Strategic Retreat
“What? What are we supposed to fix?”
“Siwon, do you know something?”
“Should we just go ask the department chair right now?”
As soon as everyone left Professor Hwang Junhak’s lab, they started voicing their worries.
I couldn’t reassure them easily either, and I fell into thought.
What was this? Why were both Badugi and the professor being so stingy with this idea?
In my own era, an AI for diagnosing disease had been a huge hit in both the IT and medical industries.
“I’ll revise the proposal by Thursday. Just wait a little longer.”
But I hated to give up on Professor Hwang Junhak for reasons I didn’t even understand.
He was clearly someone who could help us, and once a professor like that decided to look after a student, he really did look after them.
“Then is there anything we can do?”
“I’m the one who suddenly changed the direction of the proposal. I’ll clean it up.”
They all looked at me with concern, but I smiled as if it was nothing.
Maybe because my act of looking calm worked, they gradually began heading home, looking a little relieved one by one.
“You’re not going?”
“No.”
Except for Choi Yeonghun.
“If we find a solution, Professor Hwang Junhak would become our advisor, right?”
Choi Yeonghun had a remarkable amount of respect for Professor Hwang.
I had never really thought about why, but it was admiration close to fandom.
“Why do you seem like you’d be happy if Professor Hwang Junhak became our advisor?”
At my question, Choi Yeonghun answered with an expression that seemed to ask why I was even asking something so obvious.
“He’s accomplished.”
“That’s all?”
“You say ‘that’s all’? He sits on advisory boards for major corporations and still publishes this much research. If he agreed to be our advisor, I’d be saying, ‘I’m honored! Thank you!’”
At Choi Yeonghun’s firm words, I nodded.
Right. He was definitely worthy of respect.
And if he became our advisor, it would absolutely be something to be grateful for.
“Then let’s go to the library meeting room and talk things through. Thursday isn’t far off.”
“Okay. I’ll reserve the room.”
I turned on my phone screen, hoping Badugi might drop a hint.
> Don’t get impatient. Think through everything slowly from the beginning.
But as expected, it didn’t give me anything especially helpful.
Fine. For now, I shouldn’t rush.
Professor Hwang Junhak still hadn’t shut the door on us.
If I brought him something persuasive enough, we could definitely move on to the next stage.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“There’s already an AI for diagnosing lung cancer?”
“Looks that way. It’s been around for a while, too.”
Choi Yeonghun and I powered up our laptops in the meeting room and started searching related material.
What we found was that, despite my regression, an AI for diagnosing lung cancer was already on the market.
From the standpoint of my old life, I’d thought the technology was only three years old at most.
[Did you think we wouldn’t be able to commercialize it because we didn’t get the first-mover position?]
I opened my notes app right away and fired the question at Badugi.
If that was the answer, honestly, it would be a relief.
When you’re doing business, position as the “first” is crucial.
As the so-called law of the pioneer says, customers tend to assume the first product is the best.
[No.]
But Badugi shook its head firmly.
Then, after a moment of thought, it changed the speech bubble.
[Think about why you failed to make ‘the lung cancer diagnosis AI’ succeed in your previous life.]
It really did like making me drag up painful memories.
[Because JH Medical stole our technology.]
[Before that. Why were you ignored in the market?]
Before that?
At the very beginning of the business?
I closed my eyes and worked my way back through the memory.
Back to when we presented our product at the KCR, the Korean Congress of Radiology.
‘An AI for lung cancer diagnosis? How long has that been around?’
‘What hospital is this installed in?’
‘You’re saying this product doesn’t even have CE certification yet?’
An AI for lung cancer diagnosis already existed in the market.
We had no partner hospital and no place to use it.
We couldn’t get international medical device certification.
What else had there been? There were more problems.
“Siwon.”
Lost in thought, I was nudged by Choi Yeonghun.
He looked serious enough that it seemed like he’d noticed something.
“What?”
Instead of answering, Choi Yeonghun asked me a question of his own.
“But would doctors really use a product made by third-year computer engineering students? Even medical schools seem to only occasionally do research on using AI technology.”
“Ah.”
“Doctors are said to be conservative because they have to account for side effects that could show up decades later. They’re not all that welcoming to new technology.”
Choi Yeonghun had brought up the important issue after reading an interview with someone from another medical device company.
Only then did I realize that my present situation was, in some ways, worse than before.
“Right. It would be hard for doctors to take much interest in new technology made by third-years who, to make it worse, don’t even have medical knowledge.”
“I guess so?”
“And clinical trials would cost a lot, too.”
“What’s that now?”
I started to explain at length, then stopped.
“It means a lot of money to prove it works.”
“Ah.”
If I started explaining all the medical device approval processes and business limitations at once, it would just sound complicated.
“So it’s impossible because we don’t have money.”
“We wouldn’t even be able to have proper medical discussions with doctors.”
“We have to have conversations like that, too?”
“Doctors will want to buy products from people they can actually talk to in medical terms.”
“That makes sense.”
Creating the technology itself wasn’t the hard part.
Every member of our team was a capable developer, and last life we had even succeeded in making a product that looked legitimate.
But reality was a wall.
Engineers with no doctors who could speak their language, no partner hospital a doctor could trust enough to buy from, no money to run clinicals, nothing at all.
