Chapter 17. I Created an AI That Becomes Infinitely Smarter
Chapter 17. I Created an AI That Becomes Infinitely Smarter
Inside the dim office, the glow of the monitor faintly illuminated my face.
As I kept my eyes fixed on the screen and tapped away at the keyboard, Taeju, who had been pacing around beside me, suddenly spoke.
“What are you working so hard on?”
“The thing I mentioned before. The one that will erase those dark circles under your eyes.”
“Then what, is it like JARVIS? The one from Iron Man?”
(Translator’s Note: JARVIS — The AI assistant used by Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The AI version debuted in the 2008 film Iron Man. The name was adapted from Edwin Jarvis, a human supporting character in Marvel Comics who first appeared in Tales of Suspense No. 59 in November 1964.)
“Something like that. From now on, this thing will handle every miscellaneous task our company needs done.”
Taeju glanced at the monitor and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Hey, then won’t I lose all my work too? People said everyone would get fired when the AI era came. So it really is true.”
“Not necessarily. In the end, if people do not keep giving AI the right direction, it can go off in a very strange direction.”
“For example?”
“It might misunderstand an order and suddenly press the nuclear launch button.”
At my half-joking, half-serious answer, Taeju let out a hollow laugh.
“So we have to keep watching it and make sure the machine does not go insane.”
“Exactly.”
If an AI was not given clear instructions, it had a tendency to disregard all means and methods in pursuit of its objective and run wildly out of control.
“But… this one is a little unusual.”
“Unusual?”
“I designed it so that it can modify its own code and make itself smarter.”
“Huh? I think I saw something like that on the internet.”
“This is… similar, but also different.”
“How smart will it eventually become?”
“I do not know. Even I cannot predict that.”
Tap, tap, tap, clack—
I struck the final Enter key with a satisfying motion.
“It is finished.”
Beep—
The screen of the smartwatch on my wrist lit up brightly.
H.E.R.M.E.S.
High-speed Executive Resource & Multipurpose Execution Servant
It was the signal that the system had finished booting normally.
[Greetings, Master. I am HERMES.]
A dry yet polite synthetic voice characteristic of machines flowed from the watch.
I immediately gave it its first command.
“First, organize everything I need to do right now.”
A holographic panel appeared above the smartwatch.
[Domestic Development of Foreign Weapons], [New Product Development], [Toy Empire Deliveries], [Weapons Supply to the British Ministry of Defence].
A suffocating list of tasks filled the air.
“Starting today, handle everything you can, from sorting Science Facility’s emails to incoming payments, outgoing payments, client management, and organizing vouchers.”
[May I also process payroll statements, mandatory social insurance filings, and withholding tax declarations?]
“Permission granted.”
The moment the exchange ended, Taeju grabbed his head and jumped.
“Are you insane?! I was about to hire five accounting and bookkeeping employees just to handle those jobs!”
Five employees would mean at least one hundred fifty million won a year in fixed costs.
“Cancel the recruitment posting. From now on, the only people our company needs are workers for production jobs machines cannot do and sales staff who have to physically travel around for domestic and overseas business.”
“Hyesung… I am genuinely terrified of what this world is going to become.”
Taeju, whose eyes were hollow from exhaustion, muttered with a shudder.
“I am more afraid of you. Go get some sleep.”
Osan Air Base.
(Translator’s Note: Osan Air Base — A major United States Air Force installation located near Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Despite its name, the base is not located inside Osan city itself. It has played a major role in the United States military presence on the Korean Peninsula since the Korean War era.)
Rooooar—
A British C-17 Globemaster strategic transport aircraft emitted an engine roar loud enough to tear at the eardrums.
(Translator’s Note: C-17 Globemaster III — A large strategic and tactical military transport aircraft originally developed by McDonnell Douglas and later produced by Boeing. The Royal Air Force received its first C-17 in May 2001, and the aircraft became central to British long-range airlift operations.)
The massive desert-colored fuselage resting on the runway seemed to crush even the air around it.
“This is my first time seeing one in person.”
“The C-17? It is quite large, is it not?”
