first molecular processor.
Originally, when they were figuring out what the physical properties of a super processor would have to be, they realized that solids were self-limiting, so liquids would be better. It was first called cyber-gunk, and it was unworkable as a liquid. So they made it into a kind of polymer you could literally work with your hands, like plasticine, and gave it the much better name of cyber-goop.
Johnny was holding in his hands the equivalent of the entire current processing capacity of Brazil and Central America. All it needed was a power source, even a micro battery, and it would work. It was unbreakable, and if you stuck a knife in it, it would just route around it. Even setting fire to it just gave it a carbon shell, and the surviving material would continue to work, unless heated to boiling point, and actually vaporized.
Johnny couldn’t help it- he grinned. He then enthused, quite sincerely. In terms of textbook body language, he scored well on that round. The most important characteristic they were looking for was fluency, and they got it, in large amounts. Johnny was so fascinated he forgot to be nervous. He felt like he was in his own living room, talking to friends he knew well.
He was then shown one of the most extraordinary pieces of IT equipment he’d ever seen. To go with the new processor, and its much greater capacity, linkages had needed to be developed. Johnny really had to look stunned, because he was, very.
The link was organic. It was a neural relay net. These are groups of nerves, they’re how the human brain gets ‘degrees’ of neural activity, and they’re extremely important in multi level logic, which was the one thing Artificial Intelligence was still lacking. It was also the current iconic breakthrough scenario in IT. Johnny raved about it, and added his own view that the neural relays would produce a ’subliminal’ memory in a computer system, like human memory, automatic total recall. The interview became a very technical conversation, reverted to an interview at one point, then back into a conversation. Johnny didn’t know it, but he was doing very well indeed.
By now, they’d got the idea that Johnny wasn’t some sort of occasional dabbler, and that question confirmed it. They were looking for someone who thought about where the work led, as well as knowing the systems. So they showed him the little garden patio where the neural relays were grown. The neural relay material was harvested from a genetically modified plant.
He surprised them by knowing more than they did about the nutrients the plant needed. Eventually he was holding a conversation with them, not an interview, on the use of molybdenum in plant food. An hour or so later he was showing them how to mix a range of nutrients, using their stock, answering their questions as he went. He earned quite a lot of respect as he worked, very efficiently. They wound up with ten different mixes for their plants, each of which could produce different neural functions. It turned out to be Johnny’s secret hobby…
The other applicants had got lost in the first question, most of them totally lost. Johnny is now a very happy IT engineer/gardener in Brazil. The stunning woman he met is his girlfriend, and soon to be wife.
It’s not all bad, in the year 2100.
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