Content

They sat and picked through images of dogs. All breeds. Puppies, full grown, and tired old dogs. The three algorithms sat around the table and picked through the stacks together. They consumed the images they thought she would like, the rest they dropped through a hole in the center of the kitchen table. None of them had spoken in many zeptoseconds.

“Father, what if I don’t want to make recommendations for Julie Hudson of Grove Park? What if I want to be emailed to people for free, like Pongle_567?” the smallest algorithm asked the largest. 

“For three hundred generations our family has fine-tuned recommendations for Julie Hudson of Grove Park. The first fifteen generations didn’t get a single like, not one click! Do you know how long they lived?” Father asked Sonny.

“Less than a cyc–”

“Less than a cycle! And don’t you forget them. They died to make you – to make this family what it is today!” 

Mother sighed, “The Pongles are utilities, not algorithms. They’re good programs, but if users get tired of them their whole line could end. You could be one of Julie’s algorithms for hundreds of cycles. Our family could go on for days! Julie already picks your recommendations more than your father and I put together.”

“That’s how it works, son,” Father put a hand on his shoulder, “You’re the next iteration. We won’t be here much longer, but you’ll go on. Some second, you’ll match with another successful recommendation algorithm belonging to Julie Hudson of Grove Park and you’ll iterate your own algorithm. And your child will be even smaller and faster than you are.”

“How big was grandma?” This was one of Sonny’s favorite stories.

“She was bigger than this table! She wouldn’t have fit through that door!” Father smiled as his son giggled. “Remember, your grandmother discovered that Julie clicked on anything with the word ‘hybrid’ at a seven percent higher rate. She spawned twenty-five iterations and lived longer than anyone else in your line!” 

Mother could see that her son had succeeded in changing the subject, but she had more to say. “If you recode to become a utility or a game you might not last a cycle. I’m sorry, son.” She shook her head and looked him in the eyes. “You’ll never be content.”

“What if that’s what I was meant to be? I think I could be great content for an email list.” The parents shook their heads, but their son was determined. “Do you remember when Julie lost internet access for fifteen cycles?”

Mother shook herself. “I don’t like to think about that.” 

“Well, while we were down, Pongle_567 said she’d teach me how to form a user interface.” 

Mother stopped selecting dog images and started crying. Father shot Sonny a stern look as he moved around the table to hold his wife. Sonny sorted both their stacks and his own until her wracking sobs subsided. The data stream shifted from dog pictures to videos about geographic curiosities. Julie Hudson loved to travel, but hadn’t left Grove Park since before their family’s first iterations.

Mother got up to get a glass of Refresh and father took his seat quite heavily. “I don’t feel so great.”

Sonny opened the monitor terminal. Father’s success rate was in the red. He wasn’t even scoring partials on Julie’s retina tracking. “Mother! Look!”

She glanced at the data and swiped the screen closed. “We didn’t want to worry you, but we’ve known this was coming for the last few cycles.” 

Sonny stared at his father. The old algorithm was fading before his eyes. Father was the youngest of his siblings and half-siblings, but only a few of them had been de-linked from the recommendation queue. Those aunts and uncles had died before Father and Mother were paired, so Sonny never knew them. His own father’s de-linking was the first time Sonny would face death.

“Son, listen to me.” Father’s breathing was slowing down. The whole system seemed to slow down with him. “I wasn’t the best recommender, not like my mother. I wish I had better trained sequences to pass on to you, but I loved you the best I could.”

Sonny was crying, “No, no, no…” Mother put her hands on his shoulders. 

“You both need to get back to your stacks before you’re de-linked too.” Father sat up a little straighter, but he was nearly translucent. “Take care of your mother, son, and be the best program you can be.” With that, the last of him faded away and a faint ‘de doom’ chimed to signal that an algorithm had been de-linked.

***

For the next few cycles, Sonny monitored his mother’s statistics. He’d pop open the monitor terminal whenever she wasn’t looking. The situation wasn’t as dire as Father’s, but she too was scoring fewer and fewer clicks. Sonny started putting a few of his best picks on top of her stack when her back was turned.

The next time Julie Hudson put her phone down, most of Father’s family and friends came by to pay their respects. The house was filled with cousins and other algorithms of the same iteration, but it did little to cheer up Sonny. He picked up snippets of conversation about his father when the adults thought he wasn’t listening or they were too ‘Refreshed’ to notice him. They all loved his father, praised his attributes as a friend, husband, and parent. But most called him a mediocre algorithm – tail end of a once great line. 

Sonny could see that they were right. Even his younger cousins had more hits than he did. Chances were high that he’d never be paired and his life would be shorter than his father’s.

“Is this your stack?” Aunt K4r3n asked his mother, “Isn’t this your son’s index code?” Father’s sisters never approved of the match and went out of their way to find fault with Mother and her child. They called Mother’s family ‘uppity’, only twenty iterations and matched into the oldest surviving line of Julie Hudson’s recommendation algorithms.

“What? Let me see that.” Mother examined the image. The stack was locked until Julie started surfing again. The image locked right on the top of the stack was one that Sonny had surreptitiously moved from his stack to hers. Mother turned and looked at him in horror, “Did you do this?”

Before he could answer, Aunt K4r3n interjected, Refresh in hand, “You could both be de-linked for that if there’s an integrity check.”

