A Genius Who Was More Divine Than Human
After my call with Steve Jobs ended, it wasn’t long before an email arrived from him.
[A new email has arrived.]
[Sender: [email protected]]
There it was.
The current time was 11:30 a.m.
Since I had a class at eleven, it should’ve been time to grab my bag and head to the lecture hall.
But I didn’t even bother reaching for it.
Classes aren’t important right now.
There was a project sitting right in front of me that could change not only my business, but Apple’s future as well.
Missing a few attendance points was the least of my concerns.
I’d already sent the professor a text saying I probably wouldn’t make it today.
What I’d written to my professors was simple:
“I’m sorry, Professor. I’ve caught a cold, so I won’t be able to attend class.”
What surprised me was that the professors all replied with real concern when I told them I couldn’t come.
“If Dohyun can’t make it to class, you must really be feeling awful.”
“Don’t worry about attendance. Go see a doctor.”
Apparently they’d all been under the impression that I was a conscientious student who took his lectures seriously.
When in reality, I spent class time thinking about business every single day.
Anyway.
I put my smartphone on silent and tossed it into the corner of my desk.
Then I rested my hands on the laptop keyboard and spoke to Zero.
Zero, download the file Jobs sent.
> Downloading... complete.
> Unzipping archive.
Almost immediately, dozens of source code files spilled across the screen.
Hm...
People always assumed that if something was a supercomputer program, you couldn’t even open it on a laptop.
But that was a misconception.
Whether it was software for a supercomputer or the source code for a tiny handheld game, it was still just a text file made of letters and numbers.
Of course, actually running it to crunch 3 billion data points would require a supercomputer, but reading and editing the code with your own eyes was absolutely possible on a laptop.
“Let’s see...”
...
// BRUTE FORCE CHECK START
// Check every single character one by one
for (long i = 0; i < 3000000000; i++) {
for (long j = 0; j < 3000000000; j++) {
....
Lines and lines of code crowded the black screen.
As I scrolled, my brow gradually furrowed.
“...What the hell is this?”
The words slipped out before I could stop them, because it was so absurd.
Jobs had said on the phone that “the code doctors wrote is inefficient.”
So I’d braced myself for something messy, but this was on another level entirely.
How do you even write code like this?
The variable names were random, and not a single comment had been written.
For this kind of algorithm to actually run... in a different sense, that was impressive.
Seriously, how did they even do this?
It was horrifying in a way that almost inspired awe.
The coding itself was bad enough, but what was truly awful was the logic behind the algorithm.
They’d claimed to compare 3 billion gene sequences, and then had the audacity to stack loop after loop after loop.
The algorithm was basically like ordering someone to find one book out of tens of thousands in a library by checking every single shelf from the entrance onward.
Instead of looking at the title first, they were being told to read the whole thing from beginning to end for no reason at all.
...No wonder Jobs died if they ran an algorithm like this.
I did think that, but honestly, I couldn’t blame them entirely.
In 2009, medicine and programming were both in a transitional phase.
Doctors didn’t know how to code, and programmers didn’t know medicine.
So the doctors probably told themselves, “Would programmers even understand my research data?” and tried to write the code themselves.
On the other side, programmers likely thought, “What do doctors know about computers?” and refused to collaborate.
The result was this horrific hybrid of programming and medicine forced together against its will.
Hm... Zero, what do you think?
“The pinnacle of inefficiency. Unnecessary calculations account for 94.2% of the entire process.”
“It is spaghetti code written by a non-specialist who lacked formal programming education and focused solely on forcing functionality into existence.”
So that’s how you see it too.
Which, fortunately, meant there was room for me to make my move.
Click.
I cracked my knuckles.
Actually, that was better. The messier the code, the more dramatic the contrast would be when I fixed it.
And naturally, Jobs would be even more shocked.
Let’s begin.
I split the editor screen in two.
On the left, I left the doctors’ disaster of a codebase; on the right, I opened a blank page.
Like Jobs said, the algorithm itself is very similar to a search engine.
I started typing.
Tap, tap-tap.
The first thing I changed was the data processing method.
Throw out the brute-force approach entirely... and use a hash table and a suffix tree instead.
