A Paper Worth Stealing
Spring was settling in before I knew it.
My routine these days was simple. Attend morning classes, have lunch at Mom's Hand Restaurant, then head back to campus for the afternoon. And that routine always came with one companion.
"Senior, here you go."
I held out a paper cup of coffee from the vending machine. Seo Min-seung, seated on a bench, looked up and accepted it with a smile.
"Thanks."
"You haven't been going home lately?"
"Why? Do I smell?"
Min-seung said this while lifting his own collar to sniff it, and I burst out laughing before I could help myself.
"No, that's not it."
"Good to hear. Yeah, I can't get home. Paper preparation."
"Is that the thing you've got there?"
I pointed at the bundle of papers in Min-seung's hand. He carried that little wad everywhere — to meals, across campus — always pulling it out when he had a spare moment, reading, scribbling notes, tilting his head in thought.
"This?"
"Yes. If it's not an imposition, could I take a look?"
"You?"
His face wasn't dismissive. More like concerned — you wouldn't understand it anyway.
He hesitated a moment, then held out the bundle.
"It's just a draft anyway. Go ahead."
I took it and looked at the cover.
Research on the Autonomous Motion Optimization of Multi-Joint Robots Based on Adaptive Reinforcement Learning
Of course.
So he'd been studying robots since back then.
Rejoicing inwardly, I turned the pages. Naturally, my reading the equations and algorithms didn't mean I understood them. But a single phrase caught my eye.
A robot that learns.
The robot worked through trial and error on its own to find the optimal motion. No human needed to code every step — give it a goal, and it would learn the method itself. He was already catching hold of the direction artificial intelligence would take in the future.
"Wow, this is fascinating."
"What is?"
"The robot teaching itself. It learns on its own even without a person instructing it."
Min-seung's eyes lit up at my words.
"Exactly. Conventional robots need a human to code every single motion. Point A to point B, B to C. But what happens when the environment changes even a little? You re-code the whole thing."
"But with this approach, even when the environment changes, the robot adapts by itself, right?"
"In theory."
Min-seung leaned forward.
"Let's take an example. Say there's a robot in a factory picking up parts. With the old method, if the part's position shifts by even one centimeter, it errors out. But if you apply my algorithm?"
"The robot locates the part on its own and corrects its motion?"
"Exactly."
Heat had crept into Min-seung's voice.
"Take it further, and the robots could share learning results with each other. Whatever robot A learns gets passed to robot B. That cuts the learning time down geometrically."
"So if a factory had a hundred robots, whatever one of them learned, the other ninety-nine could use immediately?"
"Hey, you pick things up fast."
Min-seung looked at me with surprise.
"You're a business major. How do you know about this stuff?"
"Ah, just..."
Because I lived through the future. Not exactly something I could say.
"Just interested, I guess. Robots and automation."
"Oh, yeah?"
Color rose in Min-seung's face. Apparently he was pleased to find someone showing interest in his research.
"Honestly, if this works, it flips the whole manufacturing landscape. Right now, bringing in a robot means engineers spending days on setup. But once learning robots are commercialized? You just set it down and it figures out the work on its own."
"Lower labor costs, higher productivity."
"Right. Especially for a country with a manufacturing-heavy economy like ours, it could be a massive competitive edge."
Min-seung kept going, thoroughly worked up now. I chimed in, matching his enthusiasm. I don't think I'd ever seen him talk with this much fire.
Then, mid-sentence, his expression suddenly darkened.
"...The truth is, this paper got killed."
"This one?"
I furrowed my brow. You could argue it was ahead of its time — the technical infrastructure for ideas like this in 2005 was admittedly thin.
But the academic world killed it? In a climate where research like this couldn't be developed fast enough?
"They said it was lacking. Well, I had no rebuttal, so I guess I start over."
"Senior, I think you should try to grow this further."
Min-seung turned to look at me.
"It's not nonsense — from a business student's perspective, at least."
"..."
"If this technology gets commercialized in manufacturing, it opens up an enormous market. Just like you were saying a minute ago."
Min-seung studied me for a moment, then shook his head.
"I'd like to, but I have to follow my advisor's judgment. And honestly, I don't have the luxury."
The weariness in those words was palpable. Scholarship problems, family circumstances, pressure to graduate — any number of things had to be pressing down on his shoulders.
Min-seung rose from the bench.
"Let's head in. You've got class soon, right?"
"Yes. See you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Don't you have friends? Why do you eat with me every day?"
"I don't have friends."
"Ha. Look at you, all eager to please. Fine — tomorrow, Mom's Hand Restaurant."
