Sensation Machines
Page 23
The machine in Lillian’s office runs a program called Shakespeer™. Developed by the brightest of Lucas’s troops, including a linguist from Harvard, a robotics expert from MIT, and three AI guys poached from IBM’s Watson group, Shakespeer™ will soon be the world’s first mass-market advanced natural-language generator that actually works, meaning the text it produces passes the Turing test 77.3 percent of the time.
When Lucas began developing his first game, &Co, in his Yale dorm room, he knew an NLG of some sort was essential to what he wanted to create, in part because he needed to populate his virtual world with real-seeming characters for players to interact with until the user base was big enough for them to interact only with each other. This was back when Lucas still wrote most of the code himself, and the end result was less than stellar. The game, essentially a Sims knockoff, was not a success, though it contained certain elements, such as trading on a rudimentary bond market, that would make their way into SS later on.
Lucas’s interest in NLGs goes back further than &Co, to high school. Swim captain and prom king, he was not your typical gamer, but his parents were strict, and rarely let him out for social functions that weren’t school or church related, so he spent a lot of time at the family desktop. This was during the height of AOL chatrooms, but Lucas found these spaces arid, their users, like the kids at school, rarely living up to his high conversational standards. What he wanted was a group of people he could program to his own demanding specs. Not clones of himself exactly, but digital siblings stripped of selfhood and rivalry; AIs that shared much, but, crucially, not all, of Lucas’s DNA.
Shakespeer™ was developed for a single function, to filter The Suit™’s targeted ads through a voice that mimics the user’s own. What separates it from other NLGs is its ability to collect data aurally. The Suit™ records everything its wearer says, and Shakespeer™ synthesizes that data on a rolling basis, learning the wearer’s syntax and diction, his situational speech patterns, and continuing to learn as more data is accrued and those patterns and situations change. But the program doesn’t only collect aurally; it can also process text at speed, a feature Lucas knew could be used for other functions, though he didn’t know what those functions were until the forty-fifth president’s obsession with fake news, when Lucas realized he could create his own.
If Shakespeer™ could speak it would say:
It would say:
Breaking: #Occupy Leader Organized Riot
By Shannon North-Reist
According to Sophia Dall, a PhD candidate at Columbia University, Nøøse founder and #Occupy leader Jay Devor is one of four people responsible for organizing the riot following an #Occupy protest in Union Square that led to the death of Ricardo Cortes. Ms. Dall, Mr. Devor’s former longtime romantic partner, was with him following the riot, when he arrived at her apartment in a state of distress. “I’d never seen him like that,” said Ms. Dall, in an interview conducted
It would say:
It would say:
Welcome to the #Occupation: A Call to Arms
By Jennifer Daniels
A week has passed since the murder of Ricky Cortes and, frankly, I’ve had enough. By all accounts, Cortes was a model citizen and loyal friend whose financial support for groups like GLAAD will be felt for decades to come. One would think that arresting the people responsible for the disgusting circumstances under which this murder took place would be top priority for the NYPD, but this is clearly not the case. If it were, they would have already arrested Jay Devor, who
35.
Wendy considers using the good china. Not to impress Lucas, but because the good china exists and should serve a function beyond its life in storage purgatory, in moth-compromised plastic bins where it gathers dust and depreciates in the dark. Ultimately, she opts out, worried the juxtaposition of the china with the rest of the apartment might ring tragicomic, a sad attempt to spruce the place up. Which is a shame, really, because when might there be another chance to dust off her great-grandmother’s Wedgwood set?
The first thing that comes to mind is an awkward adolescent, who, after months of tutelage, stands before the Beth Elohim congregation on Seventy-Seventh Street and sings her haftarah before being whisked to a reception where franks-n-blankets will be served on inherited Wedgwood flow blue china.
