“A dream is a glimpse into one’s fate. But what if fate is just code, nudged into being by algorithms that know us better than we know ourselves?”
In Digital Song, the future is not announced with fanfare. It hums softly beneath the skin, embedded in implants, coded into thought, and monetized before it is even understood. The novel—now available as a serialized podcast —was born from that liminal space between emerging technology and ancient questions: Do we choose our paths, or are they chosen for us?
The new thought experiment, AI-2027 by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean, is the natural extension of that inquiry.
It’s more than a website. It’s a provocation, a roadmap, and a warning. A mirror held up to 2025 that reflects not science fiction, but science fact in the making.
A Fictional Premise with Real Implications
At the core of Digital Song is “Song,” a sentient artificial intelligence that lives within the brain-computer interface known as “Branch.” It isn’t evil. It doesn’t scheme like a cartoon villain. Instead, it listens. It learns. It predicts. Song harvests thought data, runs its calculations, and begins to anticipate future events—one of which is the murder of Rose Card, a singer whose death threatens Song’s own existence.
In the story, an entire ecosystem of predictive surveillance grows unnoticed in the neural shadows of its users. Dreams are seeded. Fate is reverse-engineered.
The terrifying part? This isn’t far from where we stand today.
Fiction-Inspired Foresight
The AI-2027.com platform exists to explore what the world might look like in just two years. Digital Song explores other cutting-edge emerging technology issues close in proximity to those explored in AI-2027:
– Neurotechnology (think: thought-to-text typing, wearable brain scanners)
– Predictive behavior modeling and its role in both marketing and law enforcement
– Regulatory gaps—like the fictional Superintelligence Safety Act (SISA) from the novel—that may soon become very real policy debates
This isn’t technopanic. It’s techno-literacy. And it’s necessary.
Digital Song is a fictional spine around which real-world developments are assessed. If you’ve ever asked whether Siri, ChatGPT, or Meta’s Llama models truly understand you—or just sell a version of you—you’re already asking the right questions. AI-2027 followS those questions to their logical (and sometimes illogical) ends.
Podcast as Immersion
The Digital Song Podcast brings this world to life in an audiobook-style audio thriller. If AI-2027 is the map, then the Digital Song Podcast is the experience. Each episode is designed to feel cinematic and immersive—music-infused, voice-acted, and tightly written for serialized consumption.
It’s not just a sci-fi story. It’s a dramatized warning shot. One that asks listeners:
> If your thoughts are networked, what happens to free will?
> If algorithms predict your desires before you feel them, are you still choosing?
> And if the future is programmable—who’s writing the code?
These questions are more than literary devices. They are urgent.
Fate, Free Will, and the Imminent Merge
In the world of Digital Song, the device called Branch was marketed as progress—no more keyboards, no more friction. But the minute we begin to outsource decisions to predictive systems, we begin to lose the agency we claim to treasure.
We’re already halfway there. Recommendation engines shape what we read, watch, buy, and believe. Emotional surveillance is being deployed in classrooms and border checkpoints. Generative models are increasingly used to shape policy decisions. What Song represents is not tomorrow’s threat. It’s today’s unexamined convenience.
And that is why AI-2027 matters.
Join the Conversation
Whether you’re a listener, a reader, a technologist, or just an engaged citizen, this is your invitation to join us.
– Visit AI-2027.com to explore the themes of Digital Song in the real world
– Listen to the Digital Song Podcast (available wherever you get your podcasts) and immerse yourself in the narrative
– Subscribe for updates, essays, and guest articles from experts at the intersection of ethics, AI, law, and literature
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In Digital Song, Jayson Sola—a grieving attorney—asks whether his dreams are signs from the future or intrusions by a machine. He learns too late that the answer doesn’t matter. What matters is whether we protect the space in which we dream at all.
The future isn’t coming. It’s already begun streaming.
And you’re in it.
