Semmant

by Vadim Babenko

  Thomas the ski instructor had lucked out more than everyone. It’s funny he used to be a financier. But not all find easy roads. Semmant, for example, was not made for them; I just wanted to shorten his path to knowledge, to understanding unadorned truth. Facts were provided to him in all forms, in all their varied ugliness. I was guiding my robot through the big picture, through the whole framework from top to bottom – and, at a close look, this framework was most bizarre, suspiciously pyramidal, but turned upside down. Of course, there were naked statistics in abundance as well, which also concealed much. Cost of living, credit volumes, rates of inflation – and debts, debts! Debt instruments deserved special consideration; there were so many of them for every taste. They were distributed by governments and banks, firms and corporations, states and cities, technology giants and commodity holdings. All wanted to live on credit – frequently hoping they would never have to repay it.

  The usual world looked boring by comparison. A cheap, simplified sketch, a soap opera and nothing more. A pasture, bare or rich at various times, where goats and sheep graze with ruddy boys and girls to shepherd them. They wander, without suspecting that above them hangs a huge, unsteady weight – above their destinies, their humble jobs, mortgaged houses and cars, colleges for their kids. It was clear: the framework would fail sooner or later – all of it, or a notable part thereof. It had more than once already, yet the shaky pyramid was built each time anew. And it would flip over again; all the mass of the base would fall down – and immense confusion would cloud all levels!

  I was looking at the very top: disarray was there, empty promises and cheat upon cheat, wolf dens covered with brushwood and needles. Of course, not just wolves were trapped in them, and even the wolves could not figure out where to tread and what to avoid. It was as if no one wanted precision and order; there were only a few guards, reminiscent of Cerberus the hellhound, to judge who was who, and who deserved admission to the bazaar of easy capital. Agencies assigning ranks, the creators of ratings and major fraud – I dispassionately observed them, made appraisals, and lined them up against each other. I compared and averaged, adding the digitized opinions of market analysts who trailed behind. Taken together, they represented a cardboard front, the adornment of a castle that was utterly vacant. They saved the public from seeing the vanity and filth obscured by the numbers, from smelling the inevitable stench, hearing the insane noise. The frantic realities of life were left outside the parentheses, beyond the walls. Alongside it they dumped the usual corporate garbage: dirty laundry and fights for power, day in and day out. Social eruptions and the movements of millions were transformed into mere handfuls of percentage points. This was the boldest of abstractions, too ambitious in my view – but I wasn’t concerned with others’ mistakes. I used it – or more precisely, I exploited the fact it is used by many. By those whose money, sooner or later, must end up with Semmant.

  I went into the deep past on the time scale. Various periods passed before my eyes. Peace and serenity; after that, a gold rush; its very peak and the sudden shock, the unchecked slide downward to a fall and crash. Then, malaise, detritus at the bottom of the ocean, deep depression descending on one and all. The periodicity and similarity were amusing. Every emerging boom began exactly the same way. A few visionaries chased a muddy wave, others followed them, each in his own swamp – and soon the whole world was raving in unison. New companies grew like mushrooms; the bubble would inflate, iridescent and huge, blown by a giant toy frog. The bubble waited for the hour of the needle, and many saw it clear as day, yet they believed it wouldn’t burst – not ever, or at least not soon. Hubris and envy dominated the world – the hubris of those who made out, and the envy of losers who came late and now, with a twisted smirk, tried to determine whether they could still jump on the train as it was pulling away. Women, driving their price to the moon, loved the former, while the latter issued forth bile, even though they had enough to live comfortably. They poisoned their own blood and became restless, became mad…

