The AI Revolution
The massive reaction that erupted after Real Camera: Chairman Yoo Jae-won aired alongside tvM’s launch on March 1st far exceeded anything PD Im Myung-han, Writer Kim, or any of the broadcast professionals involved had anticipated. The response wasn’t confined to Korea, either.
Exactly one day after the regular broadcast on tvM ended, Real Camera was uploaded to Timeflex. It wasn’t just the original Korean version—English-dubbed audio and subtitles in the top ten languages used on Timeflex had all been added. The English version featured full dubbing of both Im Myung-han’s questions and Yoo Jae-won’s answers. Knowing how awkward Americans found subtitled films, Yoo Jae-won had gone the extra mile during post-production to create an international dubbed edition. The result triggered an enormous backlash.
Those two phrases dominated online discourse. “As expected of Yoo Jae-won” meant that the image people held of him aligned perfectly with what Real Camera had shown. As the founder of the colossal ID Group and Forbes-certified richest man in the world, his daily life had rarely been exposed. The observational variety show peeled back the veil on his private world. What surprised people most was how modest his lifestyle appeared—aside from the grand mansion itself. With dozens of bodyguards, a private helicopter, a superyacht, and legions of employees, Yoo Jae-won could hardly be called modest, yet this level of luxury was standard among other super-rich individuals. Many lived even more extravagantly.
Since the popularization of social media, the lives of the wealthy had become far more visible. TokTok was designed so that anyone in the world could view a short message or single photo. The addition of the “Like” button at the end of the previous year allowed users to focus on their interests, and the content that received the most likes tended to be beautiful, stylish, or extraordinary photographs—things commonly found around super-rich circles. Yet Yoo Jae-won stood apart. His magnificent mansion was something even other super-rich individuals struggled to obtain. The home intelligent system integrated throughout it was a level only ID Group could achieve. Each issued ID card granted access to different zones as a baseline, while the system analyzed guests’ patterns to provide perfect comfort. One example was lighting management.
Lighting was one of the many functions managed by the home intelligent system. Lights turned on automatically when someone entered a room and switched off the moment they left completely. The system also adjusted brightness individually for each person. While this was the most basic feature of the home intelligent system, its actual implementation was complex and difficult—yet so seamless that neither Im Myung-han nor the rest of the filming crew ever felt any inconvenience.
After the home intelligent system, the Korean breakfast that appeared in Yoo Jae-won and Tiffany’s morning routine drew the most attention from netizens. The world’s richest man eating the same meal every single day? Furthermore, people assumed billionaires dined on lavish feasts daily, but that wasn’t the case. Korean cuisine didn’t rely on extremely rare ingredients. Among them, kimchi was already well-known as a healthy Korean food. While many people were fascinated by Yoo Jae-won’s ordinary daily life, the greatest impact came from the glimpses of new games and products shown during the headquarters visit and ID High Tech visit episodes.
ID Xbox cumulative sales: 32 million units.
On paper, Sony’s victory. Upon closer inspection, a Pyrrhic victory marked only by the wounds of a bleeding competition.
The moment the blueprint for Xbox 2 was revealed on Real Camera, articles about PlayStation 2—the other sixth-generation console—poured out the very next day. Sony had achieved the remarkable feat of selling 40 million PlayStation 2 units over three years. Meanwhile, Xbox had sold 32 million units, 20 percent fewer. By the numbers alone, it was a clear defeat for Xbox. Yet the market didn’t see it that way. People clearly recognized the difference between Sony, which had the foundation of PlayStation 1, and Xbox, which had started from nothing. Moreover, the emergence of a powerful competitor had forced higher specifications, and Sony couldn’t easily raise prices, so the more units they sold, the more losses accumulated. Having sold 8 million more units than Xbox, their losses had grown accordingly. They had only just begun turning a slight profit starting last winter when, out of nowhere, talk of the next-generation video game console surfaced.
A new model twelve times more powerful than the existing Xbox is preparing for launch!
The media’s frenzy exceeded imagination. No press release had been issued; the only mention of the new Xbox was a few minutes on Real Camera. Yet articles were written as though it would launch tomorrow.
Development period still more than one year remaining.
Uncertain what other nonsense might spread, they quickly issued an official press release. Since the console’s core GPU had not yet been released, they couldn’t announce it even if they wanted to. Nevertheless, gamers were thrilled. At the same time, the move created the side effect of wiping out potential video game console buyers. Gamers reasoned that if they were going to buy a console, they might as well wait for the latest model. If waiting just one year would bring a console twelve times better than the current one, that was patience most could manage. For Sony, which had only recently reached the point of selling consoles without incurring losses, this was a tremendous shock. For Xbox, which still lost a small amount on each console sold, it was a sound strategy.
Moreover, gamers had been completely captivated by the teaser video for Fantasy Universe – Legend League, released almost simultaneously with the Real Camera broadcast. While AOS had first appeared in StarCraft, it truly blossomed through user-created maps in Fantasy Universe. The news that Firefist Games—the studio behind Fantasy Universe—was now developing a full-fledged AOS title with an enormous production team and massive capital backing sent the gaming community into an uproar.
Had Real Camera ended there, the scale of the reaction would have been only half of what followed.
