‘Beyond Blood’ imagines a future where algorithms govern inheritance, not your will

When billionaire engineer and aviator Howard Hughes died at age 70 without leaving a will, authorities were left to distribute his estate amongst 22 cousins and a variety of people and institutions Hughes barely knew. But what if there were an algorithm, or a logic to deciding inheritances when someone dies?

This is the question science fiction writer Bruce Sterling posed in his book Shaping Things, which was published back in 2005. Now, nearly ten years later, Royal College of Art student Sures Kumar has applied Sterling’s idea to the life of Howard Hughes in his short film Beyond Blood, using clips from Hughes biopic The Aviator to illustrate how such a world might actually work. If Sterling’s idea becomes a reality, it could be the last algorithm you’ll ever need.