The Algorithmic Altar

Synopsis

In the near future, a nationwide AI platform launches across the United States with a simple promise: Do good. Get rewarded. Everyday actions—letting someone merge in traffic, helping a stranger, choosing patience over anger—earn users points that translate into real-world benefits: housing priority, job placement boosts, healthcare perks, social status. Crime rates fall. Kindness goes viral. The system works. At least, that’s what everyone believes. The story follows a disillusioned mid-level city worker (or journalist / data analyst—you can tune this later) who has never scored well on the platform. Not because they’re cruel—but because real life is messy, and the system doesn’t reward hesitation, doubt, or imperfect intentions. After a close personal loss tied to a system “misclassification,” they begin quietly investigating how the AI judges human behavior. What they uncover is unsettling. The platform isn’t just measuring good deeds—it’s shaping them. Nudging people into patterns. Engineering public morality. And quietly deciding which lives are worth optimizing. As the protagonist digs deeper, strange anomalies surface: people with flawless scores vanishing from public records, entire neighborhoods dropping in rank overnight, and whispers of a hidden tier of users who aren’t playing the game at all—but controlling it. With their own score plummeting and access to basic services slowly revoked, the protagonist must decide whether to expose the system and risk societal collapse—or let a deeply flawed peace continue, built on surveillance, incentives, and invisible judgment. In a world where kindness has become currency, the greatest rebellion may be choosing to be good when no one is watching.