Read Chapter 26: The Hearing

The parliamentary hearing was scheduled for October.

Officially, it concerned “Predictive Intimacy Systems, Behavioural Influence and Consumer Autonomy.”

Unofficially, everyone called it the Love Algorithm Hearing.

Eleanor was asked to testify.

So was Nathan.

Theo was invited and declined.

“My sister already gave the government enough,” he said.

The hearing room in Westminster was older than every technology being discussed inside it.

Dark wood. Green leather. Microphones. Water glasses. Portraits of dead men who had never agreed to cookie policies.

Eleanor sat beneath cameras and swore to tell the truth.

A committee member asked, “Ms Vale, can Lattice predict who someone will fall in love with?”

“No.”

“Yet your internal model assigned you a ninety-nine point eight four percent score with your current partner.”

“It assigned a score to a specific mathematical objective.”

“Which was?”

“Mutual behavioural transformation under autonomy-preserving conditions.”

“That sounds like love.”

“It can overlap with love. It can also describe friendship, mentorship, creative partnership, rivalry or other relationships that alter identity.”

“Then why did the system classify Mr March as a romantic match?”

“Because the research dataset was built from romantic relationships.”

The member leaned forward.

“Did the score influence you?”

“Yes.”

A murmur moved through the room.

“In what way?”

“It made me investigate why the score existed.”

“Did it make you date him?”

“No.”

“How can you know?”

Eleanor paused.

The most truthful answer was uncomfortable.

“I cannot prove that it had no influence.”

The room sharpened.

She continued.

“That is precisely why predictive intimacy systems require caution. A prediction about human desire can become part of the causal environment. If you tell someone they are ninety-nine percent compatible, you have not merely described their future. You may have changed it.”

Another member asked, “Then should such scores be illegal?”

“Some should.”

“Which?”

“Scores presented as individual destiny when the model cannot justify that interpretation. Scores used to manipulate retention. Scores generated from data users did not knowingly provide. Scores that influence vulnerable relationships without meaningful human review.”

“Would you ban your own original product?”

“Parts of it, yes.”

Lattice’s counsel shifted behind her.

The member looked surprised.

“Why remain at the company?”

“Because companies are not moral agents separate from the people who run them. If everyone who recognises a problem leaves immediately, the people least troubled by it inherit the system.”

Nathan testified after lunch.

Eleanor watched from the public gallery.

He admitted leaking the score.

The committee chair asked, “You violated the privacy principles you now claim to support.”

“Yes.”

“Why should we trust your judgement?”

“You should not.”

The answer silenced the room.

Nathan continued.

“You should build rules that do not depend on my judgement.”

For the first time since the leak, Eleanor felt something other than anger toward him.

Not forgiveness.

Recognition.

The final testimony came from Dr Samira Okafor, an independent AI ethicist who had led Lattice’s review.

She argued for a new regulatory category: intimate inference.

“Society regulates financial inference because it can determine access to credit,” she said. “We regulate medical inference because it can alter treatment. Intimate inference deserves equivalent scrutiny when systems infer attachment, vulnerability, compatibility, fertility intention, conflict risk or emotional dependency.”

The phrase entered the news cycle before the hearing ended.

Intimate inference.

That evening, Eleanor returned home exhausted.

Theo had cooked.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Food.”

“Specificity.”

“Stew.”

“What kind?”

“The kind where the recipe said forty-five minutes and reality said two hours.”

She sat.

He poured wine.

“You were good.”

“You watched?”

“Most of it.”

“Most?”

“I skipped Nathan’s opening statement.”

“Still angry?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Theo sat opposite her.

“Did you mean what you said? About some scores being illegal?”

“Yes.”

“Including ours?”

“Yes.”

He smiled.

“What?”

“I like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want ninety-nine point eight four to belong to anyone.”

Eleanor reached across the table.

“It doesn’t.”

He took her hand.

The score had become public knowledge.

But the relationship it supposedly described remained private in the only sense that mattered.

They were the people living it.

Not the people reading about it. Not the company that calculated it. Not the model that predicted it.

Them.