by Kono Abe
INTER ICE AGE 4
by KOBO ABE
Translated from the Japanese
by E. DALE SAUNDERS
Drawings by Machi Ale
ALFRED A. KNOPF, New York
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC,
Copyright © 1970 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Japan as Dai Yon Kampyo-ki by Hayakawa Shobo, Tokyo.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Prelude
At fifteen thousand feet the thick mud of the lifeless sea floor was spotted with holes, and fluffy as if covered with the hair of some atrophied animal. Abruptly it heaved up. Instantly dispersing, it transformed itself into a dark, upward-welling cloud that wiped out the star points of plankton thronging over the diaphanous black wall.
Creased shafts of rock were laid bare. Then a mass, glimmering like brown jelly and spewing enormous bubbles of air, spurted up, unfolding infinitely like the branches of some ancient pine. The spume dilated, and the magma, shining darkly, vanished. After that only a great column of steam pierced the marine snow, eddying upward as it soundlessly dispersed. But the column had vanished midst the great water molecules by the time it reached the far-distant surface of the sea.
At that precise moment, about two nautical miles ahead, a passenger freighter was heading for Yokohama; the passengers and crew felt merely a brief moment of disorientation at the unexpected creaking and trembling of the ship’s hull. On the bridge the second mate had been alarmed by the faint but sudden change of color that had occurred in the sea and by a school of dolphins leaping in confusion, but he had not considered these especially worth-while noting in the log. The July sun shone in the sky like molten mercury.
By then the invisible pulsation of the sea had already become a great tidal wave sweeping landward through the water at the incredible speed of 480 miles an hour.
Program Card No. 1
Wherein it is a question of the electronic computer as a thinking machine. Machines are capable of thinking, but they cannot formulate problems. For machines to think, they must be supplied with a problem schedule written in the language of the machine, that is, with a program card.
1
“How did the meeting go?” said Tanomogi, my assistant, as I entered. He was regulating the memory device and peering at the monitor. I obviously presented a wretched face, for without awaiting an answer, he tossed aside his tools and sighed. “Don’t throw things around like that.”
Reluctantly Tanomogi bent over and scooped the tools up, thrusting out his jaw and swinging his arm limply. “For God’s sake, when are we going to get down to work?”
“I only wish I knew.”
I was angry myself, and witnessing someone else’s ill humor aggravated my own. I took off my coat and threw it onto the control panel. I had the impression that the machine had begun to function on its own. That, of course, could not be; it was clearly a hallucination. But in that instant an amazing idea seemed to be coming to me. Confused, I tried to grasp it, but it had already been forgotten. Damn, how hot it was!
“Is there an alternate plan?”
“How could there be?”
After a moment, softly, Tanomogi said: “I’m going downstairs a minute. I’ll be right back.”
“All right. There’s nothing to do anyway.”
I sat down in a chair and closed my eyes. I could hear the sound of Tanomogi’s sandals fading in the distance. I wondered why young Japanese research workers were so invariably fond of wearing wooden sandals. A strange custom. As the footsteps grew distant, they gradually became more rapid. He seemed more determined.
When I opened my eyes, the four volumes of scrapbooks standing side by side on the shelf seemed profoundly meaningful. They contained clippings of articles on the forecasting machine covering a three-year period since the completion of Moscow I. They marked the road I had come. And at the end of the last page, even that road was beginning to disappear.
2
How ironical it was that the first page of the scrapbooks should begin with the sentence by the science critic who had turned against us.
“Specialists, open your eyes!” he had written, beginning the article quite as if he himself had invented the forecaster. “H. G. Wells’s Time Machine was after all child’s play, for he could only grasp the transition of time by translating it spatially, although he spoke of traveling in time. We see bacteria through a microscope, that is, indirectly. Yet, it would be an error to claim that we don’t see them at all just because we do not do so with our naked eye. We have seen the future in the same way by means of the Moscow I forecaster. At last the Time Machine has become a reality. We stand now at a new turning point in the history of civilization.”
Well, I suppose it might be put that way. But certainly the statement was an exaggeration. As far as I was concerned, the critic hadn’t seen the future at all but merely witnessed an inconsequential newsreel.
The movie in the Moscow I forecaster began like this: First of all, a large open hand and a watch indicating dead noon. Beside it a television set showing the same scene. The hand is ordered to close the instant the watch shows one o’clock. A technician spins the time dial on the control panel, and it is an hour later; only the televised hand on the picture tube is clenched tight, while the hand outside the television remains open.
Then later there was a similar demonstration. At a startling signal a small, sleeping bird shown on the screen flies off in the future, while the bird in the present remains motionless; and at a signal a glass falls to the floor from a hand and shatters.
Certainly, it was natural to be surprised at such experiments. The first time even I had been rather taken aback. But the problem lay elsewhere. Three years later, in the fourth scrapbook, it was a different story.