I scrapped the stupid algorithm that compared 3 billion base sequences one by one.
Instead, I gave every gene fragment its own unique “link” and “address.”
Like building the table of contents and index for an encyclopedia.
“Master, then I will convert the normal gene map into a hash map and design it so that only the mutation segments of the control group are isolated.”
Yeah, do that.
Zero’s assistance was perfect.
As I drew the big picture, Zero filled in the complicated formulas and syntax inside it in real time.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Swish.
And... let’s add one more feature.
“What kind of feature, Master?”
The doctors’ algorithm only finds mutated genes. I’m taking it a step further.
The program the doctors had made was only meant to determine which DNA was wrong.
I wasn’t satisfied with that.
The ultimate goal of this program is to find a treatment. So...
If I was going to do it, I was going to do it right.
Link the mutation data this algorithm identifies to Search’s database in real time. Then scrape every publicly available medical paper, clinical trial dataset, drug list... all of it, and match them up.
Bang!
I slammed the Enter key hard.
When a specific cancer cell or DNA mutation is found, it should output the drug and treatment with the highest survival rate all at once.
“This is a fusion of medical diagnostics and big data technology.”
Exactly. Possible?
“It is possible. It would be impossible only if there were no data available on the web, but that will not be a problem when it comes to treating Steve Jobs.”
Yeah, probably. Jobs’s cancer was rare, but the medications to treat it already existed.
The doctors just hadn’t been able to diagnose him because it was such an unusual case, and they couldn’t find the right drug.
“That is correct. There were simply too few related papers.”
Then Search can find them. Let’s proceed.
“Understood.”
Tap, tap-tap...
I kept hammering the keyboard.
* * *
I lost track of time completely.
At some point, empty cans of coffee and cola from my refrigerator had started littering my desk.
It had been a while since I’d done coding with even a little difficulty, so I could feel my competitive spirit and a strange kind of exhilaration kicking in.
Hoo...
I let out a long breath.
By now, the sky outside had gone dark. I checked the clock, and it was already past 10 p.m.
That should be enough.
“Hup...!”
I stretched and looked at the monitor.
The code I’d written on the right side of the screen was beautiful, even to my own eyes.
Well, of course it was. I’d poured everything I had into it.
The doctors’ code, which had originally stretched to hundreds of thousands of lines, had been compressed down into a core of barely twenty thousand lines.
That didn’t mean the algorithm had become dumb.
Quite the opposite—the one I’d written was incomparably more sophisticated than the original.
Zero, run the final check.
“Verifying code... logical errors: 0. Syntax errors: 0. Memory leak probability: 0%. It is perfect, Master. Simulation results indicate an expected performance improvement of approximately 14,000% compared to the existing supercomputer computation speed.”
14,000 percent.
That meant a 140-fold improvement in performance.
At that level, if you maxed out the supercomputer’s capabilities, a few hours would be more than enough.
Then send this back to Jobs by email.
“Understood.”
Zero compressed the file and sent it to Jobs by email.
Then I picked up the smartphone I’d left on one side of the desk.
I was about to message Jobs and tell him to check his email.
Oh, come to think of it... making a PC version of FreeChat would be nice too.
When I turned the phone on, there were several messages waiting for me.
They were all from friends at school.
Some were taking general education classes with me, others were in the same major courses.
Come to think of it, I really was a college student.
Anyway.
Before replying to my friends, I contacted Jobs first.
I sent the FreeChat messages.
Then I went to bed and buried my face in my pillow.
A pleasant exhaustion washed over me.
Fwoosh...
I wonder what Jobs will say after seeing that code.
* * *
Steve Jobs.
His bedroom was wrapped in a heavy silence, broken only by the occasional sigh.
“Hoo...”
I should be sleeping.
Jobs recalled the words Dr. Raymond had repeated to him over and over.
Jobs knew that, of course.
He knew he had to sleep.
But whenever he closed his eyes, a thousand different thoughts rose up in the darkness like mist.
The first thing that came to mind was the traitor.
Eric Schmidt, that bastard traitor.
Eric Schmidt of Google, who had stolen Apple phone know-how while serving as an Apple board member and used it to create Android.
Just thinking about him made Jobs feel as though his blood was running backward, even in his sleep.
