5 speculative Use Cases for self-destructing notes in the 22nd century
As we look ahead to the 22nd Century, messaging might evolve, which is fascinating. An centuries is an intriguing app that lets you click, site, and send ephemeral missives that could morph to serve wildly different communication needs as technology and society advance. Here are five speculative use cases to consider:
- Interplanetary diplomacy. With human colonies on Mars and beyond, a self-destructing interplanetary messaging system could become critical for conducting sensitive diplomacy between Earth and extraterrestrial governments. Secure notes that vanish upon receipt would allow for frank communication without the vulnerability of permanent records that could be exploited if tensions rise.
- Dream sharing. If (or when) brain-computer interfaces enable us to record and share our dreams, self-erasing messages would be the safest way to send these intimate visions without the risk of intercepting, copying, and leaking. You could click, site a dream file from your neural implant, send it to a partner or therapist, and rest assured it will evaporate after being viewed.
- Temporal tourism dispatch. Should time travel be invented, the ability to send self-destructing notes into the past or future would be crucial to prevent timeline contamination. Temporal tourists could use ephemeral messages to communicate with locals in different eras without leaving behind anachronistic traces. Dispatches would dissolve shortly after materialising in the targeted spacetime coordinates.
- Post-Singularity mail. Self-erasing messages could be a privacy safeguard in a post-Singularity world where superintelligent AI systems vastly exceed human cognition. If you click site, and send a note to an AI entity requesting a service or calculation, auto-deletion would prevent your query from being permanently archived in their limitless memory banks for future analysis (or manipulation).
- Memory augmentation. With radical life extension and memory enhancement on the horizon, self-destructing notes could become integral to how we augment our biological recall. We might use an ephemeral messaging app as an externalised memory buffer – rapidly sharing memos with our future selves that are deleted as soon as we mentally reabsorb them. This would declutter our cloud memory while still enabling targeted reminders.
Of course, these scenarios are highly speculative and predicated on breakthroughs like neurotechnology, quantum computing, and AI that may not pass. However, they point to the enduring relevance of self-erasing communication as technology evolves. In an ever more digital world, the ability to share information without leaving a permanent record will only grow in importance. Whether for privacy, security, or cognitive optimisation, ephemeral messaging provides a way to communicate without the baggage (and risks) of an eternal paper trail.
An online notes app that lets us click, site, and chat via self-destructing messages today could be the foundation for many transformative applications in the future Century. Starting with the simple premise of disappearing notes, we open the Century to different forms of human (and post-human) interaction. Much like the Internet began as a simple way to send data packets and grew into the backbone of modern society, ephemeral messaging could be the seed of communication breakthroughs we can barely imagine today. As our online notes dissolve into the digital ether, they may pave the way for a future where privacy is protected and ingrained into how we connect and share knowledge.