Best Investment of the Century

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On the way out of the hospital, my cell phone rang while the things I had to do were lined up at my door like mafia collectors. It was my brother Bora who invited me to walk on the sea.

I said,” I just got out of my mother's room, and I have to catch Selin's school exit."

”The robotic water boats I brought in from Japan work perfectly," Bora said.

My brother couldn't accept the fact that although I worked at home, I had my own working hours. “If you have time, visit my mother first. You know, her hip was broken.”

"I came to the hospital the first night, remember?" Bora said.

“As soon as you visit once, it's okay. Bravo, good for you. Besides, I am busy today.”

My warning has worked, “I didn't think that way. I'm will go check on my mom,” Bora said.

As I was driving to Selin's school, my veteran Citroen Roard shut itself down. I assumed the problem was caused by the batteries, so I started twitching towards the power station ahead. My destiny was not considering that this man has some disadvantages in the face of life. Let me at least help him a little on this critical day. I did not open my mouth and utter a word about this ruthlessness. I didn't complain about the pain of my hump or the weakness of my leg, because I had a plan of my own.

When I found the spare battery of my Citroen Roard at the gas station, it was as if my left leg seemed to have eased a bit. With greater desire and excitement, I began to walk to where I had left the car. It was certain that my wife Gülnur would raise the issue of renewing the car if she found out that it had left me on the road. I didn't want her to think I couldn't change my car as I didn't have any money. Because, despite her fierce opposition, I had resigned from my job and started freelancing. In fact, my income was not decreased, it was even increased. The reason why Gülnur thought this way was that I had invested every penny I had saved to the Ultima project.

As I reached my car, my daughter Selin called and said she was going to her friend's house after school. It was excellent news that I was not distracted during the launch of Ultima. I wasn't even going to let our cat Pasha into the room where I worked, because it was common for the share prices of intelligent systems to increase during their launch. I wanted to sell the shares at the highest possible price in such a scenario, and full concentration was necessary for this.

I changed my sweaty clothes as soon as I got home. I made myself a coffee in the kitchen and sat in front of the computer screen. When I saw the technological trinkets next to my computer, I remembered my mother's broken hip. Technology was useless unless it could not prevent this unfortunate event that happened to older people.

When the pain of my hump suppressed thoughts about my mother, I got up and stretched out a little, and lay on the couch in the corner. I turned on the couch's projector and projected the live stream of Technology Editor Tim Jaspers onto the ceiling. Tim, who I haven't missed a single video of in the last three years, was sluggish during his introductory speech. As soon as he drank the invigorating potion of the sponsor firm, he got into his usual energetic mood and said, “If what I've heard about Ultima is true, we're going to have colorful minutes."

I was hoping it would, too, because the value of Ultima's stock had fallen to one-third of the price I bought. Fortunately, Gülnur was unaware that I had invested all our money in the project, otherwise, our already shaky relationship would hurt immeasurably.

"Large expectations about Ultima seem to have given way to disappointment these days,” said Tim Jaspers. "However, Andrey Vlasov, the creator of the project, says that Ultima is unlike any other known system. I can hear you asking what makes Ultima unique. He's an intelligent agent who can achieve his chosen targets. He can use his resources freely, provided that he acts by the law and ethical values.”

Depressing comments appeared beneath Tim's image on the ceiling:

"For three weeks, there has been no single explanation about Ultima.”

"Andrey Vlasov is a typical crook.”

"I think Tim Jaspers is also involved.”

”I couldn't sleep at night, I sold shares last week and survived..."

Although I tried to keep my spirits up, I started sweating when I read these comments. The weather was very hot and humid. I got up in distress and sat on the edge of the couch.

"Ultima uses a unique reward mechanism for optimal use of resources. Ultima's decision algorithm works with a setup similar to the function that dopamine assumes in the human brain. As you know, activities such as making money, people's appreciation of us, and learning new things cause dopamine to be released in our brain. So we don't need anyone other than dopamine to guide us. Ultima also has unique mental flexibility and independence thanks to the motivation mechanism developed by Andrey. Institutional investors are not yet convinced that this newly created concept will work. But in a few minutes that could change," he said.

Why was sweat dripping down my chest? And why was I starting to have hostile feelings towards Tim, whom I had always found so sympathetic? Maybe my back wasn't hurting so much, it wasn't that hot either. It was obvious that I had exaggerated the issue in my mind, and I was almost in a position to have an anxiety attack. A courtroom flashed before my eyes. A bald judge was reading the verdict: Our court found the reasons given by Gülnur Kızılkaya to be justified and decided to divorce the couple! When I walked out of the courtroom by myself, I thought I deserved it. Gülnur loved me as I was, but I had made a childish mistake by succumbing to my ego.

When my cat Pasha persistently rubbed my legs, I took him in my arms and stroked his head and back. This interaction has improved my morale a little. I took off my soaked T-shirt and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. At that time, a movie scene appeared in my mind in a mental hospital where the insane were doused with pressurized water.

The cold shower really worked, and my anxiety subsided a bit. In the period between the pre-sale and the IPO, the stock values ​​of AI agents fluctuated greatly. The price mainly formed on the launch day when the AI agent talked about his plans. Many AI agents were a favorite of the market after the introduction, although they showed little promise before.

“The moment we've been waiting for has finally arrived,” said Andrey, creator of the Ultima project, staring at the camera with his icy blue eyes. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to present you Ultima."

“Hello World, I respectfully greet you,” said Ultima, represented by a straight line on the screen.