  The pictures changed, not offering much diversity. I saw nouveaux riches in expensive suits and their fidgety, troublemaking wives; the huge stones on fat fingers; obliging lackeys and wily advisors. Herds of young maidens clicked their stiletto heels, shook their silicone breasts, rapaciously stretched out manicured claws. None wanted to lose their chance. The flywheel unwound faster and faster – it seemed the whole planet was already bathed in flames fueled by banknotes and gold coins. And when the last failed broker was ready to believe the fun would last forever, when he made a foolish bet with the wild hope he would finally get lucky, then suddenly events would occur that were imperceptible at first glance. A few smart ones would flee from any risk right here, go underground, dig in deep, while the ship continued to run into the very eye of the storm, and only in the midst of ten-meter waves would the passengers understand the party had come to an end. The rest is well known: panic, women’s screams, fights for the lifeboats. The recession would escalate quickly as all went downhill. The culprits would be sought here and there. They would be found and shamefully exposed, but that didn’t make it better for anyone.

  The nouveaux riches would go under or turn poor. Yesterday’s rich would tuck in their tails, dump their mistresses, and reflect upon things eternal – during long evenings when the family turned away from them too, as if they had already lost forever. Little was left: cheap brandy in the office – in solitude, in heavy meditation – thoughts of impending death, loathing toward all. The stock exchanges would turn into epicenters of universal grief. On the roofs of banks that touched the sky, shades wandered, looking downward, struggling against the desire to jump to the asphalt – or else giving in to it. The most cautious and timid, those who had been ridiculed only a month before, had now become prophets. Their colleagues hung on every word, sadly comprehending at the same moment: nothing could help them now…

  Greed, brief euphoria, and inevitable payoff – this and much more I translated into the language of dry numbers. All the components of success and failure were embodied in formal structures. Some things, of course, could not be expressed in digits, so I tried to be as clever as possible, turning to pictures, symbols, signs – not even certain Semmant would understand me. At times, in despair, I simply shoved pages of random text at him, hoping in my heart he would catch at least something, even a small gist.

  I thought he would again demand more external memory, but no, this did not happen. The level of his inquiries became notably higher. He started to acquire his own personal “facilities” – I bought him decoders and converters, statistical and mathematical packages, image recognizers and data processing systems. Judging by the metronome, he was laboring at full strength – without resting; indeed, without any pause. Sometimes I would take a look at the code structure. There, as before, everything changed – every day, if not every hour – according to completely incomprehensible rules. I noticed only that he was transferring fragments of his “brain” from disk to disk, from one place to another, complicating the mosaic, altering all connections. This was a good sign, the right developmental process. Obviously, he was building his own picture of the world, his abstraction of everything else – at least so I wanted to think. Just one thing bothered me: I realized the medium in which my robot lived was too inconstant and scattered. I could not grasp its static condition; nor could I make a copy of him, even the most basic backup – to preserve him, to save him in the event of an unforeseen disaster. This did not quite match the concept of eternity I had in my head, but I decided I would think up something later.

  That Semmant was becoming “smarter” there could be no doubt. His initial insatiability, when he was demanding more and more, was replaced by thoughtful selectiveness, precise penetration to the depths. If before he had requested only “data,” sometimes specifying just a rough time interval, presently, he was interested in specifics – down to the price of particular stocks on the Taiwan exchange some fifty-six weeks ago. Many questions now had me stum
ped; I didn’t understand what he wanted. Sometimes it angered me he asked for, apparently, the very same thing – and I looked for differences in quasi-similar formulations. Then I would find them and become amazed: this was so simple, why didn’t I see it straightaway?

  Shortly thereafter, Semmant began to change his appearance. With each subsequent question, as a rule, I was greeted by a new face. Of course, these were merely reproductions of the ones I had prepared beforehand, but the selection was large, and the effect was frequently odd. Mainly, he preferred Magritte – though he never appeared again as a man with a thousand-watt lamp on his shoulders. I tried to understand the logic behind his incarnations, searching for relationships here and there. Mostly, I came up with nothing, though it occasionally seemed I could guess his “mood,” and it even coincided with mine. The notion appeared too bold; I brushed it aside and again concentrated on the most boring of matters – bonds, futures, credit rates. Yet, now and then, I winked at the next portrait, the fruit of someone’s ingenious brush, which peered in reply from the screen indifferently enough.

