39. Talia
Talia
Omni’s product development engineers descended on Ideal Life’s offices on Monday, taking over all the free space on the third floor.
Due diligence for the acquisition had reached the phase where Omni now wanted to talk to their counterparts here.
Talia had thought that Ideal Life had plenty of room, but with ten Omni engineers here, it was a bit tight.
The mood was lively, though, because if you got a bunch of tech nerds together and encouraged them to talk about their hopes and dreams for what they could build together, it was like Christmas Day, Silicon Valley–style.
Ostensibly, Talia was camped out with her laptop on the third floor in case anyone had questions for her. But the real reason was she hoped she would overhear something from the Omni team that would prove her fears and suspicions wrong.
Especially since she had failed to win the top prize at the Summer Million. Sure, she had the investments she’d made recently, but that was only $20,000 (after the poker buy-in). It was a lot to her, personally, but nowhere near enough to pay the termination fee to end the deal with Omni.
Two of Omni’s engineers, Sheila Jiménez and Lucas Williams, sat at the desk closest to Talia, where they were looking at product schematics.
“So, the Temple Dots,” Sheila said. “Is skin contact necessary, or do you think it would be possible to measure brain activity remotely?”
“Not from super far,” Lucas added. “But yeah, could we do it remotely?”
Yan Kristiansen, Ideal Life’s head of engineering, nodded.
“I think I understand. You’re wondering if we need the Temple Dots, or if we can eliminate an extra accessory and roll all of the Temple Dots’ technology into Omni 3Ds, which you think is the future—no one’s going to be using phones or earbuds in a few years.
Like, if we could put the sensors into the arms of the glasses, close to the customer’s temples but not touching them. ”
“Precisely,” Sheila said, grinning. “The goal is always less friction for the consumer. We want to make it as easy as possible for them to use our entire suite of Omni products. If we can get rid of Temple Dots, that’s one less thing they have to deal with or remember.”
“Well,” Yan said, “as of right now, the Temple Dots do require direct contact to the skin in order to pick up on brain signals. But I can envision a near future where we can engineer that away, especially with the financial resources that Omni has at its disposal.”
“Maybe this is a crazy idea,” Lucas said, “but what about… Nah, never mind.”
Yan leaned forward on the edge of his seat. “Tell us. No ideas are bad ideas in brainstorming, you know.”
Lucas laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, what about the reverse of what we were just talking about?
What if someday we could actually get rid of our glasses and put all of it into Temple Dots?
Not only brain-activity sensors, but all of the functionality that currently has to sit inside the Omni 3D hardware. ”
Sheila’s jaw dropped open. “Oooh, yes! No need to wear glasses. Everything would be available in two unobtrusive stickers on your head… I love it. Talk about visualizing success!”
The three of them laughed at her pun.
Talia was thinking about what they’d said, though.
But all this was just fantasy for the engineers. It wasn’t evidence that Omni had an evil grand plan to unite Ideal Life’s technology with CerebraLink. Talia slipped away to walk around the third floor to see what other due diligence conversations were going on.
There was one about open-source software.
A debate over how best to integrate Ideal Life’s suggestions into Omni’s many notifications on their social media platforms and chat applications.
A tangential—mostly irrelevant—discussion of living in a virtual augmented reality world.
Then Talia slipped into one of the conference rooms, which several Omni and Ideal Life engineers, including Jody and Jonathan, had taken over to talk about the guts of the Ideal Life AI system. Their laptops and papers littered the long glass table.
“How much effort would it take to change that?” one of the Omni guys asked.
“I mean, we’d basically have to retrain the whole system,” Jody said.
“How long would it take?”
“Depends on how much compute you have,” Jody said.
Talia sat down in a chair near the conference room door. “What are you discussing?”
Jonathan said, “We were talking about how we trained our underlying AI with a base principle that all suggestions had to be for the good of humanity overall. Of course, they also have to be beneficial to the individual customer. But any recommendations that are likely to be good for just one person but at the detriment of society in general would be suppressed.”
Talia nodded. “That was part of our founding mission—to make life better for everyone. It was tricky to align our AI systems to something that was, by definition, subjective, but Jody and Jonathan did a superb job. Like, if customer A is feeling a little down and needs to be entertained, and his profile says that going fast often lifts his spirits, Ideal Life still isn’t going to suggest that customer A race his car down the freeway at a hundred miles an hour.
That might improve his life temporarily, but it obviously comes with societal risks. ”
“Sure, of course,” the Omni engineer said.
“Oh, I’m Mike, by the way. And this is Bonnie, Phil, and Marya.
It’s an honor to meet you, Talia. But getting back to the discussion, what we’re trying to figure out is if we can make adjustments to the Ideal Life AI without having to rebuild it from scratch.
Not for telling customer A to speed illegally, but for more innocuous things—like can Ideal Life read a dip in blood sugar and then recommend a suggested product from one of our partners? ”
Talia froze in her seat.
Jonathan frowned. “Are you saying integrate advertising into suggestions?”
Jody had the strongest reaction, rising up from her chair and throwing her pen down onto the conference table.
“That’s completely against our philosophy!
Even by framing the question the way you did, you’re acknowledging that feeding a ‘suggested product’ to a customer is not good for society overall.
It’s good for advertisers and corporations. ”
“It’s useful for the customer, though,” Phil, one of the other Omni engineers, said calmly.
“But in the grand scheme of things,” Jody said, “you’d be making the world worse.”
“Whoa, hold on,” Mike said. “That’s a bit harsh.”
