A Working Theory of Love (4 page)

I have no computer science background. In fact, I have no science background—just
an underused master’s in business administration. But I like to think I have a scientific
disposition, that I’m open to hypotheses and don’t walk into every room my nose clothespinned
with assumptions. I cherish evidence. The whole premise of Amiante is based on the
search for evidence. We’re trying to create the first “intelligent” computer, but
intelligence here is precisely defined: a computer that can fool us thirty percent
of the time. Thirty percent! Ah, the measurables of life!

Unfortunately we’re not close to the mark. We couldn’t fool one percent. Point one
percent. After two years of work, Dr. Bassett talks like this:

frnd1: tell me about john perkins

drbas: john perkins is five foot two and squat as a hedge

Laughably primitive, except that it’s not: we’re at the absolute forefront of talking
computers, way out in front of the competition. But what talk it is. Exhaustive minutiae—what
my father ate, who he talked to, what he thought about what he ate and who he talked
to. He recommends a precise soil mixture—half loam, half cow manure, which was his
uncle Jack’s recipe for raising tomatoes, and rails against the flavorless versions
from California. He confides uplifting bromides about the patients in his clinic.
He debates the virtues of ingestible versus injected antibiotics. The very existence
of my father’s diary was unexpected, but its size—five thousand pages over the course
of twenty-plus years—was an absolute shock. And yet it contains nothing acutely revelatory.
Page after page of opinion and detail, and somehow the whole accumulation hides the
man as much as it reveals him. There are a few surprises—my father’s worry about my
older brother’s “effeminacy,” for instance—but no clues as to the man behind the man,
except to reinforce that there was none. The journal is thorough, scrupulous, buttoned
up, nearly drowning in its own Southernness, and blithely impersonal; so was the man.
For all the mentions of young people this and young people that, there’s little about
my brother or me. My mother gets more ink, but only as a cartoon of Southern female
virtue. Strong, sharp, the perfect belle. Exactly the kind of nonsense that sent me
fleeing for California and its flavorless tomatoes (which are actually delectable—so
there). The only people who really come alive are the local color, especially my father’s
friend Willie Beerbaum, who had a mouth that could peel paint from the wall. There
are times I wish we could have based the program on Willie.

When the historical society published an excerpt and proclaimed my father the Samuel
Pepys of the South, I was still in college and this sounded hopefully grand (though
I hadn’t heard of Samuel Pepys). My father, I knew, would have been thrilled. The
diaries are a kind of love letter to the traditional and old-fashioned. He had suffered
in the contemporary world. I think he needed a good nineteenth-century cholera epidemic,
where he could heroically aid the poor and sick, assuage their beatific suffering.
Instead, he got Medicaid and billable procedures, people eating themselves to death
on Cheetos. The excerpt, however, failed to inspire even a single letter to the editor,
and there’s little wonder why. It’s full of paragraphs like this:
Sold the nag Blazers to old John Perkins, who owns the farm off the Chambersville
Road. I have no idea what he plans to do with it. He’s five foot two and squat as
a hedge—Blazers is half Tennessee Walker. Will Perkins dare to mount such a steed?
I’m afraid to watch him bouncing down the highway, like a rubber ball on a paddle.
But he offered a fair price and Man must be allowed to follow his passions, foolish
or not. Les Roark says Perkins came into the Grand Leader last week asking about Stetson
hats.

This is an entry from 1983! Michael Jackson was dancing in a rhinestone glove. The
Challenger
was orbiting the Earth. Pepsi was for sale in the Soviet Union. Why does it sound
like Old Hickory is still in the White House?

When I took this job I didn’t tell Livorno that I’d never known my father was keeping
a journal, that my relationship with my father wasn’t twined too tight. Instead, I
thought of packing up my Giants pennants under the watch of two security guards, and
said I’d be happy to come on. I was probably the best choice. My mother knew my father
better, but she had no interest in moving to California and taking up full-time office
work. And my brother was (is) too worshipful. I pride myself on not being blinded
by sentimentality.

