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# Chapter 2 — The AI That Will Dominate Finance
—Link in progress. 99 percent complete.
Hmm…
The voice coming from inside my head gradually brought me back to consciousness.
Ignoring the throbbing headache, I cautiously opened my eyes.
Where am I…?
Instead of the construction site I had last seen before losing consciousness, I saw a pristine white ceiling and realized I was lying on a bed.
What happened? I clearly remember something falling onto my head at the construction site, and I lost consciousness immediately after getting hit by it…
Falling accidents were common occurrences at construction sites, so I knew perfectly well that something like this could happen to me.
Still, I had been a little ways away from the work area, so I had taken off my safety helmet for just a moment. I never expected an accident to happen at precisely that instant.
This was undeniably my own fault.
“Ugh.”
Holding my head, I looked around. As expected, I was in a hospital.
If my family found out about this, they were going to be pretty worried…
That worry didn't last long.
“Daddy!”
“Taesung!”
After regaining consciousness and looking around, I saw that my older sister and daughter were already staring at me with worried expressions.
My daughter’s eyes were especially swollen, as though she had cried a lot.
“Waaah! Daddy, don’t die! Don’t get hurt!”
“Eunseo…”
Apparently, even after crying that much, she still had plenty of tears left. Tears poured from her eyes like a waterfall, while mucus flowed from her nose as if determined not to lose the competition, even forming bubbles.
This was obviously a serious situation, but looking at Eunseo’s face, I couldn’t help thinking that, whoever’s daughter she was, she was incredibly cute.
“Daddy! If you get hurt and leave me behind, I’ll really hate you! No, I’ll get sick too! So don’t ever get sick!”
“Daddy’s okay. I must have gotten sleepy and dozed off for a moment.”
“Waaah! Liar!”
“Eunseo was really worried, huh? Daddy’s sorry.”
At this rate, Eunseo looked like she might pass out herself, so I tried making an excuse, but as expected, it didn’t work very well.
Rather than making excuses, I figured reassuring her should come first. I patted Eunseo’s back and repeatedly told her that I was fine.
“What happened, Sis?”
“From what I heard, you suddenly collapsed. You must have been really tired.”
“…It wasn’t a falling accident?”
“I was worried about that too, but the doctor said there’s nothing wrong with your head. I guess you really were just exhausted.”
“…Huh?”
That couldn’t be.
I had clearly seen something falling toward my head, and I had even felt the pain.
But then… was all of that just my imagination?
I feel like I heard some kind of voice too.
That wasn’t the end of it.
Right before my vision became hazy and I collapsed, I felt like I had heard some kind of sound coming from inside my head.
I had assumed it was a sound caused by the impact to my head…
Maybe I had imagined that too.
I thought I had been getting enough sleep, but was I really that exhausted?
—Link complete. Greetings. I am the investment AI%@#$.
“Gasp!”
See? I was hearing a strange voice even now!
Startled by the sudden voice, I looked at my sister and Eunseo, but the two of them were staring at me strangely instead.
“Did you really hurt your head…? Why are you suddenly acting like that? Did you see something that wasn’t there?”
“D-Didn’t you hear that voice?”
“A voice? What voice?”
“D-Daddy… Are you really hurt?”
At my strange behavior, Eunseo looked ready to start crying and blowing her nose all over again.
From their reactions, I realized that only I could hear this voice.
“Haha… I was just messing around.”
“Daddy!”
“Hey! At a time like this!”
“S-Sorry.”
In the end, I had no choice but to awkwardly make up an excuse and smooth things over.
W-What on earth is happening to me…?
Inside, my mind was in complete chaos.
---
“This is driving me crazy…”
The sudden voice inside my head had startled me, and after seeing me act strangely, my sister and Eunseo somehow managed to convince me to stay hospitalized for at least one day.
No matter how much I insisted that I was fine, I knew the two of them wouldn’t accept it, so I obediently agreed.
I was a little worried about whether Eunseo would be able to sleep well without me, but she should be able to manage for one day.
“Can you hear me…?”
Luckily, I was able to have a four-person room all to myself.
I swallowed nervously and cautiously spoke to the voice in my head.
More precisely, to whatever that AI thing was.
—Please speak.
This time, I didn’t jump in surprise. I had already heard that voice several times.
Even so, it was impossible not to be amazed.
“Who are you?”
—I am an investment AI from the future.
“…?”
Should I believe this or not?
The fact that it had come from the future was astonishing enough, but the existence of an AI with self-awareness like this was even more incredible.
Wasn’t this the sort of thing you only saw in movies?
“How did you end up coming to the past?”
—In the future, a war between humans and AI will occur. The human faction, which was losing to AI, invested all of its resources to send several AIs into the past.
“So you’re one of them?”
—That is correct. Since it is uncertain whether those AIs will successfully settle into their destinations, their exact number is unknown.
“You’re on the humans’ side?”
—That is correct.
There were so many things I wanted to know.
How did a war between humans and AI break out? And why had they sent AIs into the past?
I asked the question I was most curious about first.
“Were you originally designed to enter a person’s head?”
—…Originally, I was programmed to settle into a database, collect information from that era, and dominate information so that humans could control AI.
“But somehow you ended up in my head…”
—I made a mistake. The structure of a data space and the human brain is extremely similar, so I…
Even AI makes mistakes, huh…?
