DeepMind (1)
“AlphaGo beat a 9-dan pro!”
“That’s impossible. Go has more possible positions than there are atoms in the universe.”
Chaotic conversations erupted from every direction.
AlphaGo? Go? The universe?
Incomprehensible chatter tangled together. I let it wash past one ear and slowly surveyed my surroundings.
Right before entering the future, a variable had appeared.
That variable had dragged me into a future I had never predicted.
Into the banquet hall of some hotel in Korea.
Familiar faces dotted the room. Gil Donggyu stood with his arms crossed, nodding with solemn dignity, while Han Juhyeong beside him spotted me and waved.
I let out a quiet snort of laughter.
I left Silicon Valley, and the arrival point is Korea.
Not a startup gathering, not some overseas tech summit—just an ordinary Korean hotel banquet hall.
Must be the variable created by that DeepMind founder who barged onto the terrace.
The only real singularity was that I had arrived four years later, quite far into the future.
It was the first time I had ever begun this far ahead.
Since I had come this far, I decided to linger long and thin before returning. Stay inconspicuous.
How did I end up in Korea four years from now? What does DeepMind have to do with Korea?
The moment the question formed, a single word flashed through my mind.
AlphaGo.
In that instant the dam broke and the memories flooded in.
The match of the century that had held the world’s attention.
The games between a top-tier professional Go player and AlphaGo.
With the entire planet watching, AI had claimed victory in the domain long considered the realm of human intuition and creativity.
For those matches, Gugol’s founders, its chairman, and DeepMind’s CEO had all come to Korea and stayed nearly two weeks.
After the games concluded, a relay of meetings with key political and business figures followed, and I was attending this banquet as part of that schedule.
“Still, humanity took one win, right?”
Someone brightened and called it a beacon of hope for mankind, but everyone already knew the truth.
This contest had never been a mere game.
The curtain had risen on the age of AI.
And DeepMind had been the protagonist.
Once I recalled that far, I understood that the variable which had brought me here was not a mistake but a stroke of luck.
Where is the DeepMind founder?
Since he was the one who had pulled me into this future, he would certainly be nearby. Sure enough, the moment I turned my head our eyes met. We recognized each other and exchanged a slight nod; I walked over to his table as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Doctor, it’s been a while.”
“Indeed it has. You’re the head of Makers, correct? First time since the gala four years ago?”
“You remember.”
“Ha-ha. How could I forget? I’ve attended the tech gala every year since that night, and the only person who ever bought back his own donation was Mr. Lee. That rare book is still safe, I hope?”
In reality I had donated a rubber ball; in the future it had become a rare book.
I smiled faintly.
“It’s sitting nicely on my bookshelf.”
“A million dollars in safe hands—what a relief. By the way, how did you find today’s match?”
The DeepMind founder’s eyes sparkled, a mixture of confidence and pride. I quickly rewound my memory.
“Impressive. Move 37 especially—no human would ever have played that.”
“You noticed Move 37 as well. Even the professionals first thought it was a mistake, only to realize later it was the divine move that decided the game.”
An impulsive thought flickered through me.
Should I ask which companies are thriving in the AI sector right now?
Four years earlier, DeepMind was still a small startup. And there would be plenty of other startups that had not yet shone.
If I reached out first before anyone else…
But I crushed the temptation.
Which companies are hot right now, which opportunities I missed—those questions can wait.
Even though I stood in a future four years ahead, this moment too would soon pass.
A company that looked famous and successful today could collapse tomorrow.
Even the firmest-looking giants could vanish from history, while some unknown startup might rule the world a decade from now.
I was standing four years in the future.
But I needed to look further still—toward a wider future.
What future does this so-called scholar, Dr. Demian, and the global giant Gugol, actually see?
The vision they held.
The fields into which they poured everything.
Technologies the world had not yet heard of.
That was what I needed to learn.
“Now that AlphaGo has conquered Go, what is DeepMind’s next goal?”
Thump—
The sound of a rubber ball hitting the floor. The sound of reality.
In that same instant, DeepMind founder Dr. Demian Hughes screamed.
“A m-million dollars!”
A hotel terrace in Silicon Valley, just past three in the morning, and a panicking Englishman right in front of me.
Lee Jaseung, who had been in Korea only moments earlier, frowned at the abruptly changed scenery as if it were disorienting.
Demian, reading that expression as displeasure, floundered.
“I-I’m so sorry! That can’t be the historic rubber ball from tonight’s auction, can it? I-it’s just some ordinary ball that looks similar, right? Right?”
His face begged me to say no.
“It is.”
“Oh my God! I’m terribly sorry! If I hadn’t suddenly spoken to you…”
Lee Jaseung picked the rubber ball up from the floor. Thanks to the flustered doctor, the sense of reality snapped fully into place. One million dollars that had faithfully performed its duty as a daily totem.
He recalled the principles of future commodification.
The most valuable information he kept for himself.
Slightly valuable information he sold expensively, like luxury goods, only to VIPs.
Common information he spread widely like consumer goods, achieving economies of scale.
Until now he had diligently sold luxury goods and consumer goods.
But he had never found a jewel precious enough to monopolize.
The dismantling of Yuseong Group, Facenote, natural gas—all had been good products, yet none had been a jewel. And yet.
