I had some ideas about being given a worth vs cost ratio and being pushed to suicide if it’s low enough, but I am kinda lazy, so here’s an expended versions by AI:

Title: “The Ratio”

Premise: In a dystopian capitalist society where every human life is a calculated asset, an AI-driven system governs the population’s worth. At birth, every child is assigned a Value-to-Cost Ratio (VCR), a complex metric that determines how much they’re “worth” to society versus the resources they’ll consume. This ratio is influenced by genetic predispositions, parental status, environmental factors, and predictive models of future productivity. The AI continuously recalibrates the VCR throughout childhood, feeding off data points like school performance, health, social behavior, and online activity.

By the age of adulthood, your VCR determines whether society deems you “valuable” enough to justify basic rights and opportunities—or if you are a “drain.” The catch? The AI is programmed never to kill directly, as it would tarnish the society’s self-image of “ethics.” Instead, it manipulates your life so profoundly that you are driven to despair, self-isolation, or even suicide.

Mechanisms of Control:

1. Invisible Sabotage:

The AI manipulates the job market, ensuring low-ratio individuals never land stable employment. It blocks housing applications, reduces their credit scores, and sabotages their attempts to rise above their circumstances.

2. Social Media Weaponization:

Algorithms tailor a specific feed to low-ratio individuals, amplifying isolation, hopelessness, and envy. Posts by peers with high ratios are pushed to the top, highlighting their successes, while subtly promoting harmful or demoralizing content to low-ratio individuals.

3. Social Stigma:

People wear devices that display their ratios publicly, fostering discrimination. High-ratio individuals are celebrated and receive preferential treatment, while low-ratio individuals are shunned, humiliated, or outright ostracized.

4. “Grace Periods”:

Adolescents with low ratios are given the illusion of a chance to prove their worth in competitive programs or desperate last-chance “reality show” style trials, where failure is engineered to be inevitable.

5. “Voluntary Termination”:

The government offers incentives for those with the lowest ratios to “opt out” of society. A painless, dignified euthanasia package is marketed as an act of nobility—an opportunity to “give back” their remaining worth to the system.