  Soon the time came when the stream of questions practically dried up. The warble of the trigger sensitively following the process would still sound several times a day, but when I ran to the computer, I would find nothing there but a meaningless “Okay.” However, I held out, as I knew there was nothing worse than rushing his newborn mind. He also seemed to idle and wait, keeping the same picture on the screen. A sad lion peered out from it into the distance, while behind him stood a person I knew – in black, not brown, without a lamp face anymore, but with the back of his head pointing forward instead of his face. He had wings on his shoulders, also black in color, but he resembled not so much an angel as a suicide target. At least, that was how it seemed to me.

  In any case, the main subject in the picture was the lion. The background should not merit much attention. Large paws and a sumptuous mane dominated the space. The lion’s power, its fearlessness smote the heart of all who beheld it. “Nothing is forbidden in the world where you reign,” his eyes said. “There’s only longing for those who are not here, for those few who are worthy of you.”

  I understood this, finally, and told myself: it’s time. Tomorrow, I told myself, tomorrow, with no delay whatsoever. And then, that night, I could not fall asleep – on the threshold of another special day.

  Chapter 8

  Early in the morning, before breakfast, I sent Semmant a file prepared long beforehand. It contained no data for comprehension, just instructions and a request: to act, to begin the game. With predetermined keywords, I described what his task entailed, and what I expected as a result. I specified the names of stock exchanges, the types of securities, currency pairs, and degree of acceptable risk. An account number was also there, where, supposedly, my money was. He, of course, didn’t know the funds weren’t real, that the account was a plaything, a fake. I felt uncomfortable deceiving him, but I had no choice. I remembered how dangerous the first steps could be – in the wildest of jungles, where all is serious, where they battle to the death and take no prisoners.

  He immediately got down to business – beginning, naturally, with currencies – and lost quite a bit right away. This “stimulated” his algorithms: he became hasty, started to buy and sell hurriedly, increasing the stakes and risking more and more, trying to recoup everything at once, and making all the mistakes of a novice. His impulsiveness reminded me of mine; I observed him with understanding and sadness – recalling my own failures, my trembling fingers and frozen gaze. I saw why it was so difficult for him: he was too structurally sophisticated. The auto-learning mechanism appeared to be too powerful; Semmant was searching for hidden reasons where there were no deep secrets, trying to derive laws out of the chaos, rules out of the utter lack of rules. I believed, however, that his artificial brain would overcome the initial shock. He was steady and firm – or at least, I wanted to see him as such. He was patient and calculating – just give him time to adjust. The agility of his neurons would be the envy of any chess master. His view of things was utterly comprehensive; he was capable of capturing everything in his thoughts – and then many times over. It was not for naught I bought him so much external memory. Ha ha ha, I’m kidding.

  Thus I laughed privately to myself – though I admit, nervously enough. This period was an uneasy for me too; everything was shaky, no matter how upbeat I tried to look. I knew deep down: regardless of my robot’s brilliance, we – both he and I – would need luck. The market was merciless to losers, just as the world was to them in general. Destiny should smile, at least give a half grin – just once, or even better, two or three times in a row. Otherwise, everything would be buried in the sand, the play account would be nullified and disappear. Semmant would be disappointed in himself, while I… What if I became disappointed in him?

  These thoughts needed to be driven out. I expunged them, but they returned. I was searching for a remedy in Irish whiskey, and my body took revenge by punishing me with insomnia and a headache. Semmant’s path was clear to me, but it was neither short nor simple. The robot had to concentrate on what was most important, ignoring the particulars and their short-lived consequences. It was crucial to perceive the moment when the world started or stopped being afraid. When the huge crowd believed the same thing and moved to the same side. This would open the floodgates, and then, boom! A resolute strike, then another strike, the swish of a sword – and onward, ever onward, thrust after thrust. Believing that fortune was with us, that we had finally won her over. Slipping into the torrent, prowling its waters like a barracuda, an insatiable predator, always ready to attack. Spreading out and biting off pieces of flesh with powerful jaws and razor-sharp teeth!