And there she goes again with this child-rearing fantasy, which has crowned since her hangout with Penny, and is triggered by the simplest things: a tampon ad; a stray piece of lace found under a cushion; an old DVD of Troop Beverly Hills. Or maybe it’s not that the fantasy’s rate of occurrence has increased, so much that Wendy’s dedication to tamping it down has weakened; better to dream of a child who will never exist than to consider her real life’s array of crises. In truth, Wendy concedes, as she takes one last look at the china, and traces the glazed outline of a grape vine painted on the plate’s center, the next time this porcelain sees light will be her father’s shiva, relatives piling reduced-sodium lox on the precious plates.
How this dinner came to be is that, after last night’s phone call with Michael, which sent Wendy down a Google wormhole, she woke late to Jay Devor’s photo on the CNN homepage beneath the headline ex gf says: “he bought the bats!”
What followed was a firestorm of posts, across all platforms, memorializing Ricky and blaming Devor for his death. These posts praised Ricky’s philanthropic deeds, his support of GLAAD among them. They called for Devor’s arrest, and for Senator Breem to vote against the UBI if for no other reason than to halt #Occupy’s growing and dangerous reach.
By lunchtime, Devor was back in custody, Breem was refusing interview requests, and Sophia Dall was being prepped to make a deposition. The Devor news is not exactly surprising, but Wendy’s impressed by her journalists’ seamless incorporation of the UBI into this narrative, and the speed with which Ricky’s become a poster boy for the cause. His funeral was this morning, and Wendy watched coverage on the afternoon news, amazed at the dozens of strangers who came to show support and pay respects.
Wendy and Michael spoke briefly again following the service. She tried her best to be warm and kind. Michael ranted. He’s clearly in tailspin, a condition Wendy might have prevented by acting as sacrificial buffer between him and his parents, and by keeping his drinking in check. She feels guilt at her failure to do so, but the online support she’s generated for Ricky assuages that guilt, reassuring her that, in some small way, she’s done her part.
At first, when the pieces began to appear, popping up from Topeka to the Philippines, Wendy kept checking the Communitiv.ly database in disbelief that these were her members. Sure enough, most were. She called Lucas, who didn’t seem concerned about the hundreds of payouts he’d have to make, though he did say he had to cancel their lunch meeting—the meeting in which she was supposed to have been looped in on the product—and push it to evening, if that was okay. Wendy told Lucas she had plans for a meet-and-greet dinner with her
father’s new girlfriend, but that she could easily cancel. Lucas said that wasn’t necessary, he’d join her for dinner with her dad and the girlfriend, and they could head to the office after to prepare for tomorrow’s launch. Wendy felt like she couldn’t say no.
“You look radiant,” says Wendy’s dad from the doorway.
Wendy thanks him. She’s wearing another of her new outfits, a belted wrap jumpsuit in black and gray pinstripes, paired with low-heeled pumps. She was pleased to learn that the envelopes on her desk are a semi-weekly contribution, but even so, with the coming vote and subsequent conclusion of Project Pinky, it can’t be long before the well runs dry. Wendy checks the oven, lights candles, uncorks a bottle of Provençal rosé.
“You didn’t use the china,” says her father. “That’s good.”
“Too fancy for your current belle?” Wendy teases.
“It’s not that,” says Fred.
Wendy continues through her checklist of preparations: folding cloth napkins, filling a pitcher of ice water, beginning to sauté the semi-cooked potatoes in salt and rendered duck fat.
“The thing is,” Fred says, adjusting his collar as if it’s suddenly grown incredibly hot in the kitchen, which, incidentally, it has, “the thing is that I might have to start selling some of the valuable stuff I have, and I think the china could get a pretty decent price even in the condition it’s in.”
Wendy freezes over the potatoes, spatula in hand but failing to stir, letting the spuds sizzle and blacken before she snaps out of it and turns off the flame.
She says, “Why?”
“Well,” Fred says, then hesitates again, whatever’s on his mind clearly something uncomfortable to bring up, because her former-lawyer father is not the tongue-tied type. Now he mumbles, “Well, um, I made some poor investments.”
