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gropcbf
Since: Sep, 2017
23rd Aug, 2019 02:51:45 AM
I haven't read the short story is is based on, but that sounds similar to the plot in Minority Report.
indigoJay
Since: Dec, 2018
24th Aug, 2019 08:56:36 AM
It's kind of like that, but it's about a teenager, crimes are predicted solely by a computer as opposed to precogs, and there aren't many additional sci-fi details.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
indigoJay
Since: Dec, 2018
19th Sep, 2020 07:45:28 AM
After a year, I've found it! It's All the Troubles of the World.
Edited by indigoJay There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
I read this short story a couple of years ago, but it's probably at least a few decades old. It's a speculative fiction work where everyone has to enter absolutely EVERY detail about themselves into this computer system thing, which in turn predicts all crimes that people are going to commit. In the story, the protagonist (a guy) is an adolescent whose dad is called in because it's been predicted that he'll commit a crime, but the details that the government have don't add up. The protagonist gets a bunch of vague instructions to go places. By the end, it's revealed that the computer system thing was really overworked and sad and wanted to shut itself down. However, since shutting down the computer was a crime, it had to report that it would happen — but it purposely obscured the details to make sure its mission would succeed. The main way it did this was to pick a kid/teen to perform the action — since teens are listed under their parents' entries in the crime system thing, the dad would be called into questioning while the child went to a bunch of sketchy places to shut the computer down.