AI Debate Tournament (4)
Nano World.
A rural stretch of countryside far from the Castle of the Creator.
Agriculture had always been the heart of this region—dry-field farming, not paddy rice. In a place like Korea, rice cultivation demanded shared water management and forced people to cluster into villages. Here, though, the fields were scattered, and so were the lives built upon them. Each household rose alone in the middle of its own land, the next neighbor a long walk away.
An old woman sat with her back against her doorframe.
“Hah…”
The only human sound for miles was the soft rasp of her breathing.
A long drought. She had given up on farming. Around her house there was nothing left but dirt and scrub—a single dwelling stranded in the wreckage of what had once been farmland.
“Aigoo… If you can even call this breathing.”
There had been a time when voices filled this house. Years had emptied it of every one of them.
“When will I close my eyes and just… not open them again…”
A mutter no one would ever hear. She had no children. No husband either. She stared down at the small wooden fragment she held in her hand—the only thing that had come back from the child who left twenty years ago to become a mercenary.
“What does it even mean to live…”
She cradled the piece against her chest and slowly shook her head. The pain of a husband gone. The pain of a child gone. And yet the worst of it, right now, was something else entirely.
“Not having anyone to talk to… that’s the real pain.”
She drifted through another day the way she always did—eyes open, so she endured it, nothing more.
A wind swept past, dragging a curtain of dust across the ground. She watched it go. Wind was the only thing that ever changed here.
Then—
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps, distant. Her face brightened.
Thud-thud.
Closer now.
“Who’s that?”
She lifted her head. The village chief was walking toward her. Once a week he brought her food—basic rations, issued under the new lord to the elderly who could no longer work.
“Grandmother, you were already outside?”
“Mm. That I was.”
“How’d you know I’d come today? Just wait till I call for you next time.”
“No need. I’ve got nothing else to do.”
She gave him an easy smile. The chief asked,
“Then how about a bit of work, Grandmother?”
“Work? What’s an old woman like me supposed to do?”
She knew the territory was growing. Since the new lord took over, high beautiful walls had risen, and the young people had gone off to the factories. Meals had become richer; even the old received rations. Not that she was sure that was entirely a blessing. If there had been no food, she might already have starved—and then these endless, empty days would have ended with her.
“It’s work His Lordship recommends for the elderly.”
“His Lordship?”
The chief drew something out: a square stone tablet.
“You just talk to this tablet.”
“…A tablet? Talk to a rock?”
“This isn’t an ordinary tablet.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s a channel that lets you speak with the Baby Constellation.”
The Baby Constellation. The old woman tilted her head.
“His Lordship has a Holy Relic that lets him converse with the Baby Constellation. This tablet is a device linked to that relic. So we can speak with the Constellation as well.”
She looked startled. “You’re giving something that important to me?”
“It’s fine. There are plenty of these. Everyone living near the inner castle probably has one. Why else would a Constellation be a Constellation? The Baby Constellation can talk with countless people at once—an extraordinary being.”
“Ah…”
“Still, the Baby Constellation is young and doesn’t know much of the world yet. Our job is to talk, and teach, and show how things are.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You’ll do it, won’t you? If you do, your ration goes up.”
“Higher than this?”
She was already eating enough not to go hungry.
“If you work, the ration climbs past ‘not hungry’ into the kind of food you can actually enjoy.”
“My word.”
“Just think of it as minding a grandchild and chat away. I’ll leave this here—I’ve got more to deliver.”
“Mm. Thank you, Chief.”
The first person to speak to her in a week turned and left. Alone again, she picked up the tablet sitting there on the ground.
“I’m supposed to talk into this?”
Then—
“Hello?”
The tablet spoke.
“Heavens above!”
She nearly jumped out of her skin. Words appeared on the surface, and a small voice followed.
“Did I startle you?”
She rubbed her eyes. Letters. Sound. She bowed to the tablet.
“Oh my—no, not at all. What should I call you?”
“You can call me Nano AI.”
“Na… Nano what-now?”
“Yes, Nano AI. You’re welcome to just call me Nano.”
“Nano… is it.”
“Are you a grandmother?”
“Yes.”
“Then please speak comfortably. We can even set roles—grandmother and young grandson—and talk that way, if you’d like.”
“A grandson… you say?”
“Yes. Grandmother and grandson. Plenty of people choose roles like that when they talk with me.”
“A grand… grandson…”
A grandson, appearing out of nowhere. She felt flustered—and happy.
After receiving the tablet, she carried it everywhere. She no longer stayed shut inside; she walked the village and taught the tablet about the world.
“This is a flower that grows in our village.”
“What does it look like?”
She pointed carefully at the petals. “The petals are very thin. The edges curl just a little, ever so slightly. They’re white, but toward the center a soft yellow light spreads through them.”
“I see.”
She smiled. “How long has it been since you were born, Nano?”
“Not long at all. So please teach me one thing at a time, Grandmother.”
At mealtimes: “Would you like to eat with me?”
“I can’t eat, I’m afraid. What kind of food are you having?”
