HA! Another one of my short stories foretelling the future that came true. This one was about TVs that rolled out features of voice commands and gestures. I envisioned that they'd run against the limits of technology and just staff a room full of... people.

SECOND SHIFT

They are gathered in the Control Room where hand gesture snapshots and voice command packets converge. There are speakers everywhere emitting sharp mechanical, animal and human sounds. Small blurry photos taken from thousands of TV cameras float on a giant screen. Some people are standing in front of their TVs trying to find the actual controls (hidden in a hinged compartment) and their faces and giant eyeballs fill the frames.

The people who work in this room exist in a brief timeless moment that continues forever, in which countless desperate people are trying to control their TVs with gestures and voice commands without success. Properly executed transactions are logged by the cloud but repeated failures, especially if the algorithm detects angry or anxious voices, are routed here. The Corporation decided that to improve customer experience, real people would staff rooms like these and try to make sense of the commands as a last resort, issuing instructions back to the TVs as best they can.

More than half of the images and sounds are not people trying to operate their TVs however. There is a cacophony of domestic arguments, screaming puppies and wailing children, laughter, someone banging on pots and pans. The employees' eyes dart back and forth, their ears straining to detect some coherent voice command directed at the TV. There! A drunken voice murmurs "off dammit". Fingers tap on a console and OFF command is sent. Sigh of relief, perhaps we'll meet our quota this shift. Then a low growl rising to a scream and a woman's voice: "You never cared about me! Just leave me alone and get a fucking job!" Fingers tap again and a command is sent that will distract them by playing a loud Samsung demo loop showing happy young people leading an active lifestyle. That is good medicine and maybe it will help, but it helps meet quota. Small child facing camera in tears repeating something indistinct. Is that 'two' and 'tree'? Tap command set channel 23, hope it's OK for children.

Everyone in the room is quietly thinking... what were they thinking. Once upon a time people learned how to control their own TVs and once they learned they taught others, even small children. Now everyone is faced with the task of training machines for voice and you can see how much wasted energy and anguish results from it. They pity the elderly who were given these sets to make their lives easier... and everyone all gathered on the first quiet excited day and everything worked perfectly. Then the kids left and a fan was turned on in the room blowing air into the microphone, and from then on those in the Control Room see an old man alone in a room, in tears, shouting some command obscured by the wind. Two technicians gather for this one, debating what to do. It is decided they will make the TV cycle through channels slowly until they see his expression change. But it never does, perhaps he is tormented by something else.

Then the shift is over, and the next set of employees enters the Control Room. We are now approaching the late hour of peak alcohol, when children are gone, voices are slurred and TVs are sometimes knocked over. It will be a long night.