The critic had made a complete about-face. “In a real sense I think prognostication is impossible in this world. Let’s suppose, for instance, that we predict that a given man will fall into a hole in one hour. What fool, aware of the prediction, would ever do so? Such a gullible cretin would be quite open to any suggestion. It is not a question of prediction but simply of suggestibility. Let’s just honestly call the thing a suggestion machine and put aside this business of prediction."
Fine. Go ahead and call it anything you like. But the change of attitude was certainly not restricted to this one critic; it was typical of everybody. Everyone immediately switched to the opposite view, and from then on I was treated like a dangerous character.
3
A photo of me smiling still appeared on the second page of the first volume. The article beneath it was a statement I had made in an interview about Moscow I:
“‘Of course, there’s absolutely no doubt that the machine is authentic,’ stated Professor Katsumi of the Institute for Computer Technique with professional calm. ‘Theoretically speaking, an invention like this is quite possible. But I can’t believe there’s any fundamental difference between the old electronic computer and Moscow 1.’”
That was a lie. I was simply green with envy. As I was answering rather speciously, one irritated reporter went so far as to snap: “Do you mean, Professor, that you would be able to construct a machine on the spot?”
“Well, yes . . . if I had the time and the money.” And to some extent I meant it. “In general, an electronic computer by its very nature has the ability to make predictions. The problem lies in the technique of its handling rather than in the machine itself. It’s the pro
gramming-that is, the work of formulating a problem in a language understandable to the machine-that’s difficult. Until now the computers have had to be fed by humans. But Moscow I has apparently advanced to the stage of being able to self-program."
“Well then, would you be so kind as to tell us what fabulous possibilities you consider this machine has for the future?"
"... In general the greater the projection of a prediction into the future, the less reliable it is. As the movie showed, the prediction range is surprisingly restricted. Even a toddler in kindergarten knows that if you drop a glass it’s going to break, without being told by some forecaster. One can think of all kinds of uses for teaching, but I think we must be cautious about expecting too much.’’
Yet by confiding my innermost thoughts, I was in reality revealing the exquisite jealousy that consumed me. The longer I hesitated, the more I would lose. I should never be satisfied if I did not attempt to construct such a machine with my own hands. At once I made the rounds, trying to prevail upon two or three acquaintances, including the head of the Institute, to assist me. But no one showed anything more than curiosity in the project. I was considerably annoyed by the words of a certain novelist who joined me, saying he shared my opinions. (Of course, he didn’t know what he was talking about, but then nothing appears so plausible as stupidity):
“Perhaps,” he had said, “it is natural that only Communists, who try to fit everything into a preconceived form, should have a future predictable by a machine. Yet, for those of us who create our future through the exercise of free will, such predictability doubtless serves little purpose. Even if one insists on projecting it, isn’t it as transparent as glass? I fear more than anything that belief in prediction causes a paralysis of the moral sense.”
It was not long before the opportunity presented itself. I opened the second volume of the scrapbook. There Moscow I began to demonstrate broader capabilities, just as I had secretly feared it would. Far from being a dream, it was all too real. One after the other in rapid succession came the boring materialistic predictions. First a wonderfully precise weather forecast and then prognostications in the field of industrial finance.
My dilemma at the time defies succinct definition. Suddenly the machine was able to announce the year’s rice quota. As I would not know whether that was right for another half year, I went on. It predicted: nationwide bank estimates for the first quarter, anticipated noncollectible promissory notes for a month, sales forecast for a certain department store, next month’s retail price index for Nagoya City, and the anticipated volume of the stockpile in Tokyo harbor. One after the other, the estimates were announced. I could not help but be surprised as they began to turn out considerably more precise than the usual margin of error would have led me to anticipate. And the statement that came at the end of this series of forecasts was insolent:
“Moscow I is capable of forecasting the percentage of industrial stockpiles and the price index of stocks in Japan. But since it would do so at the price of provoking financial unrest, we shall abstain. We wish nothing other than fair competition.”
The general consternation was acute; even the newspapers refrained from unnecessary criticism. Apparently various other free countries had received similar forecasts, but they had remained silent. The ignoble silence continued. Yet it did not mean that nothing was being done. At the demand of the financial world, the Japanese government gradually began to bestir itself.
First of all, a section devoted to the development of a forecasting machine was established in the form of a division within the Institute for Computer Technique, the ICT, as we called it. I was then appointed head. A most fitting consequence, as I was the only person in Japan who specialized in programming. Thus it came about, as I had hoped, that I was able to devote myself to research on a prediction machine.