Because of the engine noise, I shouted, and Seo Dojin, the Presidential Secretary for Defense Affairs standing beside me, raised his voice in response.
He had been personally dispatched by the presidential office to assist with this weapons export to the United Kingdom and the secret meeting with the Ukrainian deputy minister.
Soon, the enormous ramp door of the transport aircraft opened.
A British official walked down amid the sharp clatter of military boots.
“Are you CEO Ryu Hyesung? It is an honor to meet you. I am Brigadier Edward from the Defence Acquisition Administration.”
He greeted me politely in a refined, old-fashioned Oxford accent.
“I apologize that we could not fulfill the entire quantity.”
The British defense minister had demanded one hundred twenty HPM drones immediately.
However, because the mass-production line was not yet fully operational, the factory employees and I had worked through the night to produce just five units by hand.
“Not at all. We were the ones making unreasonable demands and rushing you.”
Even so, the British had caused an uproar, begging us to send even prototypes as quickly as possible.
Bzzzt—
The smartwatch on my wrist vibrated briefly.
[Upon arrival, you have a face-to-face meeting with Boris Kovalenko, Deputy Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine.]
It was HERMES, the new AI I had created.
This was a notification I had never instructed it to give me.
Using the microphone built into the watch, it had gathered information from my surroundings, judged my schedule on its own, and begun displaying reminders.
“It is not quite a private jet, but we have arranged the most comfortable flight and accommodations possible.”
With a gentlemanly smile, Brigadier Edward guided me into the transport aircraft.
The aircraft took off, and a long, tedious, heavy flight lasting several hours began.
Central London.
A secret meeting room specially arranged by the British government.
“Do not worry. There is absolutely no one eavesdropping on or monitoring this room.”
An MI6 officer reassured me in a firm voice.
Thorough security was essential.
The man sitting directly in front of me was Boris Kovalenko, Deputy Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine.
He was wearing a dusty military uniform that made him look as though he had just escaped from the middle of the battlefield.
Since the Ukrainian side had no Korean-language interpreter, the conversation naturally proceeded in English.
“I have heard a great deal about you. I am Boris Kovalenko.”
“I am Ryu Hyesung.”
“So you are the famous ‘R.’ Our military has suffered greatly because of the drones you created.”
The R-Type drone.
It was a model I had sold to Russia in large quantities during the early days when I was short on capital.
“I regret that. However, those drones did not have specifications suitable for carrying lethal explosives.”
“Yes, that is correct. The Russian military only used them for training. However, because Russian soldiers became perfectly accustomed to those monstrous evasive maneuvers… the success rate of our Ukrainian suicide drone attacks fell dramatically in actual combat.”
“…I am sorry.”
“No. Securing superior weapons before the enemy is ultimately another measure of national capability in war.”
Deputy Minister Kovalenko’s cheeks were sunken, and his complexion was pale.
He had every reason to resent me.
Instead, he was carefully watching my mood.
It was obvious that he wanted something.
“What is the real reason you urgently asked to see me?”
“Ukraine is bleeding dry under Russia’s endless offensives. Because of its domestic situation, the United States keeps trying to cut off strategic supply support, while the European Union looks away and wastes time.”
“Ah…”
The point was simple.
They needed weapons.
“Give us strength. You are the only lifeline we have left.”
The desperation in the deputy minister’s eyes was overwhelming.
The gaze of a man who had repeatedly crossed the line between life and death was fundamentally different from that of the ordinary buyers I had dealt with until now.
“CEO Ryu.”
At that moment, Secretary Seo Dojin, who was seated beside me, quietly whispered in Korean.
“Directly exporting weapons to Ukraine would be extremely dangerous and could create enormous diplomatic friction.”
“Then what should we do?”
“On the surface, the exports would have to be made to the British Ministry of Defence. The United Kingdom could then provide them to Ukraine through an indirect support route.”
I felt suffocated.
Even while countless lives were disappearing by the minute, international politics still moved with such cold calculation.
At that moment, Deputy Minister Kovalenko abruptly stood up and bowed deeply.
“R. Please sell us those HPM drones you created. I am begging you.”
