Golden Dividend

Golden Time ding! “Huh? What’s that?” Reina, a freshman college student who had been diligently working in front of her computer, was pulled back to reality by the sound of her smartphone alarm. It was a text message notification. Normally, freshmen at this hour would head home to spend time with family, but Reina stayed behind in the dorm. While her family covered her tuition, she had to earn her own living expenses, so she was fully focused on part-time work. She hadn’t made any real friends yet, so there was no one likely to contact her anyway.

She had set her AI assistant Gold to automatically read text messages as soon as they arrived, so there was no need to pick up her phone to check. “Ah! That must be the settlement money they mentioned on that boring program.”

“That’s correct. You’ll need to check your N-Pay point balance directly,” Gold replied to Reina’s words. The program she had called boring was Anderson Cooper 360. It was completely an old man’s taste, and it only covered heavy topics. Above all, the CNN channel felt like it belonged to an entirely different world for Reina, a college girl in her early twenties. There had been only one exception: she had watched it because her idol, Yoo Jae-won, was appearing. Of course, it hadn’t been entertaining. Even Yoo Jae-won couldn’t save a program whose format itself was uninteresting. Still, there had been plenty of stories that piqued her interest. Stories about the challenge of AI Gold, which Reina was using at 120% efficiency, the massive expansion of P Market, and the personal information settlement payments, among others.

The story about Go had been especially intriguing. The fact that it had thousands of years of history was surprising in itself. In America, a country with a short founding history, the only thousand-year-old relics belonged to Native Americans. Moreover, anyone who knew anything about Go had insisted that Gold winning was impossible. They argued that the number of possible moves on a Go board exceeded the number of atoms in the universe, making it impossible for even the most powerful computer to handle, and questioned whether three years of training could ever surpass the intuition and experience accumulated through countless matches over thousands of years. Everyone had been pessimistic.

Of course, there were opposing opinions—people who believed AI Gold would win. Reina naturally belonged to that group. Interestingly, most of those betting on Gold didn’t even know the first thing about Go. Reina had first heard the word “Go” on Anderson Cooper’s program. It was partly because Yoo Jae-won had referred to it by its Korean name, “Baduk,” but it was also the first board game she had ever seen through an internet search. A game played with plain white and black stones on a board that was just a larger version of graph paper? She had considered learning it but quickly gave up. She had also been surprised to learn that such a board game had professional leagues and international tournaments.

“I wonder how much came in?” It would be an incredibly fun event, but it was three years away. Right now, making a living was far more important. Especially for Reina, a college student who had only just achieved independence, her parents’ support and part-time jobs were her only sources of income. Last year, she had only received about 80 N points, which had been enough for a simple dinner. Reina immediately picked up the smartphone on her desk. It was the latest Android S6 she had bought the previous year. Equipped with an accelerometer and level sensor, the screen turned on automatically when she picked it up, and Face Key recognized her face to unlock it. The wallpaper showed a middle-aged man with a rugged expression giving a thumbs-up—Reina’s father. She wanted to change the wallpaper, but since he had bought the phone, she planned to keep it as is for at least a year.

She launched the N-Pay shortcut icon at the bottom of the home screen and went through Face Key authentication again. Since it was an app that handled money, it required double security. “Huh? What’s this?” The moment N-Pay authenticated, the balance appeared in large numbers. It was completely different from anything she had seen before, so Reina was greatly flustered. She checked again, wondering if she had misread the decimal point. But the number she had first seen was accurate. It was clearly a comma separating digits, not a decimal point.

“334,000?” Reina’s usual N-Pay balance had been 45 N points. She had diligently collected them through attendance events on new internet sites that gave +1N per login and internet surveys that paid +3N. Her hobby was using those points to enjoy paid content like web novels, cartoons, and VODs. Yet suddenly, 334,500 N points had been added to her balance.

“Could this be hacking?” Faced with an unimaginable balance, Reina suspected hacking. The most realistic scenario was that an N-Pay hacker had used her account as an intermediate step for point laundering and accidentally left the balance behind. Reina immediately tapped to view the transaction history. She figured the depositor’s name would provide a clue.

The transaction record she had expected to contain traces of a hacker instead clearly showed a settlement deposit. It was a genuinely legitimate deposit. Still, no matter how much she thought about it, Reina couldn’t accept that her personal information was worth 334,500 N points. One N was worth 100 Korean won, or 10 cents in U.S. dollars. That meant the amount deposited was $33,450 in American currency. Even in America, where labor costs were somewhat high, it was a large sum that an average college student would need to work part-time for a full year without rest to earn. It was enough to easily buy a brand-new car with a gleaming finish.

Reina wanted to know the detailed breakdown of the settlement. She had never used this feature before, so she didn’t know where to access it, but finding it wasn’t difficult.

“Gold, I want to see the detailed breakdown of the personal information sharing settlement.”

She had her AI assistant Gold, after all. All she had to do was ask precisely what she wanted to know.