He would definitely get revenge. He couldn’t die before he did.
The second thing that came to mind was a competitor.
Seongsam Electronics is a problem too. The Galleon smartphone... I couldn’t afford to underestimate it. I let my guard down.
And last of all.
A genius who might save my life... Zero.
He didn’t doubt that genius’s skill.
But how much of that hideous code, which doctors had spent years on and which was said to take three months on a supercomputer, could she really fix?
No matter how much of a genius she was, quickly revising an unfamiliar bioinformatics algorithm could still be difficult.
The bigger my expectations are for her... the bigger my hope becomes.
And that meant the despair he’d feel if that hope shattered was pressing down on him somewhere deep inside.
“...Damn it.”
Jobs glanced at the sleeping pills on the table beside his bed.
He’d already taken one before lying down. And yet his mind felt sharper than if he’d taken a stimulant.
I’ll have to ask Dr. Raymond for something stronger tomorrow. Something that could put an elephant to sleep.
If a human took something like that, it might kill them, but Jobs wanted nothing more than to sleep peacefully.
Either way, he had to sleep. Dawn had already nearly passed.
...I should at least get an hour.
As always, Jobs tried to force his eyes closed and meditate.
That was when it happened.
Buzz.
The Apple phone beside his pillow vibrated briefly.
There was almost no one who would contact him on this number at this hour.
His family wouldn’t call and disturb his sleep.
And if they had something to say, it would be faster to come into the room than to phone him.
So if it wasn’t an Apple executive, then it had to be...
...Zero?
At the sudden hunch, Jobs reflexively grabbed the Apple phone.
“Check your email.”
It really was Zero.
But check his email?
I handed over the file less than twelve hours ago... and she’s already telling me to check my email?
Jobs’s mind froze for a second.
Don’t tell me... she was giving up?
The first thought that came to him was negative.
Maybe she’d opened the code, realized there was no way to make sense of it, and tossed the whole thing aside as impossible.
That was the sensible conclusion.
What Zero got was a program handling 3 billion data points. Just “reading” that huge codebase could take days.
That was what Jobs was thinking, but then the FreeChat message that appeared next shook his pupils.
“...It’s already done? And she added a feature too?”
He shot upright.
He felt a little dazed from getting up so suddenly, but he ignored it and sat down at his desk.
Then he checked his email on the computer.
[Sender: Zero]
[Attachment: For Steve]
...There really was an email.
Swallowing dryly, Jobs downloaded the file.
He unzipped the attachment and opened the source code Zero had sent.
Those few seconds felt unbearably, unbelievably long to him.
Pop.
At last, the archive opened.
The moment he saw it, Jobs let out an involuntary gasp.
“Ah...”
What Zero had sent him was not a computer program, not merely an algorithm, and not just code.
It was...
...art.
Jobs had always been deeply drawn to Eastern philosophy and thought.
The beauty of stripping away complexity and leaving only the essence—that was what he loved.
That philosophy had influenced Apple products, and it had also shaped Apple’s business direction.
The code is clean... beautiful...
The very aesthetic of leaving only the essence, the one Jobs himself had obsessed over like a madman, was now perfectly embodied on his monitor.
If the code the doctors had written was a jungle of weeds and trash strewn everywhere, then the code Zero had sent was a quiet garden, with only neatly raked sand and carefully placed stones remaining.
“How can you simplify 3 billion arrays like this...?”
Looking at Zero’s algorithm, the flow of logic moved like water.
There were no dead ends, and not a single wasted calculation.
Just typing this code would take hours.
And yet Zero had modified the doctors’ algorithm and rewritten it from scratch in just a few hours.
Jobs murmured without realizing he was doing so.
“Zero, are you... not human, but... a god?”
Jobs didn’t believe in religion.
But if there were a religion called computers, then he was certain its god would be Zero.
So this is why people believe in gods...
What Zero had done was a greater miracle than turning water into wine, splitting the sea, or feeding hundreds with a few fish and loaves.
When a miracle like that was shown to you, how could you not believe?
Jobs’s conviction that religion was irrational had changed.
Zero was unquestionably a god.
All that remained now was to send the program Zero had created to the doctors.