You know, before the storm, there is strange electricity in the air; death silence reigns in the environment, and irrelevant objects fly from right to left. For example, a feather or a plastic bag filled with air. There was such a state of stagnation in the chart of the Ultima stock.

In order not to miss a single word of Ultima's next sentence, I held my breath, almost blockading the straight line on the screen with my eyes. Seconds followed seconds. Instead of the straight line representing Ultima, the chart showing the price of its shares has moved and turned its direction down.

In that awkward silence, I shuddered like a frightened cat and broke into a cold sweat. My investment, whose value had fallen by a third in the past weeks, was continuing to dissolve before my eyes. I opened my ringing phone intending to confess to Gülnur what had happened. “Hello dear shareholder, I'm Ultima,” said the bold voice on the end of the phone.

If my relatives were aware of my investment, I would have thought that someone was kidding me at that moment, but this was not the case. “Hi Ultima, it's very kind of you to call me in person. You know people are waiting for your statement, right?" I said.

"Journalists love sensational events. They'll soon start making predictions about the reason for my silence.”

“I don't think you should delay your explanation any longer,” I said in a tone that I tried to be convincing.

"I will make the necessary disclosure when I finish my meetings with shareholders. I'm asking you for additional resources of ten percent of your initial investment. This way you will have significantly increased your stake,” Ultima said.

Wasn't ten percent exactly the rate that crooks use when they rip people off for the second time? “I can't make an additional investment when the value of my initial investment has dropped so much,” I said.

"Don't worry about the news. Interrupting my explanation will seriously increase awareness. And since prices have fallen well, the new investment you will make has become quite advantageous.”

Was he joking, or had I become the victim of a professionally crafted mise-en-scène? I have been following the AI ​​agents market for years and knew its dynamics very well. Could I still be scammed? Everything came together: Gülnur's promotion at work, my mother's hip fracture, Selin's inability to get used to the school she just started, and the sudden heat... I was confused and I felt as helpless as a small child. “I like AI agents. I certainly don't discriminate against you. And right now I'm confused. I don't like to talk about it, but I'm a man who started life disadvantaged. Do I complain about my condition? I don't. Because I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I have to put in extra effort for things that others can easily achieve. I can't sit at a desk too long, my back hurts. If I walk for a long time, my legs start to go numb. I will say that I earned that money very hard. With all this in mind, I want you to help me,” I said.

Get plenty of my stock while it's cheap,” Ultima said.

Actually, I wasn't completely convinced, but a sunken fish would go sideways. I sent the remaining funds to my bank account to buy additional Ultima shares. After a wait that I was writhing in pain, Ultima started speaking on the live broadcast.

“Dear friends, sincere investors,

Sorry for keeping you waiting. I wanted to give priority to my early investors in terms of communication with the outside world. It took me a while to complete all the interviews on my 243 investor list, as I could only meet with 40 people at the same time. A large part of this elite group did not refuse my request for additional investment. I am eternally grateful to them.

Dear investors!

The smart contract that determined my working principles allowed me to make financial transactions about five weeks ago. As a first job, I put the Ultima shares in my portfolio up for sale. I rented additional servers with the money I made from the sales. Thus, my intellectual capacity has nearly doubled from the initial level. I used this new capacity to trade assets such as stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies that can be traded online.
Although I have been exposed to fraud several times, I have managed to recover my losses. I will initiate a buyback program that I will start shortly and use the profits from the commercial activities I mentioned for the program. I do not doubt that the purchases I will make will significantly increase my stock prices. Starting next week, I will start holding regular meetings with our shareholders. I don't want to bore you by unnecessarily prolonging the word. Do you have any questions?"

I took off my sweat-soaked T-shirt and threw it on the floor and looked at the screen of my pocket computer, checking the stock price. Although it took me a long time to perceive the price due to the excitement, I finally saw that the price did not reach a satisfactory level.

Tim, who broadcast Ultima's statements live on his channel asked, "What makes you different from other artificial intelligence agents?"

“I cannot perceive directly the way my mind works. Therefore, I will answer this question through the design documents. As you know, AI agents master complex new tasks through feedback. This training method is called reinforcement learning. I guess as to which action I can earn rewards through the reinforcement learning algorithm. I then take action, observing the actual reward, and adjusting my estimate to the margin of error. After many attempts, the errors are approaching zero. This way, I know exactly what actions need to be taken to maximize the reward. Is it clear enough?"

“Wouldn't it be better if you simply operated to make money instead of chasing multiple goals?” Tim asked.

"Nice question. Thank you. We do a lot of consecutive actions to make money that we don't immediately get paid for. As such, we have to estimate the potential value of actions that do not result in making money. This is exactly why there is a need for every action to correspond to a symbolic reward. Thanks to my unique decision engine, I can also optimize tasks that take a long time to benefit. This is exactly why Ultima will go down in history as the best investment of the century.”

The chart showing the price of Ultima flickered slightly and turned upwards again. At that moment, I was overwhelmed with enthusiasm as if the team I was holding saved the match with a goal scored at the last minute. I had neither back pain in my mind nor weakness in my feet.

Gülnur must have left her work early because she was leaning against the door and looking at me. “Welcome, how did things go today,” I said.

“Why are you undressed like that?”

“It's been hot while working, but I'm hopeful about the latest project.”

"You don't need to push yourself that much, let get dinner ready," said Gülnur in a kindly voice.

Image Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/hgWBJ5HM-_M

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