“Understood! The URL to view the detailed breakdown of the personal information sharing settlement is as follows.”

A speech bubble created by Gold appeared on the screen with the URL inside. When she tapped it, a web browser opened, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the information Reina wanted finally appeared.

“Huh? This is what makes money?” It showed countless entries of +1N. They were photos Reina had diligently uploaded to the ID Cloud server since last summer. Reina’s hobby was photography, especially taking pictures of animals. Not satisfied with just her smartphone, she would go out with a used DSLR camera and a prime lens, shooting several memory ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cards’ worth of photos. She had been taking pictures every single day after hearing that there was no better practice than simply taking a lot of photos. Until she received the personal information settlement message, her daily routine had been sorting and uploading photos she had taken the day before.

High-resolution DSLR photo files took up quite a bit of space, so storing them on a personal hard drive was burdensome. Instead, Reina made good use of the ID Cloud server. There was no capacity limit per image file, and photo files could be uploaded unlimitedly. Sharing was also easy, making it convenient to send to friends or family. Reina had been diligently uploading since last year. However, the reason she had reached the top 0.1% in settlement payments wasn’t just because she had enabled photo file sharing. While the sheer quantity was impressive, the real key was that she had diligently tagged every single photo. Once she learned that metadata could be added to photo files, Reina had also written detailed comments. For cat photos, she didn’t just tag “cat” but also included the breed—whether it was a Siamese or an American Shorthair. Being extremely meticulous, she had almost never missed a detail across the enormous number of photos. This had greatly contributed to improving AI Gold’s cognitive abilities. With abundant data and accurate labeling combined, Gold’s analytical capabilities in that field had improved significantly.

In truth, the growth of machine learning-based AI was an extremely time-consuming process because new information had to be processed by human hands one by one. The work Reina had done was exactly that kind of labeling. Gold had recorded all of these contributions without omission and had made sure to provide proper compensation. The only unresolved issue was taxes, as taxation rules for fintech that could be directly converted to cash had not yet been established even in the United States. What was certain, however, was that the 334,500 N points deposited this time were income Reina had legitimately earned. Therefore, she had every right to use them however she pleased.

“Whoa! Jackpot!” Reina jumped up with a shout of “jackpot.” With 334,500 N, she could quit her part-time job immediately and still live comfortably. No, as long as she kept taking photos diligently and uploading them to the ID Cloud server like now, she would continue earning extra income. However, Reina didn’t think this kind of luck would continue forever. The settlement algorithm wasn’t a secret. Moreover, it didn’t require any special know-how—it was something anyone could do. First, Reina calmed her excitement.

“I’ll keep my hobby as a hobby and look for something new.” The key point was “how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much it contributes to the growth of AI Gold.” Core algorithms would be supplemented and developed by Chairman Yoo Jae-won and the incredibly capable research team employed by ID Group, so doing her best at her current level was probably the way to maintain her current standing.

“Then, Go?” It was only natural that Reina thought of the Golden Challenge once she reached that conclusion. She accessed the Nextcom game page on the computer right in front of her. While AAA-level online games operated their own websites, simple arcade online games could be enjoyed anytime on the Nextcom game page.

“It’s here!” Surprisingly, Go was listed under the board game category. Reina bravely entered the beginner room and started the tutorial. After all, she was a true beginner who had only first heard the name Go a few days ago on Anderson Cooper’s broadcast. Furthermore, she didn’t know that Go was a game where the skill gap between professionals and amateurs was extremely wide, which was another reason she could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reach this conclusion.

A moment later, after safely completing the first stage of the tutorial, Reina found herself interested in Go. “I should give it my all.” She also had an ambitious dream of working hard at the game to receive another big settlement next year. “But first! A proper meal like a human being!” Reina sprang to her feet and began preparing to go out. It was lunchtime, and after eating, she had to head straight to her part-time job. Until now, Reina’s lunches had been fast food. When she had no money, she ate McDonald’s cheeseburgers, and when she had a little extra, she ate Big Macs. Now that her N-Pay account had over 334,000 points, she could go anywhere. With her mind firmly made up, the place Reina chose was Burger King.

“One Monster Whopper full set, please! And a Coca-Cola Original for the drink!” Reina declared confidently while opening the N-Pay app.

The world, centered on North America and Korea, was heating up over the N-Point distribution. The ripple effect was undeniable, as nearly 100 million people had received points. While some complaints had surfaced, they were at a negligible level. There was a separate algorithm for calculating contributions, and the servers handling it were larger in scale than those of AAA online games. Every minor contribution was recorded perfectly, so anyone who looked at the detailed statements had no choice but to nod in understanding.

“I’ll be going now.”

“Okay! Have a good trip. And make sure to call every single day.”

Thus, Yoo Jae-won, who had caused such a stir in the world, exchanged brief farewells with Tiffany and got into the car. It was his first overseas business trip of 2007. His destination was Russia, a trip to complete the final task Frederick had given him in one go.