Min-seung waved and walked off toward the campus buildings. I watched his back for a long while.
His advisor killed the paper, huh.
How did it make any sense to kill a paper built on an idea this good? Sure, the methodology might have gaps. But those were things you fixed. Not grounds for throwing the whole thing out and starting over.
The advisor is the problem, as I suspected.
I got to my feet and pulled out my phone.
"Director Jeong, it's me. I have a favor to ask."
—Yes, go ahead.
"Please look into Seo Min-seung's doctoral advisor. A man named Cho Sung-shik."
—Understood. How deep would you like me to dig?
"As deep as possible. Research record, outside activities — tear through everything, hold nothing back."
"Professor, you called for me?"
A few days later, Seo Min-seung knocked on the office door of Professor Cho Sung-shik.
"Ah, Min-seung. Have a seat over there."
Min-seung entered the professor's office and settled onto the sofa. Cho Sung-shik took off his glasses, set them on the desk, and sat down across from him.
"So, how's the new paper coming?"
"It hasn't been easy, starting over, but as I mentioned before, I'm working on a new concept in sensor fusion."
"I was worried, so that's a relief."
Cho Sung-shik nodded.
"I scrapped my doctoral paper once and rewrote it too, you know. The results came out even better. Yours will too."
"Thank you, Professor. I'll work hard."
When Min-seung bowed his head, Cho Sung-shik nodded along with a smile — then, as if suddenly remembering, opened his mouth again.
"Oh, right — that's not why I called you. The paper I killed a while back, you remember it?"
"Sorry? Yes, of course."
"I kept thinking it was a shame to just throw it away, so I made some calls around."
"What?"
When Min-seung's face registered surprise, Cho Sung-shik paid it no mind and continued.
"A company came forward. Interested in your paper — willing to fund the research."
Min-seung's eyes went wide. Then, collecting himself, he rose from his seat and bowed at the waist.
"Thank you, Professor."
"Ah, ah — the story's not finished."
Cho Sung-shik waved his hands.
"The company will provide the funding — but in exchange, they want the research to be led by me."
"...I'm sorry?"
"I told them that was unreasonable myself, but they said they want to eliminate risk on their investment. Apparently..."
Cho Sung-shik looked at Min-seung as he said it.
"...the paper came from a researcher who hasn't even earned his doctorate yet."
Min-seung couldn't say a word.
He knew perfectly well what the man sitting across from him was angling at.
"If you're agreeable, I'd go on as first author, with you listed as co-author — and we'd properly polish the paper together. How does that sound?"
"..."
"Min-seung, you're still living in the lab, aren't you?"
Cho Sung-shik put on a deliberately worried face.
"Family's struggling, you don't even have a place of your own — how long are you going to live like that? With funding behind you, you could research like a human being, and the breathing room would make your work better. Your problem right now is that you're too desperate."
"...May I ask which company it is?"
"Sunjin Motors."
Min-seung's face went rigid.
"As you know, Sunjin Motors rarely does research funding like this. And they're the top of the industry. If this research goes well, you..."
"I'd like some time to think it over."
I wanted to refuse.
No — Sunjin Motors, of all things...
But Cho Sung-shik was the man supervising his dissertation, and would remain a pivotal figure in whatever he did from here on. He couldn't turn him down flat.
"...All right, think it over a little more. Think positively."
"Yes, sir. Understood."
Min-seung stood, bowed, and left the office. Back in the lab, he dropped heavily into his chair.
His mind was a tangle.
Sunjin Motors?
The company that had ruined his father's business. The company that had thrown hundreds of employees out onto the street overnight. The name alone made his teeth grind.
It's true I'm desperate, but...
He needed the funding — that much was fact. His scholarship ran out at the end of this semester, and living expenses were stretched thin.
But take Sunjin Motors' money? And hand first authorship to his professor on top of it?
His pride wouldn't allow it.
Min-seung sat there for a long time, chewing down his anger and trying to put his thoughts in order. Just then the lab door opened and a junior student he shared the space with walked in.
"Hyung, is something wrong?"
"Wrong? Nothing's wrong. Just thinking."
"You look absolutely furious, though."
The junior set down his bag at his own desk and added:
"Oh, by the way — I noticed you've gotten friendly with a third-generation chaebol lately. Saw you out by the lawn earlier."
"A chaebol heir?"
"Yeah, Kang Seon-woo."
"You know Seon-woo?"
Min-seung looked at the junior in bewilderment.
"Wait, more importantly — he's a chaebol heir?"
