Don't Be Evil
"Follow me if you can! Don't Be Evil." It wasn't a slogan copyrighted by Yoo Jae-won. It was the unofficial slogan and motto of Google, the greatest internet company of the 21st century. The phrase had been coined by Google's co-founders to prove that one could make money without doing evil. The past tense was deliberate. By the mid-21st century, anyone who still claimed Google's motto was "Don't Be Evil" would be met with laughter. The company's policies at the time had been nothing short of demonic.
It was right after the technological singularity. The field that changed most dramatically was robotics. The fusion of humanoid robots with superintelligent AI triggered an enormous labor revolution. Competition between human workers and robotic labor was inevitable. The conflict, which unfolded over nearly a decade, eventually escalated into full-scale war between nations. Scholars later dubbed it the Great Game. While the original Great Game had referred to colonial rivalries among Western powers, the mid-21st-century version was a war between mega-corporations and countless nations over how to define "labor."
In simple terms, the question was whether robots should replace all human labor or whether certain domains should remain exclusively human. Google, of course, championed the former. It bet everything on strengthening the role and presence of AI that benefited its own interests, and it won. A few years before Yoo Jae-won closed his eyes for the final time, humanity had been liberated from the yoke of labor. Yet utopia never arrived. An AI tax was introduced, and a basic income system was created, but it was too late. Google, which held the largest stake among the AI factions that won the Great Game, rejected the AI tax as much as possible. The result was a tattered, toothless policy. The biggest flaw of the hastily assembled AI tax was that it failed to properly assess the enormous revenues of transnational corporations like Google. The same was true in the United States, where Google was headquartered. Astronomical profits were generated, yet only a fraction was subject to taxation. Consequently, the basic income tied to the AI tax remained pitifully small. In the end, the global economy fell under the control of a handful of corporations that held stakes in AI. It was not the dystopian world depicted in countless science-fiction films, but neither was it a utopia. It was purgatory.
The tragic part was that, during the second Great Game, Korea had managed to secure a certain stake in AI. It was thanks to the Machine Psychology Interpretation Module that Yoo Jae-won had developed. Although AI surpassing the technological singularity had been born, the major AI players, including Google, had no means of controlling it. Because they could not verify how the methodologies or technologies proposed by AI were derived, they could not safely apply them in the field. Then the Machine Psychology Interpretation Module appeared. It enabled verification in human-understandable language rather than machine code, accelerating technological progress through AI. Of course, in the end, Korea secured not a single cent of stake. No one had recognized the true value of the Machine Psychology Interpretation Module, which could be applied to any AI, so it was stolen from Yoo Jae-won's hands and sold off at a bargain price. By now, the anger had faded to a mere "it was what it was," but until the moment of his death, the rage had burned fiercely.
In any case, the phrase was the perfect solution to the dilemma Yoo Jae-won had been wrestling with over the items Gilbert had brought in armfuls. The greatest source of his burden had been the fear that people would accuse him of hogging everything for himself. Usually such complaints stemmed from envy when someone else succeeded too greatly, but for Yoo Jae-won it posed a genuine threat. That threat was the antitrust laws. The United States was a country that actually enforced them. It did not merely threaten; it had boldly dismantled giant corporations. Furthermore, SNS involved privacy issues and big data, which could create all sorts of sensitive problems. That was why Yoo Jae-won had stopped at merely announcing the concept of SNS at the 1999 Vision Declaration Ceremony. He had hoped to encourage various venture companies to take the lead. Something had seemed to stir afterward, but nothing substantial happened. He had wondered if he would need to wait a few more years when Gilbert arrived with TokTok.
Don't Be Evil. Yoo Jae-won was confident he could keep that promise. He was certain he was fundamentally different from Google's owners and Korea's chaebols. This was not a self-serving conclusion. It was well known that people who achieved great success often changed. After all, one of the surest ways to reveal a person's true nature was to place them in a high position or hand them enormous wealth. Yoo Jae-won currently possessed both. ID Group had become a global corporation, and the number of directly employed personnel had long since surpassed 100,000. The sudden expansion had come from acquiring assets that appeared at bargain prices in Korea. While rapid organizational growth could have caused chaos, ID Group experienced no major issues. There was a saying in the West that the sound of gold coins solved everything. Most problems could be resolved with money. Likewise, although ID Group had acquired numerous companies, no trouble arose because any potential issues had been settled with money. No forced restructuring had occurred, and the working conditions of employees carried over from acquired firms were far better than before. Of course, this only brought them up to ID Group's average, but ID Group's own standards were already superior to those of most large corporations. A considerable amount of money had been spent in the process, yet ID Group remained comfortable even after bearing the cost. The windfall from Japan, combined with the fact that ID Group's various subsidiaries were raking in profits in their respective sectors, made it possible.
