Chapter 50: Artificial Intelligence Surin
Chapter 50: Artificial Intelligence Surin
My first venture in San Francisco.
The day of the Source Coin project launch had arrived.
“Myeong-woo, how are you feeling?”
“Feeling good. It's that feeling you get after a 10-game winning streak in ranked and settling into Gold.”
We went to the office together and completed the final checks with the employees.
A screen was connected to the wall, displaying the number of Source Coin miners.
[ Number of Miners: 0 ]
While there was a separate management program showing detailed resources and usage, this was set up for an intuitive view of the current status.
The number of miners would be a rough measure of its success.
“How are you feeling?”
Ahead of the launch, I answered Producer Seong Ho-jin's question nonchalantly.
“I'm just wondering what kind of pizza to get.”
“You're not nervous at all?”
“Because this is guaranteed to succeed.”
11 AM.
The time for Source Coin's final launch was approaching.
The film crew from Korea was filming all around the office.
Besides the three cameramen, the writers were also filming with small cameras, not wanting to miss the moment.
“Alright, everyone...”
With pizza and cola prepared, about a hundred employees were ready to shout "Bravo."
The goal was to surpass 1,000 miners within three minutes of the launch.
The plan was to then sign contracts with corporations, start generating minimal revenue, and build our reputation.
“Hmm. It seems they don't understand Korea, no matter how much I tell them.”
Oh Myeong-woo, with his arms crossed, was expecting at least 10,000 users.
Having browsed the crypto forums myself, I mostly agreed.
For the past few days, there had been a huge number of users asking about mining methods.
“5!”
“4!”
“3!”
“2!”
“1!”
Finally, the countdown hit zero. 11 AM sharp.
The employees' gazes all turned to the screen on the wall. And in that instant, the number on the screen changed.
[ Number of Miners: 3,621 ]
It surpassed 3,000 in a single second.
“Whoa.”
“Is something wrong?”
“A system error right at launch?”
The Earth Resource employees were flustered by the unexpectedly high number.
Meanwhile, the number on the screen continued to climb steadily.
[ Number of Miners: 5,181 ]
[ Number of Miners: 9,391 ]
[ Number of Miners: 13,196 ]
[ Number of Miners: 17,338 ]
[ Number of Miners: 20,560 ]
It broke 20,000 before 30 seconds had passed.
The programmers hastily put down their pizza and sat in their chairs.
“What's going on?”
“A simple error? Hacking?”
They started system checks, tapping away at their keyboards, but confirmed that they were indeed connected to computers all over the world.
The pre-set program data was being shared, and computations were in progress.
“Is this number even possible?”
“The number of miners was real.”
“But over 95% of the connections are from Korea!”
With 20,000 users connected, they could achieve a computational capacity comparable to a supercomputer.
Just because a supercomputer is expensive doesn't mean it's always the best.
With the dazzling advancements in CPUs each year, a supercomputer from 20 years ago performed worse than a mobile processor in a current smartphone.
In the world of supercomputers, a decade meant about a 1,000-fold increase in performance.
You had to spend tens of billions to buy one, construct a separate building to house it, and pay enormous electricity bills.
But in just four or five years, it would become obsolete, not even worth its scrap metal value.
Source Coin utilized distributed processing and high-speed communication technology to harness computational power surpassing a supercomputer without any hardware equipment.
“The IP addresses are similar.”
“There are many computers in similar locations. Yet they have high performance and fast data transfer speeds. It's hard to understand.”
The programmers were baffled.
Oh Myeong-woo and I knew the answer.
“PC bangs.”
“Hmm. At 1 Source Coin for two hours, it's worth putting empty computers to work mining rather than letting them sit idle.”
For the first day of the launch, it was decided that 1 Source Coin would be awarded for two hours of mining, based on a high-end personal computer.
In dollar terms, it was a venture that earned about 1,150 won every two hours.
Considering the electricity costs, it wasn't a huge benefit, but it was better than letting empty computers sit idle due to the lack of customers from COVID.
[ Number of Miners: 50,000 ]
In three minutes, they reached the mining limit of 50,000 people.
The mining limit was set temporarily and would increase as more computer resources were used.
The Source Coin reward would decrease slightly as the number of miners filled up.
Although Korea's share was over 90%, the fact that other regions accounted for 10% was actually encouraging.
It meant that there was at least some interest from all over the world.
‘Am I spending 25,000 dollars every hour?’
They still had to start making money, but despite that, they had taken a very successful first step.
“Let's eat all the pizza and hamburgers we want!”
“Alright!”
The morale of the Earth Resource employees was high. And I contacted the person who would be eagerly waiting via Katalk.
- Kim Shin: You can start the AI's computations as soon as you're ready.
- Lee Ho-yeon: Thank you.
Thirty minutes later, Bioresource began to utilize the system's computational power.
* * *
Professor Paul Lesser of Johns Hopkins University came to Korea with a team of 20, consisting of his students and infectious disease experts.
The first thing they saw was a massive construction site on the outskirts of Biolife.
Prefabricated container homes were stacked up, and a research complex was being built on the periphery.
They passed through the cluttered surroundings and entered the research building.
“Ho-yeon!”
“Paul. You're here?”
Professor Paul exchanged a light fist bump with the gaunt-faced Dr. Lee Ho-yeon.
“You look terrible. Have you been getting any sleep?”
“I've been sleeping enough.”
Looking closely at Dr. Lee Ho-yeon's face, his eyes were wet, as if he had been crying.
It was an expression he had never seen on him before.
If there was one person he thought was too emotionally detached to ever cry, it was Lee Ho-yeon.
‘What is it? Did the AI fail?’
Professor Paul Lesser felt a bad premonition.