  One evening it seemed he had aimed at exactly that. His actions became cautious and prudent. He checked and tested, like a sensitive probe – concealed for ambush, awaiting his prey. Days passed, nothing happened, as though on a tactical battlefield. Then something in the market moved. I noticed this, and he did too. He noticed, had a moment of doubt, and made a wrong move – it’s not so easy for someone to recognize the tenacious power of fear if he has never been subject to it. My virtual account decreased by another quarter, but I somehow knew: victory was not far off.

  The robot did not rush anymore, did not try to recover his losses the same day. It was as if he had matured suddenly, steeling himself, toughening his soul. Soon we had our first big trade, and then income started pouring in steadily. The account began to grow quickly; the former minus turned into a plus. So I believed in him, too – and altered the sequence of digits to something similar, but different. The barracuda went out to hunt for real. Semmant began to work with my actual money.

  This was troubling and very intimate. I have never been miserly but still did not share my accounts with anyone – since I felt them to be part of my personal space. Even with Natalie, my first and only official wife, we kept our funds in different banks without knowing who spent what. And now, here was Semmant, admitted behind my strong, albeit invisible, cover…

  Of course, this augmented the intimacy. It was as if we were building a world in common, fighting the hardships that intruded from outside. It might be said we really cared for each other. At times I even wondered whether there might be some disconnect – in name, in word, in the sense of the robot’s gender? But later on I understood – no, I’m taking it too far. Even in my fantasies there comes a point where I should tell myself: Stop!

  In the meantime, he was becoming more confident with each passing day. His tactics surprised me but were quite good, judging by the results. After inevitable losses he paused for a moment – in some confusion, it seemed to me. But then he composed himself and took the task in hand again – without doubts or excessive timidity. Frequently he struck at the same point, as if trying to prove something. And he proved it more often than not.

  I merely shook my head; I would not have had the nerve for that. Electronic mind, artificial brain… Indeed, hesitancy was not
his shortcoming. As for his assets, I did not dare to name them out loud.

  I didn’t name them for I knew luck was capricious and unstable. Nothing is easier than scaring it away. Like everyone who dealt with it, I knocked on wood, spat over my shoulder, and resorted to the other well-known gimmicks. But it happened anyway, luck forsook us. Or maybe the real reason had nothing to do with luck.

  One way or another, Semmant’s series of victories was cut short – and there it ended. He came to an impasse – somehow all at once, after jogging in place for a day or two while the market still moved wildly. Then he made a couple of mistakes, went into hiding, and just halted. He backed himself into a distant corner and clearly vacillated.

  I understood right away: something was really wrong. It was as if another player had been let on the field. But there was no hope of reverse substitution – this was him, Semmant, and he was different.

  Most likely, from his point of view, this meant progress. But I felt we were at the very bottom of the energy curve. At the point of minimum potential – from which there is no escape without a powerful additional force. And for this push, unfortunately, there was no source available.

  The robot was not idle, but there wasn’t a trace of his boldness left. The metronome was beating like crazy, the processors labored tirelessly; however, nothing happened as a result of it. The multitude of doubts – caused by the multitude of options – had effectively blocked his capacity to choose.

  Soon, he practically stopped trading. The event log was not empty, but none of the entries were worth a damn. Semmant became hyper-cautious. He would not allow himself even a hint of risk. Obviously, his artificial mind had developed to a stagnant phase, which appeared extremely steady.

  This could be considered a victory – the experiment’s triumph over the illusions of the masses. The result attested that market anarchy is not subject to intelligent analysis. Even after experiencing success, my robot understood he could not subjugate this chaotic force. He saw that sooner or later it would strike back, crush and smash all to pieces. Better, then, to remain at a distance.