Just because those people suddenly made a medical device did not mean they could run a successful business.
“But the lung cancer diagnosis AI idea itself is really good.”
“Yeah. The market’s just brutal.”
“And it costs a lot, too?”
“Yeah.”
For a moment, we both fell silent.
I looked back at Badugi on the monitor, swallowed by disappointment again.
Was there really no way to make the business succeed, even after returning to the past?
No. There was no way that could be true.
There was no way someone would go so far as to bring a person back to life just to deliver that kind of verdict.
“Badugi.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s make a disease diagnosis AI for animals.”
The one market that would not die anytime soon was the medical market.
That was why I had started with lung cancer diagnosis AI, intending to grow into medical AI from there.
But if entering that market right now was difficult, then taking a detour was a perfectly reasonable move.
We could start by applying the technology to animals first.
“You mean pivot to the pet industry?”
“Yeah.
As time passed, more and more people would raise companion animals, and related industries would only grow larger.
It was a business that could ride that wave naturally.
And compared to human medical devices, the approval process would be much simpler.
That was what I thought the companion-animal business could be.
“So we’re abandoning human AI?”
At Choi Yeonghun’s question, I shook my head.
“No. We’re not giving it up. After we succeed with an X-ray AI for companion animals, we’ll go after it again. Once we prove our technology and raise seed money.”
Only then did Choi Yeonghun nod as if he agreed.
[That’s at least a direction.]
Badugi looked at me with a much better expression than before.
Good. We could keep moving like this.
“Can you find some materials on the size of the companion-animal industry?”
“Yeah. I can send them to you, right?”
What I still needed to solve was how to build a connection with someone in veterinary medicine.
“Do you happen to know any professors in the veterinary department?”
“As if.”
“Hmm.”
We couldn’t let the plan fall apart again here.
“Ah.”
Just before I sank back into worry, Choi Yeonghun tapped me as if something had suddenly come to mind, then spoke.
“Professor Hwang Junhak is close with one of the professors in our university’s veterinary medicine department.”
And he gave me some very good news.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Professor Hwang~ Let’s go eat~”
At Professor Hwang Junhak’s lab, Shin Dongjin, the head of the Korea University veterinary medicine department, walked in without even knocking.
“What is it? What are you looking at?”
Professor Hwang didn’t even glance at the professor who had barged in so noisily. He kept looking at the paper in front of him.
The capstone design proposal that Kim Siwon’s team had left behind.
“A capstone design proposal? You don’t usually advise on stuff like that.”
“No. It’s a waste of time, usually.”
“You always say there are too many students who treat it like a pass/fail course and just phone it in.”
“That’s right.”
Professor Hwang Junhak was the sort of professor who was serious about every field of study.
So whenever he saw students trying to do things halfheartedly, he couldn’t understand them.
Why pay tuition to get into university and then do this badly? That was the kind of thing he thought.
“But this one’s interesting.”
To Professor Hwang, Kim Siwon’s team’s capstone proposal was quite attractive.
A well-structured proposal that neatly combined solid theory with a field that had real market potential.
If a team had even one licensed specialist in it, he might have told them to go ahead and start a company already.
It was so organized it looked as if they had simply copied a set of existing product approval documents.
But that didn’t seem to be the case.
They had even written out in detail which algorithm they would use and how.
“What is it? Let me see.”
Shin Dongjin leaned in and began reading the proposal over Professor Hwang’s shoulder.
“What? Why is this all so hard?”
But he gave up quickly.
“You’re going to say this is all basic coding stuff and it only looks hard to me, aren’t you?”
At that, Professor Hwang shook his head.
“No. It isn’t basic. For this level, it’s quite advanced.”
“Really?”
Shin Dongjin was surprised by the praise, which had rarely ever come from Professor Hwang’s mouth.
Not even a “good for an undergraduate,” but an outright “advanced.”
“So are you going to be their advisor?”
“Not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet?”
“I said I’d decide when they come on Thursday.”
Shin Dongjin burst out laughing at that.
“You, too, huh? Always giving them a quiz and testing them first.”
“It makes it more worth helping them.”
Knowing Professor Hwang’s habits, Shin Dongjin gave his back a light slap.
He had the same pattern every time: a test, slipped in almost as if by accident, for the students he truly became interested in, and then limitless support for the ones who passed.
“Think they’ll make it this time?”
“No idea.”
Professor Hwang shrugged and handed the capstone proposal to Shin Dongjin.
“In simple terms, they’re saying they want to make an AI that diagnoses lung cancer from chest X-rays.”
“Oh. Not bad.”
“Several companies have already made products like it.”
“Still. If it hasn’t been commercialized yet, they might be able to shake up the market.”
“Third-year computer engineering students?”
“Wouldn’t there have been some communication with specialists?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Really? That’s rough.”
But the expression on Shin Dongjin’s face as he said “that’s rough” was not one of simple sympathy.
“I’d like to see something like this properly come out on the veterinary side, too.”
If anything, he looked as interested as Professor Hwang.
“After I verify these kids on my end, if they say they want to start up in veterinary medicine, should I introduce them to you?”
At Professor Hwang’s words, Shin Dongjin smiled and nodded.
“Sounds good.”
Then he added a joke that carried more than a little sincerity.
“They’d better make the startup work. Otherwise they’ll get dragged off to graduate school.”