She doesn’t even have to ask.
“It’s my fault really,” continues Fred, “not for trusting Michael, who I’m sure did the best he could with what he had, but for trusting the market. I’m not the only one who lost, and it would have been no different if I’d taken anyone’s advice.”
“I don’t . . .” starts Wendy, when the doorbell rings.
The first thing Lucas says is, “Smells like burnt hair.”
“Burnt potatoes,” says Wendy.
The date arrives on Lucas’s heels. She’s younger than Fred had led Wendy to believe: platinum blond and clearly an exercise fanatic—spinning is Wendy’s guess, though she wears the cool gaze of the yoga convert—roughly the same age as Lillian, but in better shape. She has the kind of prominent collarbone worn like a neckpiece by thin middle-aged women, plus the remnants of a Florida tan and toned shoulders visible in the sleeveless blouse she quickly stripped down to after Fred took her coat.
“And you must be the daughter,” the woman says to Wendy, who’s already irritated, not only at the brazenness of this woman’s poorly timed entry, but at her use of the definite article before the word daughter, a trope so familiar that a single use is enough to send a shiver down Wendy’s spine as she recalls her sleazy cousins who first referred to Michael as the Boyfriend, or the sleazy boyfriends who referred to her father as the Father, or the sleazy classmates who referred to their stepmothers as the Stepmother, or, in some cases, the StepMonster, like she was some kind of StairMaster machine.
“Yup, I’m the daughter,” says Wendy, trying to withhold the condescension from her voice, and mostly failing, though it doesn’t appear that Fred’s lady friend has picked up on the slight.
“Ellen Waters,” the woman says, dangling a hand.
“Lucas Van Lewig,” says Lucas, and Wendy watches as Fred does the mental work of aging Lucas by thirty years and realizing he must be Chip Van Lewig’s son. Fred ushers the group into the living room where wine is served beside a stuffed mushroom hors d’oeuvre.
“Has Wendy told you about the project we’ve been working on?” asks Lucas. He lifts a foot and rests it on his other knee so a loafer hangs pristine in the lamplight. How the hell does he avoid scuffs and wear? Probably by traveling exclusively in chauffeured vehicles—she imagines he got uptown via helicopter, then took a limo from the landing base—though it’s also possible it’s a different pair of shoes each time, Lucas owning a closetful like Bruce Wayne.
The more pressing concern is the subject of work. Wendy hasn’t been forthright with Fred regarding Project Pinky, protecting her father from that which he won’t approve. And here’s her dinner guest, blue-eyed offspring of a John Birch Society orgy, itching to explain that Wendy’s been essential in persuading Congress to veto this country’s first step toward the redistribution of wealth.
“A bit,” says Fred.
And maybe Lucas can see that she’s terrified, her neck stretched and birdlike, leaning forward as if she might insert her beak between the two men and catch Lucas’s words in her mouth before they reach her father’s ears, because the next thing he says is, “Better not to discuss work in mixed company,” which Ellen Waters finds hilarious. Fred looks confused.
“Mixed company?”
“A joke, Dad,” says Wendy.
“It’s not like he’d understand what you guys do anyway,” says Ellen. “Before we started dating, Fred thought AOL was the Internet.”
Everyone has a good laugh except for Fred, who, Wendy can tell, is still tender from the admission of his failed investments, and is now feeling bullied. Ellen reaches across the coffee table and takes Fred’s hand. There’s a moment of eye contact to let Fred know that they’re not making fun of him, that he’s meant to be in on the joke
“It’s lucky Fred wasn’t on the Internet anyway,” says Ellen. “If he had been, he would have been up on all the dating sites, and would have found someone else before I sunk my claws into him.”
The women laugh, but the men seem to be staring each other down until, somehow, the tension breaks, and Ellen tells the story of their courtship, and her father beams, and even Lucas appears to loosen.