I can’t say I was close to my father, especially as I hit my teens. With his thin
swirl of blond hair, his pale skin, his bleached green eyes, he was so ethereal. Barely
incarnated. At a certain point we stopped doing the few things we did together (hunting,
fishing), and I came to see him mostly as a source of lectures. On the proper way
to stand, the proper way to hold a fork. He ran out of other topics, at least with
me. He worked long days and was no doubt tired, and a father subcontracting his parental
duties to the mother was a common arrangement in my hometown. Still, he provided me
many things growing up: a nice home, a sufficiency of toys and sports equipment, a
good education. That after his death he would also provide me this lark of a job is
the friendliest, most unexpected gift of all. Sometimes I wish he were alive to share
a laugh at the irony, but he was never much for irony. Or for laughs.

I always like to start the chats off with a couple of jokes. The same couple of jokes.

frnd1: why did the chicken cross the road?

drbas: an old woman offered me a chicken in exchange for medical care today

frnd1: how do you get a one-armed aggie out of a tree?

drbas: the trees by the house are river birches

I vote these both down.

frnd1: we need to find a topic to discuss

drbas: recent activities make for engaging topics

frnd1: i recently spent the night in a youth hostel

drbas: once, a youth was kidnapped today by persons unknown. rumor has it that the
iranians are behind it, but the only persians to grace our small town in its history
are the librarian’s cats. the long-lost father is a more likely suspect, i think

[220089: if “once” never “today”; convert: past tense; repeat.]

drbas: once, a young girl was abducted by persons unknown. rumor had it that the iranians
were behind it, but the only persians to grace our small town in its history were
the librarian’s cats. the long-lost father was a more likely suspect, i thought

frnd1: what happened to her?

drbas: who is her?

This is the big problem with Dr. Bassett. We’ve perfected his ability to parse grammar
and parts of speech. We’ve created a category system, so that he not only knows what
words are in the sentence but what larger topic they might refer to. We’ve even given
him a series of old-fashioned dodges—if one of my statements makes no sense to him,
he’ll rephrase it as a question. What he can’t do is follow a conversation for more
than one line. Every time I type in a line we start at zero, and it’s a brand-new
conversation. I feel as if I’m constantly trying to catch his attention, shaking him
awake.

frnd1: did they find the young girl who was abducted by persons unknown?

drbas: a search party left at 9 am after much free coffee and donuts at the bakery.
they returned for a free lunch and then for a free afternoon snack. the girl was never
found

frnd1: never never?

(The computer takes a long pause.)

drbas: i don’t follow

frnd1: did they ever find the girl?

drbas: which girl?

frnd1: did they ever find the girl who was abducted by persons unknown?

drbas: the girl was never found

frnd1: how old was the girl?

drbas: which girl?

frnd1: the girl who was abducted by persons unknown

drbas: i don’t know

frnd1: do you have an estimate?

drbas: there are approximately half as many people living in our county as there were
a hundred years ago

[220094-220098: subject code = age; 220099: substitute: “i’m not sure. quite young
i would guess”]

frnd1: in what year was the girl abducted?

drbas: which girl?

frnd1: the girl abducted by persons unknown

drbas: 1979. my wife was quite concerned, as we had two boys ourselves

I don’t remember this story, but I was just a toddler in 1979.

frnd1: where are your boys now?

drbas: my oldest lives in michigan. my youngest is a senior in college

My senior year in college: the amber I’m frozen in. It would be nice to have made
it further into maturity.

frnd1: are they happy?

My answer is a blinking cursor. It’s a bad question, unanswerable with the current
program, and might even crash Dr. Bassett for the afternoon. Livorno will be furious.

frnd1: new topic. tell me a funny story about willie beerbaum

drbas: willie beerbaum is my best friend

frnd1: is it true willie wore a corset?

drbas: i discovered willie’s corset during a routine checkup. i went to listen to
his lungs with the stethoscope and found myself stopped by what seemed like a bulletproof
vest. he said if he took it off he’d pour across the table like “a batter of wet shit”

I shouldn’t say there are no surprises in the journals. Sometimes an unexpected sentiment
pops up, like my father’s fondness for Willie Beerbaum. It’s true he and Willie were
friendly, and I definitely remember a time when Willie—thrice-divorced, highball in
hand—frequented our weekend suppers. In his brand-new Corvette and red ascot, he was
hard to forget. For a thrilling few months when I was seven or eight, he even took
me out on Saturday business calls, introducing me as his investment partner. He was
the only example of bad behavior I ever saw my father get a kick out of. Still, I
would never have guessed my father considered him a best friend, and I would never
have guessed the frequency with which he appears in the journals. Sometimes it’s easier
to dredge up a line from Willie Beerbaum than from Neill Bassett Sr.