Jody crossed her arms. “I get that you guys have to make a profit for the shareholders. That’s the way companies work, and I don’t begrudge you that; if you don’t make money, people lose jobs.
And it’s true that Omni has made a lot of innovative tech.
But there’s a line I think Big Tech companies should draw, and that’s not to do things that you can foresee will have a negative impact on humanity.
I don’t think we need to be told to buy more stuff. ”
“From another angle,” Jonathan said, “if I’m that customer you mentioned and my blood sugar is low, and I ask Ideal Life to search for something that is of optimal nutrition for me to eat, I want to be given unbiased options and then get to make that decision myself.
I don’t want advertising dollars to make the decision for me, and especially without me realizing it’s happening. ”
Talia, finally recovered from Mike’s reveal about their intention to serve ads to Ideal Life customers, wanted to know more. But to avoid putting him any more on the defensive, she pretended to play devil’s advocate.
“Let’s say,” Talia began, “that we did allow sponsored suggestions if they were labeled clearly. What is Omni’s plan?
I feel like just having a pop-up notification saying, ‘It looks like you’re hungry.
May I suggest shrimp nuggets from our partner Luigi’s Seafood Drive-Thru?
It’s delicious, convenient, and only two dollars right now’ is, like Jonathan pointed out, a quick way to lose the trust of our customers.
And if they don’t trust you, they’ll eventually dismiss your ads, and then you’ve not only tanked Ideal Life as a product but also the space for your ad revenue. ”
Mike, Bonnie, Phil, and Marya looked at each other.
“What?” Jonathan asked.
“Well…” Mike said. “Omni has some plans for synergizing Ideal Life into our ecosystem.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes at the corporate speak. But Jody, who was still hovering over everyone seated, was a lot less composed about it. “You think using fake MBA words will create a smoke-and-mirrors effect that will distract us? Do we really seem that obtuse to you?”
“There is a plan!” Phil said, standing so he was now at eye level with Jody.
Talia wouldn’t get any information if the temperature in this conference room kept rising. “Hey, it’s okay, everyone. I know Omni has a plan. I met with their executive team not long ago, including their CEO, and it’s brilliant.”
Phil’s indignance deflated and he sat back down. “Oh. Good. So you already know.”
“Of course,” Talia bluffed. “We’re going to be part of Omni in a matter of weeks anyway. There’s no point in keeping secrets.”
Mike exhaled. “Yeah, good, good. I completely agree. With our acquisition of Ideal Life and CerebraLink, we’re all going to get to work on stuff that seems like science fiction.
Combining Ideal Life’s understanding of psychology and behavior with CerebraLink’s implant communication technology…
Advertising is small potatoes. We’re going to have so much fun.
And you’re all getting Omni stock options as part of this deal, right?
We’re going to get really rich integrating all this together. ”
The scowl on Jody’s face could have melted the glass of the conference table. Then she stomped out of the room, and Jonathan—less volatile but just as disgusted—followed.
Mike’s brow furrowed. “What did I say? Isn’t the main point of working at a startup to hit it big and make a shit ton of money?”
“I’ll, um, go talk to them,” Talia said, although it was really an excuse for her to exit, too. She’d heard all she needed to know.
She found Jody crying softly at her workstation. Jonathan had his arm around her.
“Talia,” Jody said, “tell me it’s not true. Tell me you didn’t sell us out to an evil empire. Jonathan and I joined Ideal Life because we thought we were contributing to something good.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
“I swear I didn’t know that’s what they were up to,” Talia said, kneeling to be on the same level as Jody and Jonathan. “I was just bluffing in there to see what they would reveal.”
“So we don’t have to do it?” Jonathan asked. “Can we decide not to let them buy Ideal Life?”
Talia ran her hand through her hair. “We’d have to pay them a million dollars if we’re the ones to terminate the deal. That would bankrupt us.”
Jody blew her nose and wiped away some of her tears. “Too bad none of us have big social media accounts. We could’ve used one of Omni’s own networks to go viral about how they’re trying to use us to screw over humanity. I can imagine the public outrage, if only they knew.”
“Hey…” Jonathan said. “What about your sister, Talia? Isn’t she famous?”
But Talia shook her head. “I don’t want to use Libby like that.
And besides, if it’s my sister who posts a video about this deal, it’s kind of obvious that the information came from me.
Omni’s lawyers would be all over that to say it was my fault if the acquisition died because of it, and then we’d still need a million dollars to cover the termination fee. ”
“Then we’re stuck.” Jody slumped in her chair, and Jonathan slouched, too, his head on her shoulder.
Talia, however, gasped and shot to her feet. “I have a different idea. But I’ll need your help.”
“Just tell us what to do,” Jonathan said.
“Mention on our internal Slack channel what you heard in that conference room. Don’t get too involved in the conversation—just seed it. I think it’ll spread pretty fast among our people.”
“And then?” Jody asked.
“Cross your fingers that the rest of my plan will work.”
Upstairs in her office with the door closed, Talia dug around in her purse until she found the card from the Techie Singles Mixer:
Evangeline Gray
Journalist
“I hope I’m right that you’re the anonymous writer behind Your Gossipy Tech BFF,” Talia said as she composed a message to invite Evangeline out for coffee.
Within a minute of hitting Send, a reply came in.
Not in Palo Alto. Too many eyes and ears. Meet me at Coffee Kitten in San Carlos at 1 p.m.?
Heart in her throat, Talia fired back an answer.
See you then.