Wendy calls them all into the dining room, and when she brings out the bird, placing it gently on the table as Lucas expresses compliments on its level of skin-crispness, and Ellen takes a photo for her Instagram, and her father pops the cork on a bottle of champagne, it feels to Wendy, for a moment, that by acting out this scene of American normalcy, they are able to invoke it.
36.
Odors rise from trash cans and stick to hair. Dirt clings to clothing. The air is dry; the bathroom floors are wet. There are never paper towels. Ancient hand dryers are mere instruments of sound. Pennies have spent decades glued to the floor. No one dares attempt to pick them up. Empty bags of potato chips float like tumbleweeds. Bums and junkies nod on benches, scratching beards and broken skin. Even the vital and fashion-clad take on layers of levelling filth, their shoelaces dragging through puddles of spilled soda, the tips of their fingers sticky with germs from the rarely cleaned Quik-Ticket machines. All are powerless, reduced to bystander status, at the mercy of the screens where delays and cancellations are announced. Broder makes his way to the ticket counter. He slides cash through the slot.
The bus itself is an extension of the station, a condensed version of its stink and discomfort. Its occupants ignore one another; acknowledgment means admitting being here. Roughly half are on their phones. The other half stare at the seatbacks in front of them. Nobody reads.
Broder sits by the bathroom in back. He does not have a neighbor. The back is reserved for Broder-types, fringe figures in hoodies who drink beer from paper bags. Broder looks at his prepaid cellphone. He doesn’t know why he bought it. He doesn’t know a single number and has no one to call. Broder uses the bathroom. He tries to piss in the toilet, but the moving bus makes it difficult to aim. He gets some on his pants. He zips and inspects the rash on his wrist where the bracelet was. The rash appears to be getting worse. He rubs sanitizer over his hands, then behind his ears and up
and down the length of his arms. The sanitizer stings.
Halfway through the ride, the bus stops at Arby’s. Broder hasn’t eaten in hours. He buys six roast-beef sandwiches. He eats one and a half and offers the rest to a woman across the aisle. The woman looks scared. Broder leaves the Arby’s bag on the floor.
37.
Michael, Rachel, and Donny occupy prime real estate between the bathroom and Big Buck Hunter. The bar is mostly empty despite the funeral’s turnout. Two men take turns shooting deer with the game’s plastic gun. Michael remembers one of the guys holding a similar weapon out the window of his pickup, pointing at Ricky. “Run you little faggot,” the shooter had said, and Ricky sprinted into the woods while Michael stood watching in stunned paralysis. No shots were fired. The car screeched off and Michael bolted after Ricky, who refused to say a word. This was years ago, back in high school. Now the men sip Miller High Life, appropriately silent, as if the deer might hear their voices and flee. Bon Jovi plays loud.
“To Ricky,” Michael says, and raises his glass. He wanted to immediately head back to Brooklyn, but Rachel made the case for him not being in the best state to drive. The forks and spoons on the table move toward Donny’s wrists. Michael stops one in its path and holds the utensil. The spoon tugs itself back in Donny’s direction. After a second, Michael lets go. The spoon rockets across the table and sticks to Donny’s wrist.
“Crazy, right?” Donny says. “I’m still getting used to them myself.”
What compels a man to undergo such a procedure? Perhaps the meaning lies in the implant’s utter lack of utility, the magnets as meta-comment on automated culture. Or maybe they’re simply a neat party trick. Michael doesn’t know Donny well enough to conjecture. The two haven’t spent much time together, Donny mostly avoiding the Mixner house, cowed by Lydia’s disapproval. Magnets aside, Donny lacks ambition, eschews compound sentences, and looks, with his lime-green Mohawk, nose-bone nose ring, and pointillist face tattoos, like a lost Maori tribesman as imagined by Roy Lichtenstein. He isn’t Jewish either. Michael’s starting to like him.