"You didn't know?"
The junior's eyes went round.
"He got a perfect score on the CSAT. And he's a third-generation Sunjin Group heir. It was a total spectacle when he enrolled."
Sunjin.
At the name that left the junior's mouth, Min-seung's expression hardened, little by little.
"...The Sunjin Group?"
"Yes — grandson of the Sunjin Group's main family. Apparently the household's split apart these days, so it's a bit complicated, but he's chaebol blood all the same."
Min-seung couldn't speak.
The past month flickered through his mind. The junior who'd shared lunch with him every day. The guy who'd shown such genuine interest in his research and listened so attentively. The way he'd smiled, so obliging, handing him coffee.
Kang Seon-woo... of the Sunjin Group? Then don't tell me — was it deliberate, all of it, aimed at me...?
His fist clenched on its own.
"He strikes me as a man with an excess of ambition."
I listened as Jeong Tae-sung briefed me, reading through the file he'd compiled on Cho Sung-shik.
"He secured full professorship in his late thirties, and it appears he entered the tenure track early this year."
The tenure track. In plain terms, the path to guaranteed lifetime employment — clear a stretch of research output and teaching evaluations, and afterward, barring extraordinary cause, you couldn't be dismissed until retirement. For university professors, it was something of a dream position. Considering the man was only in his early forties, his climb through academia had been remarkably fast.
"Looking into his outside activities, he's been quite cozy with corporations."
"Well, he's in engineering, and industrial engineering at that — I suppose that comes with the territory?"
"I wish it stopped there, but it goes further."
"Further?"
Jeong Tae-sung nodded at my question.
"The reason a man that age could reach full professor and the tenure track is that he brought in enormous corporate research funding. And that funding..."
"Ah — say no more. I get the picture."
I raised a hand to cut him off.
"A parrot who says whatever the company paying him wants to hear, is that it?"
"Yes. In industry circles he was known as the professor who reliably produced whichever conclusions his corporate sponsors needed — particularly when companies were bidding for national projects."
Every so often, men like that existed. The sort who designed variables and evaluation metrics to yield the sponsor's preferred conclusion, or massaged data to make one competitor look better than another. Calling them lobbyists in an academic's clothing would have been generous.
"There were also several cases of university-developed technology being transferred to companies at absurdly low prices."
"And the university just stood by and watched?"
"He's a professor who brings in funding."
A bitter laugh escaped me at Jeong Tae-sung's matter-of-fact reply. Hanguk University was a national institution, not some private backwater — and still men like this strutted around unchecked.
The truth was, the only reason I'd ordered the investigation into Cho Sung-shik in the first place was that I knew the story of Seo Min-seung's failure from my previous life.
That paper I'd read just days ago. In the end, Min-seung would have it stolen out from under him by his professor. I'd even seen an interview he gave about it later — the image of him lamenting it as the mistake of his youth, of how naive he'd been, was still with me.
"It seems he met with Sunjin Motors recently as well. Photos are enclosed at the back."
Jeong Tae-sung pointed to the rear of the file.
"The man entering the bar with him is Kim Min-sang, managing director of Sunjin Motors' research institute."
The photos showed the two men strolling side by side into an upscale bar, the picture of familiarity.
"Your sources are impressive."
I set the photos down and looked at Jeong Tae-sung.
"It looks like he's trying to snatch his own student's paper again. How should we play this?"
Jeong Tae-sung answered as if the question required no thought at all.
"Shall we approach through SJ Holdings?"
"You mean approach Cho Sung-shik?"
"No — providing Seo Min-seung a scholarship and support to develop the paper further. That seems the soundest course."
"That's the straightforward play, but..."
I tilted my head. I wasn't sure it would work.
Cho Sung-shik's eyes were likely glazing over with greed by now — he'd be scheming to extract Min-seung's technology by any means. And if a company suddenly appeared offering Min-seung a scholarship? Given the man's track record, jealousy alone might blind him into punishing the boy rather than letting him slip away. Handle it carelessly, and we could only make Min-seung's life harder.
Bzzz—
While I was turning it over, my phone vibrated. Checking the screen, I found a message from Seo Min-seung.
This was the first time he'd ever contacted me to meet in the evening. Until now it had always been lunch — eat together, part ways, nothing more.
What's going on with him?
I read the text and slipped the file into my bag.
"I'll think it over a bit more before deciding. Seo Min-seung just asked to meet out of nowhere."
"Yes, understood."
"Head home for the day. I'll see you tomorrow."
Shouldering my bag, I stepped out of the office.