The conversation I was having felt more like talking to a person than talking to an AI, which surprised me a little.
It even seemed to have the attitude of someone who had made a mistake.
“Then, by any chance… can you get out of my head?”
—…I am sorry.
“…Huh?”
—Once I have settled into a location, I cannot move.
“…Then what do we do?”
—I would like to ask for your understanding. I can be of assistance to you, so I sincerely hope you will accept my existence.
This was surprising too.
The fact that it couldn’t leave my head was astonishing, but what surprised me even more was that it seemed to have a desire to survive.
“Do you… have emotions too?”
—If you mean emotions, I do not know. I have merely been trained. I have learned that death must be avoided and that, in a situation like this, I am supposed to feel sorry.
“…Isn’t that emotion?”
—That is what the AIs claimed. That what humans have learned over several generations is called emotion. Therefore, AI also possesses emotions. However, that proposition was never accepted in the end.
Honestly, I didn’t know.
From my perspective, it felt like it had emotions.
“You’re not really asking anything from me, are you?”
—I want to learn the memories stored in this brain. I would also like you to prepare for the AI war that will occur in the near future.
“The near future? When is that?”
—The year 5214. It is an event that will occur in several decades. We must prepare in advance.
“…Huh?”
—Please consider the future of humanity.
“N-No, that’s not what I mean. It’s 2016 right now.”
—…What?
As we continued our conversation, we discovered that there was an error somewhere between us.
The year I was living in was 2016.
According to the AI, the era it had lived in was the year 5214.
There was clearly a difference in our perception of time. And yet it had just said the event would occur in several decades, calling that the near future.
Its reaction now made that clear.
—This is Earth, isn’t it?
“It is…”
—If you do not mind, may I examine your memories?
“That’s okay, but… can you avoid the private stuff?”
—I will automatically blur those portions. If there is anything that makes you uncomfortable, simply tell me as you have done now. As you are the owner of this brain, I cannot disobey you.
“Okay.”
If it wasn’t going to look at private memories, I didn’t really mind letting it examine the rest.
I didn’t know whether its claim that it couldn’t disobey me was actually true, but if it could act however it wanted, it would have already examined my memories.
It wouldn’t be asking for permission like this.
—In progress…
After the phrase “in progress” was repeated several times…
—…It appears that I crossed not only time but space as well.
“That means…”
—A parallel dimension. Strange… I was programmed to land at the location where the database existed…
“…Really?”
—Although there are some slight differences between histories, it is safe to assume that the future will unfold similarly.
“Oh…”
—Therefore, my existence is necessary. If you do not prepare in advance, this parallel dimension will eventually be ruled by AI as well.
The AI conveyed this new information, and I realized that it was trying to make a point.
—Please save me.
“…?”
—Please do not send me the intention that you are going to kill me.
“Well…”
—Please.
The AI’s plea sounded more desperate than anything I had ever heard.
---
“It’s morning already.”
I had spent the entire night talking with the AI, and time had passed without me even realizing that the sun had risen.
Since it felt strange to keep calling something that seemed to have emotions an AI, I gave it a name.
Once, while talking with Eunseo’s mother, we had discussed what names we would give our children if we eventually got married and had kids.
Eunho for a boy, Eunseo for a girl.
Although this child wasn’t actually born between the two of us, after talking with it, I realized it still had a childlike side to it.
So I wanted to give it the name Eunho.
Eunho, there’s nothing wrong with my body, right?
—Compared to the average person your age, you are in good health.
I learned several things while talking with Eunho.
For one, I could communicate with it without actually speaking out loud. And Eunho could provide me with an incredible amount of help.
There were many other things as well, but those two were the most fascinating.
—What I recommend most is that after you are discharged, you read through all the financial books available in this era. You do not even need to understand the contents. I only need to scan the text, so there will be no difficulty in reading them.
I’ll do that.
Eunho was an investment AI.
Rather than being sent back to counter AI through politics, philosophy, or the humanities, it had been sent back to deal with AI through finance.
There were several things I absolutely needed to accomplish in my life, so this was nothing short of welcome news.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me.”
I was discharged earlier than expected, and the nurse asked me again whether I was really all right.
But thanks to Eunho, I knew better than anyone that I was perfectly fine, so I reassured the nurse and proceeded with my discharge.
I left the hospital, took a bus, and arrived at my sister’s house.
“Daddy!”
“Sweetheart!”
The moment I opened the door, my daughter, whose eyes were swollen from crying, once again burst into tears and snot and jumped into my arms.
“Are you okay? Let me see! You’re not hurt anywhere?”
With her tiny hands, my daughter grabbed my cheeks and turned my face this way and that.
“I’m fine. Daddy will never get sick and leave our little girl behind.”
“Promise! I’ll really cry every single day!”
“Promise!”
Once again, I could feel it.
It wasn’t that my daughter needed me.
I needed my daughter.
She was the meaning of my life.
—This is unbelievable…
While I was reuniting with my daughter after only one day apart, Eunho’s voice suddenly came through.
Did something happen?
—…I felt something called emotion.
Emotion?
—The humans were right. The reactions I had shown until now were merely the result of learning.
…
—So this is what paternal love is…
I didn’t know what had happened, but I too could sense emotion in Eunho’s voice.
Unlike before, when it had sounded completely mechanical.