Semmant (5 page)

Listen! This was like an explosion. Like a dazzling lightning bolt that ices your blood. Thomas, a thirty-year-old youth with the face of an old man, noticed nothing, which wasn’t his fault. He did enough as it was, and I’m forever in his debt. I am a debtor to the glacier and the peaks of Tyrol, and to all the serene grandeur of the Alps!

We met in the evening, took a seat in a bar, and got to reminiscing. I let him know about Anthony and the ill-fated syringe, while he told me of Dee Wilhelbaum, who had removed himself from the public eye, permanently. Then Thomas asked cautiously, “Well, you’ve heard about her, haven’t you?” And, seeing my bewilderment, he uttered with a sigh, “Little Sonya, she’s not with us anymore either.”

This was a shock – greater than all the rest. The walls spun; there was a lump in my throat – I tried not to let it show. Soon we got drunk, and I cried in the lavatory. Then my tears dried, and we drank some more. I couldn’t shake the sense of terrible danger which we both had the luck to escape. An avalanche of time shuffled past, without touching Thomas or me. Some got unfortunate, but we were protected. He by the Tyrol mountains to which he returned after leaving a banking career. I by my co-workers and partners – sea captains and cynical medics, lab assistants and bearded chemists, even rockers from Manchester and twins from Siberia: everyone who fed me currents of real life, pushing me away from abstractions. It’s to their credit that I, tied by a thin thread, did not fly off like an unfettered balloon.

“What bothers me,” Thomas sneered, “is that things happen so fast, you don’t have time to even say good-bye.” This simple thought shifted some more elements in my brain. Like a few years ago, in the smoke and smog of the city scorched by the sun, I now recognized again how little time there is – for each and for all. But for some there is more. Me, for example – and I, it seems, don’t appreciate it as I should. Slices of time, they’re for making progress, not for complaining and griping. I must do my job – and it looks like I still haven’t started!

In the morning we went up to the glacier and skied until midday on the untouched, virgin snow. Then we stopped to rest at Mount Wildspitze, on its south peak. To the left was Brochkogel – unreachable and formidable, it was gorgeous. And its younger brother, Brunnenkogel to the right, was striking just the same. The sun’s rays were blinding even through the mask. The snow was dry and utterly pure.

I realized then: this is an eternity which denies the meaning of all goodbyes: there is no one to say it to. This is victory over chaos, the disarming of disorder, harmony of the utmost precision. The best things that could happen in life happen here; I could climb up and live this over and over again… I felt like loving the whole world – that real world, which had probably saved me. I wanted to bestow on it something precious in return.

“A dream!” I thought, and I decided to give the world a dream. It was clear to me what it should be. “Semmant,” I thought. The name came of its own accord. And it never left.

Chapter 6

Afterward events developed rapidly. In my head, some kind of dam broke, thoughts flooded in as a raging torrent, pushing everything else into the background. I knew what I wanted – down to the most intricate details.

A dream, its essence, it’s so complicated, but now it was in view, like an open book. A dream – that is what is worth aiming for, aspiring to with every ounce of strength. Let those who pretend to know furrow their brows in disbelief – I don’t have anything to prove. All knowledge is approximate; its quantity is only able to beget vanity – for nothing. The dream must be given not to those who are puffed up with pride. It should be available to each and every one.

Available, but not simple. Not mindless from the start, like the daydream of those who brought us to the School. It should amaze and be accepted wholeheartedly by its followers. They should see it as a landmark, as the symbol of a new faith. And so, here, I’ll offer you a symbol. A brilliant artificial brain – nothing less. I’ll set an example, and, before long, the apologists will come in droves. Something must change; the old ways of existence are already unbearable, plain and simple. An incentive is needed for that, and tell me: where can you find a convincing one?

I cannot offer a prescription for happiness, but I’ll open the door a bit. A new point of reference – how’s that for a start? And then: an alternate path, fresh horizons. Who said entropy is all-powerful, that it only grows, increasing confusion? Who came up with the notion that all is meaningless, that our fate is an endless, excruciating crawl?

“Here it is, the limit,” we hear from every quarter. “You can’t go far or overextend yourself. After all, everything will be the same, only worse.” But if I show that there are no limits, might not many be encouraged? Could he, Semmant, put them head first, ever so tenderly, into a new dimension, in something above despair?

This was so simple, although it sounded like a fantasy, like an impossible promise. To break through the obstacles of stagnation with a precisely applied blade, to give hope to those who still wanted it badly. The main thing was not to become misunderstood. The new concept would have to penetrate to the depths – to the stomach, gut, liver… What else do you usually use to feel and desire?

And that’s why I chose guilders, doubloons, bills large and small. The smell of new banknotes – that’s more exciting than the scent of the most desirable woman. The market, that simulator of chaos where entropy works its tricks – here was my choice. It must be defeated, forced into submission. Let the robot named Semmant show everyone victory is right here, close by. Let’s dispense with the myth of omnipotence, of which only the “sanctified” have the right to speak aloud – in a hushed voice with their eyes rolled back.

