Ends and Means.

The machine was brilliant; of that, Josie had no doubt. It began with a brain scan, which was then fed into a quantum computer, which analysed the data in its raw form. The Q.C. takes the numbers and equates them to various super-positional states, which it then sends on to Hopes trained A.I. for it to analyse and formulate new scenarios.

Josie’s job was to check through the A.I.’s work and ensure it hadn’t hallucinated any ideas and confirm that the scenarios were appropriate. Then, give consent for Hope A.I. to send the base idea back to the Q.C. to be mapped out. Q.C. simulated new pathways in the patient’s brain.

The Q.C. and Hope A.I. would bounce the concepts back and forward, each time waiting for Josie’s consent until they were ready to run the simulation on their patient. And here is where Josie really began to take issue with the process.

Hope A.I. had taken to a very effective pattern, which allowed the patient to believe they were seeing alternative versions of themselves. Patients could, to some predictable degree, control which versions of themselves they needed to see, and Hope A.I. would fabricate a version of themselves that it, and the Q.C. had determined would best help resolve issues that lead to mental trauma.

As Josie watched Hope A.I. describe their patients’ fantasies in real time, she dwelled on company lies. The Q.C. had shown Hope that there was no way to actually display memories or dreams in video format, as they weren’t viewed in anything resembling that.

The Hope foundation had little funding and only a cult following in the world of mental health. Nobody wanted to believe that an A.I. or a computer could solve their human problems or ease their very real pain. But, when a Countess, with a castle sized amount of money, and depression used their model, with successful results, she made the foundation a proposition. They rebrand and sell the idea as a real-life way for people to access alternate dimensions.

It was all lies, Josie thought. They had people believing that alternate realities were real. The foundation justified its actions by the number of successful therapies. Josie wanted people to get better, but by placebo? Not if the lie extended beyond the scope of their work. It was true that most real scientists would debunk their model, but the glowing reviews and celebrity endorsement embarrassed the flat-earthers in terms of numbers and media coverage.

Josie wished she could stop the tide, but at the same time, she herself didn’t want to risk destroying the very real therapy that people had already derived from their work. She didn’t want to reverse that progress or hurt those people. So she breathed out a sigh of distress and clicked once more on ‘Accept’.