Yoo Jae-won always prepared one special extra touch, and Real Camera was no exception. The place he took PD Im Myung-han and the Real Camera filming team to reveal that “future” was Seattle, home of ID High Tech.
Real Camera was a weekly variety show, and the original plan had been to feature one protagonist per week. With a runtime of around seventy minutes, showcasing one person per week seemed sufficient. When Yoo Jae-won was confirmed as the first guest and the initial production meeting began, they thought even one episode would be fortunate. Yet after rough editing, they realized they had a full three episodes’ worth of material. Filming for one week and producing three weeks of content was an incredibly efficient shoot. The unfortunate reality was that showing everything they had filmed wasn’t feasible. In subsequent production meetings, they concluded that compressing the material into two episodes would maximize impact. With tears in their eyes, they trimmed it down to two eighty-minute episodes.
PD Im Myung-han had already demonstrated exceptional ability in planning and filming, but his editing skills were equally impressive. While the first episode focused on revealing who Yoo Jae-won was and what kind of daily life he led, the second episode zeroed in on his capabilities. The Seattle ID High Tech facility Yoo Jae-won had prepared proved more than adequate for showcasing those abilities.
The second episode opened with Im Myung-han asking a question to someone walking the streets of Seattle.
“What is Seattle’s most famous company?”
“You don’t know that? It’s Android, obviously.”
The young man stopped by Im Myung-han answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Ten years earlier, the answer would have been different. Seattle’s established giants had included Boeing, and the city was also the birthplace of the global coffee chain Starbucks. The now-defunct MS had also been headquartered in Seattle. Nintendo’s American branch was likewise based there. While many prestigious companies had called Seattle home, no one now hesitated to name Android—ID Group’s company—as Seattle’s top enterprise. The number of employees Android hired and the taxes it paid to the city surpassed those of Boeing. When it came to high-income workers in Seattle, Android also boasted the largest numbers. Furthermore, Android had announced the release of mobile Android the previous summer, causing Seattle’s real estate market to stir. Partner companies wanted to customize the system to match their own characteristics, incorporating their unique philosophies into user interfaces. However, modifying the meticulously crafted mobile Android operating system to their tastes proved extremely difficult. While the Android operating system itself was free, customer support was paid. Many companies concluded that receiving direct face-to-face support was far preferable to email or remote assistance, so they set up offices near Android’s headquarters and hired mobile-specialized developers, causing both the real estate and labor markets to heat up.
In contrast, ID High Tech’s presence was minuscule compared to Android’s. If Android was the sun, ID High Tech was little more than a small star in the night sky. Only Writer Kim, who had conducted thorough preliminary research before filming, knew that ID High Tech was located in Seattle and was conducting various experimental studies. That was why Im Myung-han and the filming crew only truly felt ID High Tech’s presence after leaving the airport. Yet that presence was larger than expected.
After exiting Seattle Airport, Yoo Jae-won and the filming team headed straight for ID High Tech. The transportation had naturally been arranged by ID High Tech. While official vehicles were usually German luxury sedans, this time was different. The cars were mid-sized vehicles of a somewhat ordinary appearance. The emblem on the hood wasn’t that of any mass-produced car brand. It was a lightning-bolt logo.
“Huh? This is…?”
Im Myung-han, sensing déjà vu, struggled to recall the memory.
“Lightning Bolt!”
Writer Kim beat him to the answer. Her thorough preliminary research showed once again.
“That’s right. It’s Lightning Bolt’s latest electric vehicle. The company calls it Model F2 for now, though it’s still a working name.”
What the two had been trying to remember was likely the LV-F1 unveiled during Yoo Jae-won and his wife’s honeymoon stop in Jeju Island. The F1 had been an incredibly high-performance electric car, but only one unit existed in the world. Its production cost was simply too high. The F2 inherited the F1’s performance while being priced more reasonably. Various IT functions had been integrated as upgrades. As a result, much of the F1’s striking appearance had disappeared, making it resemble a mass-produced car, yet its design still stood out unmistakably among ordinary vehicles. Five F2s had been prepared for Yoo Jae-won and the filming team. They split up and departed for the ID High Tech research facility.
Being 100 percent electric, the interior was extremely quiet. If you listened closely, you could hear a low motor hum, but even that sound was artificial.
“The silence is actually a problem, so we generate and play an artificial engine sound. It’ll be a bit louder outside. It’s to alert pedestrians and other vehicles that the F2 is approaching.”
“Impressive.”
Im Myung-han, who had already encountered many surprising things in Silicon Valley, found his expectations rising even higher thanks to the F2. While they were chatting, Im Myung-han suddenly gasped.
“Chairman!”
He called out to Yoo Jae-won as well.
“The driver has taken his hands off the steering wheel!”
Yoo Jae-won had been talking and hadn’t been watching the driver’s seat. When he turned his head, he saw the driver’s hands were indeed off the wheel. The accelerator and gear shift weren’t being touched either. Nevertheless, the car carrying Yoo Jae-won and Im Myung-han came to a proper stop at the crosswalk and pulled away on its own when the light changed. It was truly a ghostly sight. And the IT and automotive experts in Silicon Valley who watched this on broadcast were equally stunned.