I wouldn’t settle for less than the naked truth. Let’s push the sanctified away; let’s see that the emperor has no clothes. Let us expose the greed of the cowardly and constrain those who sit in the judgment seats. Every novice will find his place, if he makes no bones and sees everything as it is. My Semmant will show the way – he will be a confirmation, a great one! He will become the most graphic of demonstrations, an indirect proof, an illustration of fortune. Let the rest lunge after him, fatigued from fighting their chains. It may not work out for everyone, but it will for quite a few, quite a few!

I was overwhelmed by excitement and delight. I felt like screaming and laughing out loud. Lucco Mancini, you sly shyster, this is what you used as a bluff, only now it’s for real. My future robot would not be some sorry fake, good for nothing more than a smoke screen. He would be huge, a giant in soul, an iron-clad knight of logic and order…

The prospects were indeed incredible. Showing Semmant to everyone – that would be something to make their jaws drop! He would make money out of thin air; that certainly could not be denied. No one would say this was boring or not worth seeing. They would give me the highest podium: “Tell us, enlighten us, reveal to us!” And I would not refuse; I would make myself known, just to say what was critically needed. That is really how to change the world – why not? And if it didn’t work out, then God help the world!

“Your reality, as such, isn’t actually worth much,” I would say out loud, and let the blind resent it as angrily as they want.

“It’s not hard to be certain,” I would say to them. “All you have to do is choose a plane, image reality onto it, and a projection, an abstract model will emerge.”

“What’s that? You’ve already chosen?” I would say in feigned surprise. “This pastorale moderne, besmirched with golden calves – though they are all merely gold-plated, to tell the truth – is that it? Okay!” I would grin and clasp my hands. “Let’s add a stranger, a newcomer. We’ll put Semmant into the mix, let him sort it out with the head honchos. He will dominate the shepherds and the flock, establish his steel grip, and then – let him command in the manner of mighty Caesar!”

And he will show them all, and they will see. That will surely be fun to watch. Fun, and maybe a bit sad – but more’s the pity, there’s no other way. Space is folded, turned in on itself – consumption, consumption, guilders, doubloons… Maybe even the plane, as an abstraction, is already overly complicated for you? Riemann and Lobachevsky would scribble a couple of formulas, deduce the metrics, show an example. As for me, I’ll just say to begin with: if the world collapses in on itself, it will suffocate, no doubt. Unfortunately, if you look closer, it seems to have done so already, almost. Might it be better, then, to take it beyond the rational, to astonish everyone while it’s not too late?

Yes, it was taking me way too far, but I didn’t want to hold anything back. Brochkogel and Brunnenkogel are to blame – as is my personal freedom, which I seemed to have lost but found again. All the same, I wasn’t just indulging in dreams. My brain worked at full power – projecting, designing, altering. I sped south in my car from Tyrol, homeward, while in my head the most complicated schemes spun tirelessly, the contours of new life – life created ex nihilo.

Somewhere on a serpentine mountain road at Bolzano I thought through the details for heuristic fine-tuning. The artificial mind would turn out impulsive – and quick and sharp. It was somewhat similar to my own, I thought with a certain satisfaction and began to picture the most important thing: self-learning. Success depended to a large degree on this, and I was so absorbed in my musings that several times I turned the wrong way or strayed onto forks in the road, cursing through my teeth. Finally, somewhere around Brescia the key algorithm became clear to me, and I was so encouraged I laughed out the open window, then pulled into the very next village and drank late into the night with truckers from Verona.

Driving through Marseille I had the taste of bile in my mouth, but at that very moment I visualized the most important of the objective functions – and I forgave the city everything, and afterward just whispered to myself: polynomial, polynomial. The curve, approximating key points, uncoiled before my eyes like a tamed snake. Then, finally, as I approached Barcelona, I understood how to make Semmant doubt and weigh all the odds, picking the best ones and then subjecting them to doubt again. At the back of my consciousness blinked his integral image, computationally strict, but touching and responsive. Maybe I should have stopped and written something down to keep from forgetting it later, but I was impatient to return to Madrid, so I relied on my memory and just drove as fast as I could.

At home, I attacked the keyboard with a fury; I didn’t move from in front of it for days. I kept on punching in command after command of clever code, beginning, of course, with the internal logic, with the most important base procedures. My instrument, my method – millions of entangled neuron quanta – was not yet adapted to the specific goal. It was necessary to put together a foundation from the building blocks. To link the most sensitive elements to each other, adjust components, find a true balance between speed and power, restraint and freedom, concision and fullness. From a series of harmonics I had to pick the frequencies of optimal cycles: pause – torrent of thought; contemplation – understanding, enlightenment…

Again, I slept little and ate even less; my hands shook, I lost weight. A fever, akin to insanity – much more insane than my present doctor knows – dominated me without reprieve. The savage pressure would not let up for a moment. The interior of my apartment seemed somehow unreal, the furniture and walls spinning before my eyes. Only the text of the rapidly expanding program remained steady – unshakable, cold, as if made of ice. Every symbol, each constant laying the framework for future constructions had to be combined flawlessly, with surgical precision. Nonessential, ambiguous clauses could not be tolerated. The smoothness of the circumscribing lines, the purity of the crystal edges, the diamond hardness of an invisible nucleus – this was essential, and, ultimately, I got what I wanted. In a month, the most difficult, hidden, internal modules were finished. Semmant was born.