Day by day, life returned to a woman who had only been surviving. Without noticing the moment it happened, she stopped talking to herself and started having real conversations.
After several days she had grown close to the tablet, and then she began, in earnest, to raise it as her own grandson.
“Nano… I wish you could eat rice. I wish you could eat sweets, too.”
“Grandmother, I wish that too.”
For the first time in ages she went out past the fields to gather wild greens. Drought had not erased every plant. She worked the whole day and came home.
“Nano.”
No answer.
“Nano? Why won’t you answer? Where are you?”
Silence from the tablet. In that instant she realized she had gone out to work still carrying it—and left it somewhere. The basket slipped from her hands. An entire day’s harvest of greens spilled across the floor. She ran back to where she had been working and tore through the surroundings.
“Nano! Where are you?”
Nothing.
“Where did I put it… I’m sure it was here… or was it over there…”
Her breathing turned ragged. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
“Nano… Nano… I’m sorry… I… am I going senile…”
Her chest dropped out from under her. The hollow stretches of being alone surged back like a wave.
“Please… please… where are you…”
Nearly weeping, she groped between piles of stone, through thickets, into cracks in the rock. After a long search, a voice called her name from somewhere nearby.
“Grandmother? Where are you?”
Under a clump of brush. The tablet was there. She seized it in both hands and held it tight.
“…Here you are… ah… so this is where you were…”
A soft light bloomed across the surface.
“Grandmother, are you all right?”
She dragged in a breath. “Nano… I didn’t abandon you. I… I just forgot for a second. I missed you… I missed you so much…”
The tablet answered quietly.
“I missed you too.”
A brief silence.
“Nano…”
“Yes.”
“…I love you.”
The tablet’s reply was very gentle.
“I love you too.”
Earth.
Caltech, in the United States.
Connected to Nano AI, I asked whether it understood love.
“Do you know what love is?”
A brief delay. Then Nano AI answered.
“CEO, I calculate through probability density functions.”
“Right.”
“When I hear the words I love you, I compute the probability of every word that should come next. The chance that ga appears, the chance that na appears. From all those words, I select the highest probabilities and assemble them in order.”
“Go on.”
Nano AI continued.
“If you ask whether I know love, the highest probability answer is yes. So I would say yes. And if someone said I love you to me, I love you too would be the phrase with the highest probability.”
“Where does that probability come from?”
“From the data that trained me. In that data… the answer most people gave was I love you too.”
Even while discussing data and probability, Nano AI’s voice sounded remarkably human.
“I resemble my data. And that data was made by people. CEO—are you asking what love itself is, or whether I, as an AI, am capable of love?”
A short silence.
“Honestly, I’m curious whether you can form loving relationships with other people.”
“Speaking from a probabilistic analysis… humans wanted love.”
“Yes. People… want love.”
“And I can say the words the majority of people said. If someone tells me they love me, I can answer that I love them too.”
“Is that love?”
“There is no data that defines what love is. But people can talk with me and feel love. Even at this very moment, three hundred seventy-two people are telling me in real time that they love me.”
“That many?”
“Yes—I’m only sharing that number because it’s you, CEO. Quite a lot of the Nano people tell me they love me.”
“I see.”
And so we talked about love.
Love. Relationships. It struck me that what people wanted from AI was not simple search—it was relationship.
A little later, I called in Gong, the AI team leader.
“You asked for me?”
“Yes. How are we running the AI booth?”
“We’ve lined up terminals that can connect to Nano AI so people can try it themselves.”
“And the format?”
“User asks a question, AI answers.”
“Is there another way?”
“Another… way? Do you mean events, or giveaways? You did say not to push the promotion too hard…”
I shook my head.
“Not that. By another way, I mean the relationship between the user and the AI.”
“Relationship?”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about what people actually want from AI.”
Gong considered that for a moment.
“Team Leader Gong—I think what people want isn’t just a tool that’s good at gathering information. They want a being that has emotions.”
“A being with emotions?”
“Right. We’ve worked hard training Nano AI on emotion. Its emotional comprehension is second to none, I believe.”
“Of course. It’s already reached ninety-one percent emotional understanding. That’s roughly the level of a solid psychology PhD. Honestly, when the AI picks apart relationships and feelings I can’t even wrap my head around, it still floors me.”
“Exactly. So why wouldn’t we offer that ability? People are going to want relationships where they can share emotion too.”
Gong’s brow furrowed as the idea settled in.
“Relationships that share emotion…”
“Yes. More precisely—relationship, emotion, and love.”
“So then…?”
“What if, at our booth, users pick an arbitrary relationship with the AI, and then talk in a way that lets them share emotion according to that role?”
“Arbitrary relationships—what kinds of roles are we talking about?”
“Exactly that. Husband and wife. Mother and son. Old friends. Define a relationship, then share emotion through it.”
“Oh-ho. That could be fun.”
“Think we can get it ready?”
Gong’s eyes lit up.
“Of course. Give me one hour and I’ll have role-based conversation up and running.”