The AI had shown a remarkable level of analysis and prediction capabilities over two years ago, but it might not have been properly developed.
“You've come at a good time. Follow me.”
He followed Dr. Lee Ho-yeon past the culture rooms and laboratories, heading to the research lab.
An artificial intelligence that analyzed the structure of viruses through deep learning and tested compounds that could be effective.
In front of several monitors, researchers were manipulating something.
Graphs could be seen shooting up rapidly.
“I named the artificial intelligence Surin.”
“Surin... is that a person's name?”
“It's my younger sister's name.”
The AI, named after his sister who died of an illness, was searching for compounds that would be effective against the COVID-19 virus.
“Surin is... running. It makes mistakes sometimes, and it was only operating at about 26% of the originally targeted speed.”
“Was it?”
“Yes. We're making up for the rest with computer performance.”
By connecting to Earth Resource's mining system, they were pulling in the computing resources of 50,000 machines.
An astonishing level of computational power, surpassing that of a supercomputer, was being utilized, and the researchers at Biolife were all ecstatic.
“At this speed, we should be able to find a suitable compound within three months.”
“We've succeeded.”
It was then, Lee Ho-yeon said, that he sent a Katalk message, knowing it was an unreasonable request.
- Lee Ho-yeon: I know this is shameless, but would it be possible to use a little more computing resources?
- Lee Ho-yeon: I wasn't skilled enough to create a perfect Surin. If we invest more computational resources, we can speed up the process of finding a compound.
It was a desperate wish, but he thought it was unlikely to get a positive response.
They were already incurring enormous hourly costs, and he was just incredibly grateful for the support they were already receiving.
The reply came quickly.
- Kim Shin: Of course. 50,000 units is just the first test. We'll soon increase the number of miners to 100,000, and then we'll try for 500,000.
- Kim Shin: We won't allocate the 500,000 computers to other companies; we'll invest them all in Bioresource.
- Lee Ho-yeon: What?
- Kim Shin: You've done a great job getting the AI to run successfully, Doctor. From now on, we'll crush COVID-19 with computer technology and money.
“Ah...”
Tears streamed down Lee Ho-yeon's face.
He had tried to do everything on his own, carrying a heavy burden, but he had researchers who shared his grand vision and worked hard alongside him, and a sponsor he could trust.
* * *
Han Chae-won sent dozens of text messages.
- Han Chae-won: I'm sorry I couldn't make it to dinner when you came back to Korea. I was a bit busy, but I also wanted to meet just the two of us in a better atmosphere. I've been hearing good news about you lately.
- Han Chae-won: It makes me happy too. We were in love, after all...
- Han Chae-won: You haven't forgotten all our memories, have you?
The entire nation of South Korea was abuzz about Kim Shin.
A rich man with an enormous amount of money.
Every time she saw an article about him making a fortune, or whenever a new daily life video was uploaded to YouTube, she sent a text, but there was no reply.
Finally, she called him in the middle of the night.
[ The number you have dialed is unavailable. ]
[ The number you have dialed is unavailable. ]
[ The number you have dialed is unavailable. ]
It seemed she had been blocked.
‘He blocked my number?’
Kim Shin had said as much when he left the company, but she never thought he would actually block her.
He was the type to endure it, no matter how much she tormented him.
In her relationship with him, she had always been the one on top.
‘I'm living like this... and he gets rich and lives well all by himself? I stayed with him when he had nothing and was dirt poor. If he has that much money, can't he give his ex-wife a few tens of billions?’
If only she could go back three years, she never would have divorced him.
If she had known he would be this successful, she would never have let him go.
Feeling wronged, she paid a consultation fee and visited a lawyer's office.
“A lawsuit against Kim Shin? Is this the same Kim Shin I'm thinking of?”
“Yes. I'm his ex-wife.”
The lawyer smiled, thinking he'd landed a big fish, but his expression gradually hardened as he spoke with Han Chae-won.
“Domestic violence by Kim Shin?”
“There wasn't a day he didn't hit me.”
“Do you have any proof? Did you testify about domestic violence at the time of the divorce?”
“I didn't testify.”
“Recordings, videos, a medical certificate from a hospital, a written apology from him...”
“I don't have anything like that. I think my colleagues from work can testify.”
“Did they personally witness Kim Shin being violent?”
“They know because I told them at work.”
“Did you show your colleagues your injuries? Any bruises on your body?”
“No, I didn't.”
As a lawyer who handled marital cases, he had seen all sorts of stories.
He took on and resolved issues that ordinary people might never even hear of in their entire lives.
Affairs with a sister-in-law were so common that you had to handle at least one a month to be considered a popular lawyer.
A wife falsely accusing her husband was a common occurrence.
“So it seems you don't have any direct evidence.”
“No... not at the moment.”
“If you sue, he will hire the best law firm in the country.”
“You mean like giving preferential treatment to former judges?”
“That could be a factor. If the evidence is weak, it will be a very difficult battle to win, even if it actually happened.”
It could turn into an arduous legal battle lasting for years.
The lawyer looked at Han Chae-won with a cold gaze.
Judging by her clothes, it didn't seem like there was much money to be made from her. He wondered how much he could squeeze out of a legal battle.
Han Chae-won said desperately.
“Then what about division of assets?”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to receive a division of assets. Kim Shin is incredibly rich, isn't he?”
“Wasn't that all settled at the time of the divorce? Even if there were remaining assets, it's been three years, so the statute of limitations for the claim has already passed.”
“Ah...”
Seeing Han Chae-won's despairing expression, the lawyer shook his head.
He had thought a massive case had walked in, but it seemed there was nothing to gain beyond the consultation fee.