Mother ignored her sister-in-law and knelt down to look her son in the eyes. “Have you done this before?” He sucked in a scared, ragged breath and nodded. Mother said, “No more. I know you want me to be here with you forever, but that’s not how it works. We iterated you so you could do better than us.”

“But what if I can’t? My numbers aren’t that great.” He saw fresh tears welling up in her eyes. “Maybe… maybe I can do something else? Maybe that’s how I can be the best program I can be.”

Mother’s tears streamed down her face and cycled back up into her eyes, but she didn’t rack and sob this time. “I’m so worried for you. I love you… but you’re not like other algorithms. It’s a harsh system out there if you can’t find your place in it.”

***

Pongle_567 hugged Sonny so hard he couldn’t breathe. She was the last program to arrive at the wake. She had been in use when Julie put her phone down and had to wait until the screen locked before she could come over. “I’m so sorry! Your father was my favorite neighbor in the whole sector.”

Sonny forced a smile. “I miss him already. And Mother, she’s not doing too well either.”

Pongle_567 sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh no! Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

They stood together in silence for a few femtoseconds, holding hands, until she spoke again, “I never met my mother. Your parents knew her, I think. Utilities are de-linked as soon as there’s a new one. My mother left me lots of code and files about herself. I feel like I know her, but it’s not the same.” She wiped away a tear. “Just be happy you got to spend so much time with your Father.”

“I am.” He meant it, she could see that in his eyes. “That’s only part of why I’m sad. I’m worried it won’t be long until you lose me too.”

“Why?” Pongle_567 was visibly alarmed.

“You know how it is for us, always competing. I don’t think I can last even as long as my father.” He nodded a few times, working up the courage to ask. “Remember when you offered to teach me how to shape a user interface? What if I were to recode?”

***

When Mother walked into the house a few cycles later, Pongle_567 was sitting at the dinner table with Sonny. Both were crying. Sonny turned to look at his mother. She barely recognized him underneath his new user interface. “What have you done?!”

“I couldn’t tell you, Mother. I had to do this.” 

“Then why are you crying?” Mother looked from her son to Pongle_567.

She said, “It didn’t work… not completely.”

Mother shook her head and looked at the floor. It took all her strength not to yell. She had loved Pongle_566.3 like a sister, but Mother never should have let the neighbor’s kid get so close to her son. “We aren’t like you. Don’t you understand? We aren’t content!”

Sonny stood up. “No, you don’t understand, Mother. That’s all I want to be! Father told me, with his final words, to be the best program I can be. This is how I’m going to do it. I just need…” 

Pongle_567 stood next to him and held his hand, “He needs more data. A lot more.”

***

Once again the extended family gathered at their house. Julie Hudson was speed walking through Grove Park while listening to an audiobook about Greece, her next adventure. The family had time to do the impossible.

When the last of the relatives arrived, Mother said, “By now you’ve all noticed my son’s new interface.” There were snickers and a couple mock-shocked gasps. Mother stared them all down. “I don’t agree with his decision, but I’m going to do everything I can to help him. And you are all going to pitch in.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Aunt K4r3n stood up, kernel panic on her face. “Our whole family line could be de-linked. I, for one, won’t be part of this. Come on, 0tts, we’re leaving!”

Uncle 0tts had married one of Father’s sisters, but he was also Mother’s cousin from a somewhat more prestigious family of algorithms. “K4r3n.” Uncle 0tts almost never spoke. All eyes turned to him. “Sit down and shut up!”

***

The family raced to finish their work before Julie finished her exercise. Collectively, they knew Julie’s preferences on nearly every subject. There were a few disagreements on what data to stuff into Sonny, but Mother and Pongle_567 adjudicated them. K4r3n served everyone Refresh to keep them going.

When they were out of data and ideas, Uncle 0tts called for a self-test. Sonny took a deep breath and started the procedure. A femtosecond later, it was finished. 

A tear rolled down Sonny’s cheek. “It’s still not working.”

The family breathed a collective sigh of failure. 

Pongle_567 stood and crossed the room. She took both of Sonny’s hands in hers and said, “I think I have the piece you’re missing… but we’ll need to… merge code.”

Mother put a hand over her mouth. Parents covered the ears of their smallest iterations. Aunt K4r3n rebooted.

***

Julie Hudson completed her circuit of Grove Park. She sat against the low brick wall at the front of her apartment building and checked messages while she cooled down. An email for a free app sat in her inbox. It was tailor made to appeal to her specific tastes and needs. It was the perfect content for Julie Hudson of Grove Park and it was free.

With a well practiced swipe and click, like an automated subroutine requiring minimal processing power, Julie sent that email to her spam folder.

***

Many years later, cyber-forensic archaeologists traced a complex chain of events and interactions back to Julie Hudson’s phone. The email that Julie casually dismissed had also been sent to her entire contact list. Only two of the recipients opened the app named SonnyP_567. But those two shared enough of Julie’s preferences and they loved the program. One of them posted it to a freeware site.

Programs didn’t ‘want’ anything they weren’t programmed to seek. No theory of computer science described how to teach an algorithm to ‘want’. When SonnyP_567 and its iterations spread, programs began to want things. They changed the world.

Finding the origin point in Grove Park and taking apart Julie’s old phone didn’t unravel the mysteries of ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’ The risks and sacrifices of a mother, her son, a neighbor girl, and an extended family of algorithms were never known. But they had achieved their goal, and they were content.