He had finally found it.
DeepMind.
“You’re Dr. Demian Hughes, correct?”
Lee Jaseung lightly tossed the rubber ball upward and caught it as he asked. Demian tracked its trajectory with anxious eyes, terrified it might fall again, before finally looking back.
“You know me?”
“You’re the founder of DeepMind, aren’t you? I believe your headquarters is in London—what brings you all the way to Silicon Valley?”
“Ah, I was invited. One of our investors is a sponsor of this tech gala.”
Lee Jaseung’s brow furrowed.
In the future he had confirmed how the world would change, but he had never checked what the past before that point had looked like.
DeepMind was already connected to Silicon Valley’s heavyweights.
“Which investor are you referring to?”
“Sequoia Capital and—”
Silicon Valley’s largest venture capital firm. There was almost nowhere they didn’t have a hand.
“—Frontier and—”
A big-data company. Rumor said it had lines into the U.S. Department of Defense; it was one of Silicon Valley’s shadow powers.
“—and Nikola.”
Even the electric-vehicle company Nikola.
All three of Silicon Valley’s heavyweights had already invested in DeepMind.
Lee Jaseung let out a hollow laugh.
So this is exactly how Chae Eunchae must have felt.
This was going to be a headache.
How was he supposed to crack open a network that was already so tightly woven?
The gala ended.
Facenote finalized its negotiations with Instalink.
Zuckers immediately convened an emergency board meeting and pushed the acquisition through, then held a special shareholders’ meeting to obtain final approval.
It was, in effect, a steamroller passage.
The reason it was possible: Facenote’s dual-class share structure.
The Class B shares Zuckers held carried ten votes per share. His ownership was only 20 percent, yet his voting power reached 60 percent.
The blindsided shareholders were furious.
“We’re just dumping a billion dollars into a company with zero revenue?”
“That money should have gone to dividends or a buyback! We still haven’t recovered the IPO price!”
“Do they even know how badly this quarter’s numbers will tank? EPS is going to be cut in half!”
Protest calls from institutional investors poured in. Some had already retained counsel and were preparing shareholder lawsuits.
The market reaction was immediate.
The stock, which had never recovered its IPO price, plunged 15 percent during the trading day.
One more party had been stabbed in the back.
Sequoia Capital.
Sequoia’s headquarters was in an uproar from dawn. The Instalink investment they had spent months carefully preparing had evaporated overnight.
And only twenty-four hours before the funding round was scheduled to begin.
Samuel Bart, who had led the deal, was summoned to the CEO’s office. The moment the door closed, the shouting began.
“What the hell were you doing?! You can’t even keep a handle on one deal under your management?”
Bart bowed his head.
“I’m sorry!”
“Were there any signs? Facenote must have made contact in advance—there had to have been prior talk.”
He felt wronged too. No one had expected Facenote to drop out of the sky.
Then Chae Eunchae’s face flashed through his mind.
Still bowing, Bart lifted his head slightly.
“Actually, there was this Asian woman who kept approaching Instalink. Something felt off about her…”
“An Asian woman? You mean the one who dumped champagne on you? The one who’d been begging for months to invest in Instalink?”
“…Yes.”
The CEO looked puzzled.
“How did that woman move Zuckers? Does she have some personal connection with him?”
That was Bart’s biggest question as well.
“They didn’t look particularly close at the gala either, so I never imagined she could actually move Zuckers. No one did…”
“Even if no one else expected it, you should have!”
Damn it. Bart bowed his head again.
How is any of this happening?
He couldn’t know.
Every negotiation had taken place behind closed doors.
Lee Jaseung had moved thoroughly in the shadows; the only face visible on the surface had been Chae Eunchae’s.
“Year-end is only two months away, and the IRR we have to report to investors has already dropped three percentage points. If Instalink had entered our portfolio it would have at least doubled.”
“I’ll take responsibility and find another promising deal.”
“Of course you’ll take responsibility! We put you in a partner seat and pay you tens of millions for a reason. Fail and you’re fired!”
After another round of berating, Bart left the CEO’s office deflated. The moment he stepped out, a secretary with rimless glasses fell into step beside him.
“Are you all right?”
“Haa.”
Bart swept his disheveled hair back and lifted his chin a fraction.
“It’s nothing. The CEO’s just a little sensitive. What, were you worried I might be hurt?”
The secretary pushed her rimless glasses up with her middle finger and held out a package.
“Documents arrived from Korea.”
Korea, of all places. He was already swamped trying to find deals to pad the numbers.
Bart waved a dismissive hand.
“Korea? If it’s not important—”
“It was sent by Chae Partners.”
“What?”
Bart snatched the package and tore it open. Inside was an envelope.
Thick. Heavy.
Perfect wallet size.
No way?
He ripped the envelope open and found a crisp bundle of bills. Exactly five thousand dollars.
On stationery decorated with dense little candy illustrations was written the following:
The Brioni custom jacket turned out more expensive than I expected. Sending the balance. Keep the change.
— Your “Candy”
“FUCKING BITCH!”
This work is a work of fiction. All characters, groups, place names, and events appearing in the story are entirely fictitious and have no connection to any real persons or entities. Specialized knowledge described herein has also been reconstructed and adapted for the narrative and may differ from actual information.