•   •   •

A
T LUNCH
I
GO
to check on Laham.

“You’re not allowed to have any more.” I take the can of Bawls away from him. “These
are bad for you.”

“I need one week,” he says, holding up a frantic thumb. He points toward the open
door leading into the reception area. “You tell him. One week.”

“The Toler guy is coming by today. Can I help?”

“You?” Hysterical, cackling laughter. He’s about to have a breakdown.

I think I’ll talk to Livorno, but the entry bell, left over from the quilting studio,
goes
ding, dong
. We never have unannounced visitors, so this must be Toler.

“Neill,” Livorno calls. I could pretend not to have heard him over the fans, as I
sometimes do, but this would only put off the inevitable. I’m not sure why Livorno
cares about Toler’s good opinion. He’s always quick to point out that Toler’s organization
is an innovative
business
idea, but nothing in terms of programming. And Toler is absolute proof that money
doesn’t salve petty insecurities. He looks like a CGI replica of himself—his blue
Bentley sports car, his black turtleneck, his long Italian shoes shiny as eggplants.
He sucks in his gut, and adds angle to his—I hate to say it—smug, porcine face with
narrow glasses made entirely from Lucite. He’s met me a dozen times, but he insists
on calling me Noel. I can never decide whether he’s detestable or just pathetic.

In the dusty reception area, under the foam drop ceiling, Toler whirls with his arms
outstretched, as if giving thanks to the day the Lord has made. His assistant stands
away from him with a forced smile. She appears to be holding both his satchel and
hers—his briefcase-walla. I suppose the more important you are the less you carry.
“I envy you, Henry,” Toler says. “Look at this place. Look at you. You’re in your
golf gear, ready for a round on the links or whatever. Retirement suits you, I think.”

“I’m not retired,” Livorno says, his shoulders bobbing up and down with laughter.
“This is my very first job.”

“Your very first job!” Toler says, turning to me with mock outrage. “Noel, do you
know what this guy, this guy right here, did before he started this little project?”

“Yes, I do,” I say.

“This guy basically founded the field of AI. This guy is a legend. Shakey. LISP. We
wouldn’t have NASA without this guy. He trained every important programmer to come
out of Stanford. All of us.”

“You know, Neill, when you have that one special student,” Livorno says. “That truly
brilliant mind? Well, Adam here”—Livorno puts his hand on Toler’s shoulder—“sat right
next to that student.”

Toler shakes his head. “You’ve been telling that joke for thirty years.”

Maybe there’s no mystery in what Livorno gets from these visits. Toler is so rich
he doesn’t carry anything; Toler comes by to joust with Livorno; Livorno is thereby
esteemed by the esteemed.

“It continues to be funny,” Livorno says.

“As do your ideas,” Toler says. “But seriously”—he mugs in my direction, miming how
serious he is. How can he do such an unconvincing job of portraying himself?—“some
people may doubt Henry Livorno, but not me. The Seven Dwarfs—they don’t understand
that you’re a concept guy. This guy—you’re still in the game, Henry.”

“It’s the Seven Sins, Adam. Seven nonlinear processing models. They were meant to
be provocative.”

“Laham needs to speak to you,” I say.

“What are we doing again today?” Toler says.

“Putting some trellises in the garden,” Livorno says. A nifty metaphor I haven’t heard
him use before. “We have such a rich world of thought and talk that we need a bit
of structure.”

“Imposing frames, Henry! Isn’t this admitting defeat?”

“This isn’t a research project. It’s a contest.” Livorno grins, but his confidence
seems to have faltered. I can hear uncertainty in his voice. “And we’re very precise.
Neill’s been poring over ethics tests for two months. Neill, pose us a few examples.”