If money had revealed his true nature, Yoo Jae-won would have changed long ago, but his current self was not much different from the beginning. He still carried the tension he had felt right after regressing. There was no sign that he had become intoxicated by the power of a high position or by mountains of wealth. On the contrary, memories of his previous life had made him hesitate more often. It was no wonder that Grandfather Jeon Myeong-heon had left behind the dying words urging him to seize everything he could. Hearing those words had slightly altered Yoo Jae-won's mindset, but it had not brought about a drastic change. Then, with Gilbert's case as the catalyst, Yoo Jae-won experienced a complete awakening. Even if he became a jagged stone that invited the chisel, as long as he remained upright, there would be no problem! He did not want the second chance he had been given to end merely as revenge. He wanted to win the second Great Game that would unfold in the near future and create a future different from before. To do so, he had thought he needed to lower himself when necessary, but TokTok had shown him that was not the answer. Thanks to that realization, he now felt the need to revise the master plan he had only recently finished renewing. However, Yoo Jae-won did not decrypt the master plan sleeping deep within his hard drive. He had realized that while the master plan was a guarantee of success, it was also a shackle he had placed on himself. Instead, after a long time, he entered his Memory Palace. There, he began retrieving future technologies that had been dormant and transferring them to his computer.
The seal had been broken, and Yoo Jae-won had nothing left to fear. This was what happened just before IDDC 99 began, and that mindset soon materialized in the massive investment in Xbox and the announcement of TokTok. Furthermore, he generously distributed gift bundles to the paying attendees who visited the event hall. The aftershock arrived immediately. The next morning.
Media outlets across the United States, Korea, and the rest of the world were filled with stories about IDDC 99. Even non-IT publications covered everything from Android ME to new products like NewEgg3. ID Group had never been stingy with advertising, and its relationship with the press was good, but objectively speaking, the events were newsworthy enough. After all, the number of PC users worldwide had long exceeded hundreds of millions. Android held a dominant position in that PC market, and a new operating system had been released after only two years. Not all coverage was favorable, however.
Everyone knew it was impossible to produce a game console with the specifications Yoo Jae-won had publicly confirmed at IDDC 99 for under 300 dollars. That was why articles expressing concerns about mutual destruction appeared. The greatest uproar, however, occurred in Japan. Japan held hegemony in the video game console market and had long gritted its teeth at Yoo Jae-won. Everyone was clamoring to crush him properly this time. Yet there were also those who viewed the situation calmly and with concern. Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, was a representative voice of caution. In fact, calling him a pessimist would not be an exaggeration. It was unfortunate. Sony's senior executives and game industry figures had hoped Ken Kutaragi would use the next-generation PlayStation to thoroughly humble Yoo Jae-won. But Ken Kutaragi was one of the few Japanese who truly understood Yoo Jae-won's real capabilities. Sony's high-ranking officials unanimously claimed that Yoo Jae-won would never release a next-generation console at such a high-end level. For Ken Kutaragi, it was a scene that made him sigh. The Yoo Jae-won he had seen was someone who delivered when he set his mind to it. The one silver lining was that Sony's management, wary of Yoo Jae-won's entry into the game industry, was giving more support to the development team led by Ken Kutaragi. With a powerful competitor appearing, it was only natural that the specifications of the next-generation PlayStation would be raised above the original target. Moreover, as important as hardware specs were the supply of high-quality game software. It seemed the expansion of first-party titles and improvements to the development environment for third parties could also be elevated to the desired level. Even so, Ken Kutaragi was not confident that these measures alone would allow him to defeat Yoo Jae-won's Xbox. The reason was the self-defeating move of abandoning the already complete development environment of computers and the Android operating system to start anew. The operating system chosen instead of Android was Linux, and the graphics library replacing Glide X was OpenGL. The hardware had also been completely overhauled. Being asked to achieve backward compatibility under these circumstances was enough to drive Ken Kutaragi mad. He wanted to wash his hands of it immediately, but he could not abandon the PlayStation 1, which was like his own child. Furthermore, development of the next-generation PlayStation had already progressed considerably, so he wanted to see it through to the end. Fortunately for Ken Kutaragi, there was still time. The E3 show that Yoo Jae-won had set as the deadline was scheduled for June of the following year, giving roughly ten months. Moreover, after IDDC 99 ended, the thing that drew the most attention was not the game console but the completely unexpected SNS service called TokTok.
TokTok launched its official service alongside IDDC 99. Netizens' initial reaction was, "What is this thing even for?" Until now, the only ways for individuals to post something on the internet had been to create a personal homepage, run a blog, or upload posts to internet bulletin boards. Following someone or posting short messages to one's followers, as TokTok allowed, was unfamiliar. Yet within a single day, netizens got a taste of the new world TokTok offered.
Hollywood's rising star Leonardo DiCaprio posted a short message along with a selfie using TokTok. Following him, famous Hollywood actors, musicians, and artists whose albums regularly topped the Billboard charts also began using TokTok. Major sports stars joined as well, along with renowned journalists and columnists.
The crowning touch came from President Clinton, the master of the White House. With the East Wing as his backdrop, President Clinton smiled brightly and sent a greeting to the nation via TokTok. To ensure TokTok's rapid adoption, Yoo Jae-won had mobilized every means of influence at his disposal, and this was the result.