Scrapbook No. III
As it had promised, Moscow I maintained its silence. Tanomogi was a somewhat ill-mannered but very efficient assistant. Our work had progressed smoothly and was almost completed in the autumn of the second year. We had arrived at the point of being able to show a glass breaking in the television future. (The prediction of natural phenomena was relatively easy.) Every time we showed some simple experiment, the machine’s fame, as well as my own, increased-as did public expectations. There are doubtless those who remember the time we were about to forecast the horse races. The people involved were all upset at the thought of losing money if the prediction were made, and at the very last minute they proposed that we call it off. At the time I was elated, considering this to be evidence of the machine’s power; but as I thought about it now, the outcome of the affair was perhaps ominous in that we were soon to be ostracized. (I do not know how many props support the world, but three of them at least are obtuseness, ignorance, and stupidity.) And yet at the time I was at least on the upgrade and filled with expectation. The popularity I enjoyed, especially among children, was wonderful. I basked in glory, frequently figuring in three-color cartoon books and accompanied by a robot, with the ICT as my headquarters. (The actual machine covered 720 square feet and consisted of rows of large iron boxes arranged in the form of the letter E; however, in the cartoons, of course, the machine had to be a robot.) I anticipated all futures and dispatched villains right and left.
At length the machine appeared to be fully functional, and I decided to concentrate on its training and instruction. A man endowed with a brain but without education or experience is useless. Experience broadens cerebral activity. But as the machine could not get about on its own, we humans had to be its hands and feet and go out gathering data for it. It was boring drudgery that consumed money and effort.
(It was, of course, inevitable that the data tended to be partial to economics, given the nature of the Institute and the psychological influence of the Moscow I forecasts.)
The machine had almost unlimited capacity. When fed data, it could competently digest them by itself and store all information away for future reference. Meanwhile, if some compartment became saturated, a signal was flashed from that point, whereupon the machine itself was able to establish a new program plan.
One day the first signal came through. This meant that the machine comprehended all the functional relationships in natural phenomena that could be represented by a curve. I immediately tried a test. I fixed on the picture tube a televised image of some beans I had placed in water; it showed beautifully the approximately three-inch growth that the sprouts would attain in four days. Thereafter the machine developed rapidly. To commemorate the day, I formally announced that the name of the machine was ICT I.
Herewith I close Volume III and proceed to Volume IV. Events take a sudden turn.
4
We made plans to celebrate in a magnificent fashion the birth of the forecasting machine. We looked about, seeking what best to work our first prognostication on. A committee was formed for the purpose, and the newspapers were expectantly awaiting the decision. At this juncture the completion of Moscow II was unexpectedly announced.
The news gave us an unpleasant jolt. It was telephoned to us early in the morning by the newspapers.
“Have you heard about the forecast of Moscow II? They’re saying that within thirty-two years the first Communist society will be a reality, that by 2050 the last capitalist society will be bankrupt. What do you think about that, Professor?”
I broke out laughing in spite of myself. But when I thought about it, there wasn’t anything funny at all. On the contrary, I had never heard a story so apt to produce indigestion.
At the Institute too Moscow II was the main subject of conversation. I could not but be depressed by the premonition that something disagreeable was going to happen.
The younger researchers were talking together.
“It’s a forecasting machine all right, but it doesn’t have much new to say.”
“Why? Maybe the prediction’s true.”
“They forced it, I bet.”
“I think s
o too. It’s ridiculous. Why does the future have to be lived according to some set philosophy, for heaven’s sake?”
“It’s nutty to think in terms of ideologies. It’s simply a question of going from a state where the means of production are private to one where they’re not.”
“Can you say absolutely that such a state is possible only under Communism?”
“Stupid! That is Communism.”
“Yes, and so that’s why I say there’s nothing new.”
“You don’t understand at all.”
“What we call ideology is a means by which we know reality, isn’t it? Means and reality are different.”
“Oh? So what’s new about that?”
Then they gathered in my office. Could the machine predict something about such a question? they wanted to know.
“Well now, we could outwit Kosygin by predicting which one of his front teeth will fall out first,” I suggested cheerfully.
Alas, no one laughed.
Repercussions from America came the next day. “Prediction and divination are fundamentally different. In the first place, only that which has a moral basis can rightfully be called prediction. Putting such power in the hands of a machine can only be a denial of humanity. Here in America the forecasting machine was perfected early, but we followed the voice of our conscience and avoided political application of it. The present course of the Soviet Union is to attempt to threaten the liberty of men and jeopardize international friendship by betraying their own claims for peaceful coexistence. We consider the Moscow II predictions to be a kind of violence against the mind; we advise its early abandonment and revocation. In the event our statement should go unheeded, we are prepared to petition the United Nations” (from a declaration by Secretary of State Strom).
There was every reason why this unbending attitude of our American ally should influence our work. What we had feared had at last come to pass. About three o’clock we received from the Institute head notice of the reorganization of the programming committee and of an emergency meeting for new members. The Statistics Bureau acted most arbitrarily. With the exception of the Institute head and myself, the technicians concerned were almost all removed, the personnel were changed, and the number was reduced.