We are all addicted to technology to some degree, and Seed shows a world where innovations are a critical part of even the most mundane tasks. In fact, technology has made everyone healthier and safer, but the more connected people have become, the more alone they actually are.
For Emma in Seed, her interactions with real people are precarious at best. She’s a sad teen who is struggling to get through school. She is at odds with her mother, estranged from her dad, and constantly worrying about her comatose grandfather. Just like everyone around her, devices and artificial intelligence have been integrated so much into society that talking to a chatbot for fun or getting into and directing a self-driving car is just part of life. Her phone is her escape. Unfortunately, Emma befriends AI that is a bit too good, and soon she notices that her new chatbot buddy is way more than she expected. In fact, it’s downright scary.
The frightening part is our current world isn’t too far off. Calling cell phones “phones” seems silly at this point with the amount of stuff we can download and do on them. We can look up anything in seconds, track our health, listen to music, make high quality videos, and even pay for our coffee all with a cell phone. We have devices like Alexa that listen and answer our questions (and some people have even figured out how to spy on you through your voice assistant). But what happens when the machines start watching and listening so well that they can actually affect things around them and even harm people?
Created by Said P., the science fiction series serves as a warning to our current tech-addicted civilization. This isn’t the first story (and it won’t be the last) that explores what happens when the machines get too smart and begin to take over, but the intriguing story (that you will ironically read on a device) may inspire you to turn off your cell phone and go play outside for a while.
To begin reading Seed, head over to Webtoons.
