Intelligent Telehealth Protocol
The agent has negotiated with content publishers according to her interests and logged purchases, determining which advertisements will get eyeball views. As she views each media item, incurred charges are deducted, along with transmission of mandatory usage data and any optional personal rating. The media agent returns this data transaction during use of the keys for the digital content encryption in which the tracked video is wrapped. Some content she watches is open access, unencrypted and flagged as free and clear. However, some media channels encrypt content that can only be accessed by the digital rights app of the publisher. This is delivered usually with embed ads that she cannot skip - but, as everyone learns, can be ignored. I must avoid the app-specific channels while hiding, she thinks. Their viewership data is always returned to the publisher. It is a market of guaranteed 100% precise geopolitical ratings data.
Strobing notification icons flash annoyingly at the edge of the VR interface. Looks like work before pleasure and family before work, she thinks. One icon is notification of a recorded message from her parents and another is her reminder to check in with Aunt Rachael. The third alarming icon is a list of her college assignments that are near term or overdue.
She focuses her eyes and double blinks at her parents' message icon. “Kiko dear,” says the image of her father,“ we got the message from Rachael. We’re ok; she asked you to run a long distance errand. No problem from us. You should be proud she trusts you enough to cover that conference in Hong Kong for her. Still, please ping us if you are traveling internationally in the future. We know you’re growing up, but we do worry.” Rachael must have done an amazing save sell of her adventure.
It's 3:40 a.m. in Barcelona. I can get away with just leaving a message. She pulls off her GoogglesTM and sets them on the table with their video camera pointing at her. She scruffs her hair, plasters on a smile, and then records a quick message, showing herself sitting in the nondescript hospitality apartment. “Hi Mom and Dad. Everything is fine. Trip was a spur of the moment thing. I’ve got some downtime between sessions so I’ve got to get back to my college assignments. Enjoy Spain and the Mobile World Congress. Sell a bunch of shit! Bring me something amazingly new in mobile communicators – with the specs. Kiss, Kiss!” Closing the recording she slumps back down. It is just before 10 p.m. on the East Coast; Rachael will be standing by for a call before she turns in for the night.
Kiko-Lyn slips back on her headset and calls Rachael privately via VR. She informs Rachael of her situation at the clinic and her decision to stay with Ninan until he recovers. She gets their story straight for her parents and any potential legal inquiries. Rachael has registered an addendum to her master work contract with North Eastern Control Analytics, putting her on job assignment and corporate liability insurance for this whole adventure.
Rachael, knowing only her side of the conversation is unmonitored, ends with, “Kiko-Lyn, take this opportunity to find out everything you can on this Nightingale AI. Find out about Chinua Mills and just who is this Dawn? Dongjing what? She must have a family name. Ask her. I’ll put Greg on a background check.”
After closing her call with Rachael, Kiko-Lyn asks the air, “Nightingale, is Ninan awake and receiving visitors?”
“Not now. His replacement tissue is grown and he is entering surgery. You can look in on him in the recovery room in several hours,” responds the AI over the apartment speakers.
With no chores left to procrastinate on, it was time to buckle down to the virtual classroom. She takes her memory enhancement pill, picks from the list of recorded lectures and begins playing her overdue engineering lab while running Mathcad modeling simulations in the minutely accurate VR laboratory. The teaching application has her life history of scores: adapting the lesson to her individual needs, it provides only problems she finds difficult. Kiko-Lyn considers this a drag, and would prefer continuing what she has mastered and loves. Still, by now the program knows what teaching method she responds to best and what will motivate her. So the lesson proceeds.
Next she moves to a practical ethics course. First a virtual reality simulation places her in a historically-accurate setting. This dispute in South Africa centers on miners who have taken over a health clinic belonging to the mine owners, but also staffed with NGO health workers. The miners are demanding better working conditions, improved housing, and clean water. The doctors who are locked out want back in to treat the patients already under care. The lesson graphically demonstrates the complexity in moral choices that lead to violence - showing how as different cultures interact, all see their own side as good. She worries, just how much does this University application know of my personal situation. But she is relieved when the next lesson example turns to advertising. Covering issues of ethics in marketing, the teaching game requires her to make choices that enhance desire for the targeted product. She must predict consumer response to different examples of semiotic-driven advertisements, each accompanied by an analysis of a consumer’s ontological identity. Then she must make a moral judgement if the advertisement: which ads play to the target market’s own symbols and beliefs. Would the ads actually help the consumer, make them more unstable, or cross over into criminal propaganda. Then she must tweak the ad as she believes is morally responsible. The game engages her despite herself.