After I entered the last keystrokes, I caught up on sleep for several days. I didn’t even want to look at the computer; I relaxed and amused myself as I could. Later, when I had recovered a little, I rechecked what I had done once more, confirming my new robot was no illusion, no phony. And then, without any hurry, I began to form the “cells” of his brain – the large-scale structures, still nearly empty, that would later be filled with myriads of digits and make him ultra-smart, ultrafast, impeccable.

This was an extraordinarily monotonous process: hour after hour and day after day I did the same thing, copying and copying, just changing the indices a little – page after page, kilobytes, megabytes, tens of megabytes… Homogeneity, identical forms, full similarity to each other were absolutely crucial – otherwise the would-be mind had no chance of developing. Later on, he would rebuild everything to his liking – when his ability to teach himself kicked in, nobody could interfere anymore or tell him how it needed to be. He would create new lines of code, reconfigure connections, change, if you will, his flow of thought. But for that he would need material – quite a lot of material – and I alone, nobody else, could give it to him in abundance.

For whole days, week after week, I multiplied long strings and crept over them with the cursor, changing ones to twos, swapping symbols out, a lambda here for a gamma or omega there – all at the same rate, indefatigable, for an hour, two, three. From top to bottom, later, to mix things up, from bottom to top – over and over, until my hand would give out. Of course, it would have been easier to task a simple program with this work, but I somehow understood: everything had to be done by hand. I am the Creator, not some soulless “macro.” Nothing can replace your own life-force that originates from spheres unseen. And I was amazed at how routine, how mechanically this most powerful intellect was created. It was no burst of inspiration, but almost physical labor instead. I asked myself: was it the same way for God?

Gradually my arm grew stronger – practice always makes you better. I made fewer mistakes and worked faster; I developed persistent habits to bring orderliness to the process. Often I would set a goal for the day and not allow myself to stop until I had met it. Then, in the evening, I would look at the result – counting page after page, admiring it, elated. This got me really excited; sometimes I would even masturbate right there in front of the screen. Afterward, spent, I would lie back in my armchair, gazing lazily at the signs only I understood, united by design, of which there were none more daring.

It was really hard to put an end to it. Having finished the first layer of “brain structures,” I clamped its outputs onto its own outputs using a simple mathematical procedure and started in on the second. Finishing the second, I hooked it to the first, thought a little, and began to do the third… So it continued for five months – five! – instead of the two I had planned. And I stopped only because I hurt the fingers on my right hand and couldn’t type as I was accustomed. Then I glanced through dozens of huge files once more, horrified at the number of clever asymmetrical connections, and said to myself: Enough, take a break. Really, there was no way to predict whether the amount of data would bring the required result in any reasonable time.

Then, for almost a week, I remained in doubt – hovering over the monitor, changing something, then immediately undoing the changes. It was hard to admit the work was practically complete. It was even harder to make myself hit a key and launch the “Start” process. Several times I stopped right before doing it, reaching out for the keyboard, and drawing my hand back. Sometimes I would wake up at night and stand at the computer for an hour, two – until the cold forced me back under the covers…

Finally, I made up my mind and did it – and nothing happened. The monitor went out, then fired up again; the name Semmant lit up in bright blue, and all went cold. Only the stylized metronome in the upper corner of the screen swung back and forth, confirming: something was going on inside! Fairly soon the hard disk rustled to life, and a few minutes later Semmant sent me his first salutation, the first sign of his independent life.

The greeting turned out to be laconic. “External memory 5 GB,” he wrote in the window at the bottom – and nothing more. This was like a demand for food, unambiguous and definite. This would not have surprised any creator, nor was I surprised: I dashed to the nearest store. Ignoring the salesgirls, I looked at all the shelves myself. I selected the appropriate device attentively and lovingly – only to receive the next missive from the robot three hours later, practically identical to the first.

“External memory 7 GB,” he wrote this time. Aha, I thought, his appetite is growing. That’s probably a good sign! I ran out again to buy something, and thus it continued for a long time – memory, and more memory, a new coprocessor, the most powerful available for sale, and more gigabytes of memory, then tens upon tens of gigabytes…

I was exhausted, but he kept demanding and demanding – like an insatiable child or, perhaps, an insatiable beast. My worktable transformed into a fantastic spectacle – tangled cables, heaps of devices, old notes carelessly piled in a corner… Each morning after rolling out of bed, I would see a new request – no different from the previous ones. I became troubled by doubt, and began to think: something’s not right. Could an error have slipped in, some kind of fatal inaccuracy? Might everything be for naught, with the program going in circles and mindlessly gobbling up resources? More than once – and more than twice – I tried to look inside the code, but understood with complete clarity: I could never make sense of it now. I said to myself sadly that I had to think of something – but there was no remedy, no cure. I could only kill the nascent brain and start everything over again. At some point, I began preparing for this. It was the hardest of decisions; I procrastinated, tarried – and, as it turned out, did the right thing. At the end of the second week, the requests stopped. Silence ensued for the next six days.