Isso pode ser Singularity Sky por Charles Stross, seu primeiro romance, embora não ocorra na Terra, mas sim em outro planeta, em algum momento depois que a maioria da população da Terra foi instantaneamente deslocada por toda a galáxia depois que uma IA divina chegou ao poder na Terra. Essa sociedade em particular limitou o nível tecnológico de seus cidadãos àquele de um nível semelhante à Terra, embora você possa se lembrar de ter uma sociedade semelhante à da Terra.
The novel follows the ill-fated military campaign by a repressive state, the New Republic, to retaliate for a perceived invasion of one of its colony worlds. In actuality, the planet has been visited by the Festival, a technologically advanced alien or posthuman race that rewards its hosts for "entertaining" them by granting whatever the entertainer wishes, including the Festival's own technology. This causes extensive social, economic and political disruption to the colony, which was generally limited by the New Republic to technology equivalent to that found on Earth during the Industrial Revolution. Aboard the New Republic's flagship, an engineer and intelligence operative from Earth covertly attempt to prevent the use of a forbidden technology—and fall in love along the way.
Muitas pessoas realmente trocam histórias simples por objetos que desejam e, em determinado momento, alguém acaba pedindo um dispositivo replicador:
You trade?” Burya glanced up, a trifle disappointed; interstellar capitalist entrepreneurs were not what he had been hoping for.
“We give you anything. You give us something. Anything we don’t already know: art, mathematics, comedy, literature, biography, religion, genes, designs. What do you want to give us?”
“When you say you give us anything, what do you mean? Immortal youth? Freedom?” A faint note of sarcasm hovered on his words, but Festival showed no sign of noticing.
“Abstracts are difficult. Information exchange difficult, too—low bandwidth here, no access. But we can make any structures you want, drop them from orbit. You want new house? Horseless carriage that flies and swims as well? Clothing? We make.”
Timoshevski gaped. “You have a Cornucopia machine?” he demanded breathlessly. Burya bit his tongue; an interruption it might be, but a perfectly understandable one.
“Yes.”
“Will you give us one? Along with instructions for using it and a colony design library?” asked Burya, his pulse pounding.
“Maybe. What will you give us?”
“Mmm. How about a post-Marxist theory of post-technological political economy, and a proof that the dictatorship of the hereditary peerage can only be maintained by the systematic oppression and exploitation of the workers and engineers, and cannot survive once the people acquire the self-replicating means of production?”