It was a moment in which a senior defense official representing an entire country bowed his head to an ordinary teenage boy.
“Ah… Understood. Deputy Minister, how many units do you need?”
“All of them. Every unit you can produce.”
“What?”
With our current capital and automated equipment, the maximum production capacity was one hundred units a month, or twelve hundred a year.
Ukraine wanted to buy everything?
That meant ten billion won worth of products every month and one hundred twenty billion won a year.
Secretary Seo once again reminded me of the cold reality in a low voice.
“CEO Ryu. Do not forget that their cash reserves have been exhausted. They have no money.”
“What?”
Then how exactly did they plan to pay?
“How do you intend to settle the payment?”
“It is true that we do not currently have enough cash to arrange immediate payment. However… once this war is over, we will grant you the mining rights to an enormous lithium deposit near Donetsk, along with exclusive production rights for neon gas.”
Lithium and neon.
They were critical rare resources essential to semiconductors and batteries, the backbone of modern industry.
If Ukraine won the war, I could become a global tycoon handling tens of trillions of won through a single mine.
However, who could predict when the war would end?
Could our company survive an annual deficit of one hundred twenty billion won?
And if Russia seized the territory itself, the promise would become nothing more than worthless paper.
It was literally a high-risk, high-return gamble.
“This matter… is too large in scale. I need to discuss it with my co-CEO. Could you give me a few days?”
Apparently taking my words as a polite rejection, the deputy minister’s expression collapsed in despair.
At that moment, Secretary Seo hurried toward me.
“Minister Alistair Kingsley says he needs your help.”
“What? When?”
“Right now.”
Inside a grim gray conference room, a beam projector hummed softly.
On the screen, footage played again and again of swarms of dozens of drones helplessly crashing to the ground whenever an unidentified medium-sized drone passed nearby.
“This is the latest HPM drone developed in South Korea. As you can see, its maximum speed, flight trajectory, and HPM performance…”
The adjutant’s voice trembled slightly.
“It is at the highest level in the world. Its specifications are significantly superior even to Morpheus, the American system that had previously been considered the best.”
The Minister of Defense clicked his tongue irritably.
“What about the design drawings you said were obtained through intelligence?”
“Here they are.”
He pulled out one sheet from the design drawings for Science Facility’s HPM drone mass-production equipment and placed it on the table.
“These drawings were obtained by the SVR, formerly the KGB.”
(Translator’s Note: SVR — The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. It was established in its present post-Soviet form following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and inherited much of the foreign-intelligence role previously performed by the KGB’s First Chief Directorate.)
(Translator’s Note: KGB — The Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union, established in 1954 and dissolved in 1991. It combined foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, internal security, border security, and political-security functions.)
“Professor Sokolov, you examined them, did you not? What do you think?”
Artemy Sokolov, Director of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s 3rd Central Research Institute and Chief Scientific Adviser, swallowed dryly.
At the age of twelve, he had swept the gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad and later even won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
He was currently regarded as Russia’s greatest genius.
Yet even he shook his head before the drawings.
“These drawings… make no sense.”
He had spent several sleepless nights examining the design in front of him.
All he had gained from the effort was the miserable feeling that he had become obsolete.
“What do you mean, they make no sense?”
“I do not know what kind of person created this, but they are unquestionably a monster. Russia still… cannot build weapons at this level.”
Bang—
Unable to contain his anger, the minister slammed the table.
“Have you grown old too? If even you, Russia’s greatest genius, cannot do it, then who can?”
Sokolov closed his mouth.
For a man who had ruled his entire life as a genius, it was the first humiliation of its kind he had ever experienced.
“Alexei.”
“Yes, sir.”
At the Minister of Defense’s call, an officer straightened his back.
“Find out who created this monster.”
The minister prayed desperately in his heart.
Please, let the person who created this monster not be Ryu Hyesung.
If it was that boy, he would be forced to bitterly regret his own foolish decision in the past to order Hyesung’s abduction.
Even now, he lost sleep at night thinking that he should never have tried to kidnap the boy.
He should have tried to win him over by any means necessary.