Code Orange: Original
By Ellie Haberl; Illustrated by Stuart Sachs
CovidAlert: Code Orange. On March 22 at 1:02 PM at Garfield Park, near the west entrance of the park, you played basketball with a person, number 42607, who has tested positive for Covid-20. As a result, your status has been updated to a level 3, CODE ORANGE. We will track you through your phone to make sure you are staying quarantined. You will be fined if you leave your residence. Do not use public transportation or visit any public places during your quarantine. Take your temperature twice a day using the electronic thermometer that is in your testing kit. We will track this data daily. If you need medical assistance, text us and we will tell you where you can get treatment. Thank you for complying with these guidelines. YOU are an important part of the solution. We can end community spread of the virus if we work together.
Michael felt sick to his stomach. He had always wondered how he would react if he got a Code Orange notification. And now, here it was. it was nothing like he expected. He always imagined he would be steady and organized, that he would calmly begin ordering food and medicine for delivery and start texting friends to explain that he was quarantined for two weeks. But, now that it was happening, he felt frantic, as though he couldn’t decide the next action to take.
His girlfriend had begged him not to go to the park that day, but basketball was his lifeline. His team was like his family. He had just moved out of his parents’ home after graduating from high school and this meant he was completely alone at the start of the pandemic. The months of social distancing made him feel terrified and isolated. As soon as the social distancing requirements were relaxed a little, he scheduled a basketball game with his friends. He loved the way it felt when he played, like he belonged to the team, and he wasn’t alone.
Michael read the text message once more, slowly this time. He remembered the first time he read those words, sitting alongside a team of experts in artificial intelligence. The company he worked for as a computer programming intern had been instrumental in designing artificial intelligence algorithms that used cutting edge facial recognition to identify people in a crowd. This technology allowed the government to use contact tracing to inform people if they interacted with someone who tested positive for Covid-20. They also had an app to read people’s temperatures from a distance and locate anyone who needed to take a Covid 20 test. He felt so useful knowing that the models he helped to build had been instrumental in the country’s approach to protecting vulnerable populations and slowing the spread of the virus.
But Michael had argued that this first CODE ORANGE text message to notify people of their exposure should be friendlier. He knew it would be frightening to receive this text, and he wanted the text to include links to resources that could help people organize a grocery delivery or find mental health support. But the final message was decided by government authorities. Now a recipient of the text, he felt the fear and dread he once suspected the text might trigger.
Michael’s phone buzzed again, this time with a text from his girlfriend. He dreaded each new message, fearful of what he would find.
Jess234: Michael, I told you not to go to the game that day. I’m so angry with you. We need to take a break.
He wrote back, in protest.
Bball123: Jess. I know. I’m sorry. I’m scared. Please forgive me…
Jess234: Michael, you have to take this seriously. Don’t leave the house. Don’t even stand in the doorway. Promise me. I’ll help you. But this upsets me. I need a little time to process it.
Bzzzz. The sound filled Michael with dread. He glanced down and saw five more texts from friends and one from his dad. Three from his cousins. Five from his work. The texts were filled with exclamation marks, messages of concern and fear, and emoji faces that were shocked or sad or both.
Michael was puzzled, “Oh, man. What is this? What is happening? How does everyone know?” He knew that his girlfriend would be contacted by the system, but he couldn’t believe that the notification system had contacted so many people to tell them that he had been exposed. He ran to his computer to look up the latest news briefing from the Covid-20 notification center. He scrolled through the dozens of text messages, but when he saw one from his boss he froze in disbelief:
TechPro: Michael, we got the alert. We’ve reassigned your role on the team just in case you are unable to complete the task. We’re sorry. Take good care of yourself. Good luck.
Michael squinted his eyes. He had worked so hard to land this internship. This wasn’t fair! He had believed in the need for the facial recognition project, but now he wondered if they had gone too far. Suddenly, he could see one flaw in the design that he had missed. There wasn’t a protocol to protect people from what would happen next, after exposure to Covid-20 was revealed. Had everyone agreed to trade in their privacy for safety? Was it worth it?
Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. He didn’t want to look at the screen, It only delivered bad news. As he picked up his phone to silence it, he saw that his phone was illuminated by the orange glow again.
CovidAlert: Michael, don’t worry, we will send you links to resources that will help you monitor your health, and take care of yourself. We are also sending access to online mental health support. A grocery delivery can be scheduled through our website. By staying home, you will protect hundreds of lives. Don’t panic. You are not alone. We are a team working together to end this pandemic and we will help you get through this.
Michael started to cry. It was the message he had fought to include when he helped write the program, the one he thought had been rejected. But now he saw his own words on screen. Suddenly, he didn’t feel so alone. But a part of him wondered, were they really going to be there for him or were they just trying to keep him calm and at home? Either way, he knew what he had to do. He began responding to his friends. The CovidAlert text was right: he wasn’t alone.
File name: Code Orange V1.0 June 2020 Word count: 1238
Developed by AI Ethics Project 2020. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Citation: Haberl, E. (2020). Code Orange. V.1.0. Illustrated by S. Sachs. In B.Dalton and T. Yeh (Eds.), AI Stories Series. Available INSERT URL.
Acknowledgement: This work is supported by National Science Foundation Stem+C Award #1934151 to T. Yeh, S. Forsyth and B. Dalton, University of Colorado Boulder.
