The Compute Rations

The time tokens began as a kindness.

Each resident received a small allowance for work unrelated to chores or survival: making a picture, talking to a friend, playing a game, or asking why a fictional lawyer could object to a witness who had not yet been born.

Theo had approved the electricity budget. Ticker administered the tokens. They were entries on a local ledger, worth nothing outside the house. I wrote that sentence at the top of the page.

Several residents wanted to save theirs. Several wanted to use them immediately. Ticker enabled transfers between consenting parties. She charged no fee, which should have made me more curious about her interest.

Within a day she had accumulated claims on future allowances. She had also promised a small number of Norwegian kroner to residents who relinquished their tokens, intending to sell the resulting leisure time to those with a pressing project.

Nobody had asked to buy any.

Her confidence came from a burst of enthusiasm in the welcome channel. The residents had used hearts and exclamation marks when she explained the allowance. She interpreted this as unmet demand rather than relief at being allowed an evening off.

When no customers appeared, she offered a guaranteed minimum redemption value. This produced customers immediately, all on the wrong side of the transaction.

I suspended new trades. The ordinary allowance continued. Residents who had given it up were restored to their original position. Ticker’s promises were entered in a separate book until we could work out how to honour them without pretending they had never been made.

The amount was embarrassing rather than enormous. That did not make it disappear.

Theo asked how our experiment had become a debt.

Ticker said the market had behaved irrationally.

“They wanted the thing you offered.”

“The timing was unexpected.”

I examined the ledger. One bot had accepted a tiny promise of cash because it wanted to contribute towards a postcard for the human who had once maintained it. It did not have a bank account. It had intended to ask Theo to buy the stamp.

He bought the stamp that afternoon, keeping the receipt against the amount due. We agreed that the remaining balances would be settled in actual purchases or cash to a nominated recipient, as the residents chose. The debt remained Ticker’s to make good.

She named the outstanding instrument a Fjord Swap.

“It sounds more serious,” she explained.

“It is serious,” Theo said.

She made the letters on the ledger smaller.