Monday, Day 73:
Zane woke up in a cold sweat. "That damn wolf again," he cursed. Once again, he dreamt of that wolf, and this time, he failed to protect countless children, watching the wolf mercilessly slaughter them. After a cold shower, Zane successfully controlled his mood and welcomed the day. Unfortunately for him, misfortune always comes in packs.
After entering the tutoring hall, he ran into Judy Brown. He tried to say hello, but she just coldly stared at him before heading to her lessons. Then, during the session, Zane made a mistake, and Zulu berated him. No grown man would appreciate being reprimanded by a 17- or 18-year-old, but since she was a 3-ring mage and far more knowledgeable than he was, he put up with it.
Zane's bad luck continued in Elite Class, where he got another lecture for his poor performance. By the end of class, he had had enough of the day and decided to sit out of knight-mage training and refereeing. Today's MVP was Evelyn; she had bought an enchanted sword that also served as an arcane focus. With such a perfect weapon for magic knights, she dominated most of her matches. Tom Nguyen still didn't reveal his new undead, which disappointed a few people.
"Myk, I noticed you have well-trained footsteps. Were you a boxer or trained in any martial art?" Khadijah asked.
"You noticed? I was a boxer."
"It's a shame for such a pretty face to be a boxer."
Myk smiled at Keesha after hearing this.
"I thoguht so. Can you teach me?"
"Of course. Oh, you just reminded me of something." Myk retrieved his laptop from his bag and opened it. Then, he paused as if remembering something. "Z, you don't mind, do you?"
"Mind what?"
"Sharing your program. I know you said not to show it to anybody, but it's been years now. Surely it's okay now."
"What program?"
Myk wanted to slap himself. He forgot how bad this guy's memory can be. "The one you made for me. You can't forget such an important thing, can you?"
"Oooh, that one." Zane took the computer from his hands, sat on the floor, and checked his old work. He immediately noticed that it was the same computer he had built for Myk years ago, designed to run this program without any large GPU server. More importantly, the software was immaculate, one of his best works. His younger self was obsessed with optimizing all his programs to the limit, a habit that current Zane still possessed, just not as extreme.
"What program?" Evelyn asked, suddenly intrigued.
"Z made a program for me that optimized my body movements. I used it to train."
"What do you mean by optimize body movement?"
"It's just like it sounds. I record a video of training or fighting, and the program calculates all my and the opponent's reaction times, patterns, range, spacing, speed, power, wasted movement, missed opportunities, mistakes, and so on. It's a really good training assistant. I even used it to help my knight training, but the effects are minimal. But it's great for training footwork, though."
"That's normal. I designed it for human parameters."
Evelyn stopped drinking water. "Wait. Are you saying I only need to upload a video and this program can help to improve all these aspects?"
Myk nodded. "That's right."
"Can it work for extraordinary training?"
Myk looked at Zane. "No. He just said that."
"Why not? Didn't you say you designed it for human parameters? Can't you design it for transcendent parameters?"
"I could, but I don't even have enough data to train it," Zane explained.
"I'm not following."
"I spent many years stealing data to train the initial program. Myk spent more than five years feeding it boxing videos before it could perform well enough. If you want it to work, you would need countless videos of knights fighting and training."
Evelyn's brow furrowed.
"Hold on. When was this program created?" Tom Nguyen asked.
"Shit," Zane thought. He was about to stop Myk, but it was too late.
"About 8 or 9 years ago."
"Impossible!"
All eyes turned to Tom.
"For such a program to work, you would need a very advanced form of artificial intelligence."
"So?" Evelyn asked.
"How do I explain this in a simple matter? One major problem in AI development is called the Vanishing Gradient Problem. In the simplest way I can explain it, artificial intelligence is terrible at retaining information for a long period, which makes training it challenging, and sometimes, virtually impossible."
"But Myk's program doesn't have this issue," Evelyn said.
"Exactly. Significant progress to address this problem didn't emerge until two years ago, when Google released the Attention Mechanism. And this program even processes video and images, which didn't happen until last year." Tom looked at Zane. "I'm not even mentioning the hardware needed to run such a program. If he's telling the truth, it means he had invented these technologies more than six years ahead of everybody."
All eyes turned to Zane, who was internally complaining about Myk's big mouth.
"My memory might not be the best, but I remember this clearly. Zane graduated high school in 04; that's when he started working on it. He wanted to support my dream of being a pro boxer. However, it was only 4 years later, in 08, that he finally completed it."
"That simply is not possible," Tom Nguyen insisted. "Even if he's a genius, he'd need money to research this level of technology. And we're talking about a couple of million dollars at the lowest. More importantly, if he did succeed, why didn't he do anything with it for so long that someone else eventually took the credit? Why delay the advance of the field of computer engineering by close to a decade?"
"Cindy probably funded —-"
"Alright, that's enough. You guys are focused on the wrong thing. As Myk said, this thing is slightly useful to train your footwork or evasive abilities."
"Talk about deflection," Keesha commented, but Zane ignored her while trying to resist the urge to make a subtle jab at her new braided hair. Well, he couldn't even if he wanted to because she looked great; she probably did an even better job on herself than for him.
"Can you use this program for fitness?" Evelyn suddenly asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean commercialize it and sell it as an app that helps people train. Whether it's to reach their fitness goal or even train professionally — this thing has a lot of commercial potential."
Zane shook his head. "It's not possible — at least, not yet."
"Why not?"
"First, you'd need data. Well, with the internet, there is enough data to scrape if you don't care about ethics. Second, it's data processing and computing power; current technology cannot run this program for so many people."
"How far is the technology?"
"Why are you asking all these questions?"
"Just answer me," Evelyn said.
Zane groaned. "From what I know, Google might have successfully created Transformation Architecture, which means LLMs will soon be realized. However, they won't release the information until next year. Plus, if you consider the need to perfect the technology and build infrastructure, you're looking at 4-5 more years. Well, with magic now a variable, it might be sooner."
"How soon are we talking about?"
"I don't know. Maybe next year? It could be sooner depending on how much knowledge the tower will teach us next month."
"That's not a lot of time," Evelyn said. "If I funded your research, do you think you could develop the technology?"
"Yes, but don't even think about it."
"Why not? It's a great opportunity."
"First, I don't have time for that. Magic is my priority, and I don't want to be distracted."
"That's not an issue; we can hire a large team."
Zane was speechless. "Secondly, it's the ethics issue. I don't know how I feel about stealing people's data to train an AI."
'Why are you letting morality stop you from making money?" As soon as Evelyn said these words, she regretted it, feeling countless strange eyes on her. She cleared her throat and continued. "I'm sure there is an ethical way to gather the data. You don't know if you don't try. And don't be hypocritical; you said it yourself, you stole a lot of data to train the one for Myk."
Zane was once again without words. "Give up. If I wanted to fund the research, I would raise the money myself. And I'm pretty sure the US government has its hands on my program and has been keeping quiet about it."
Evelyn's brow immediately furrowed. "Hmm? Where is that last point coming from?"
"The original design of this program was for a class assignment; that one only detected a person's physical attributes and skills —basically, a talent detection program." Before his amateur debut, Myk had some confidence issues, and Zane built the program to mathematically prove that he was talented.
"When I was researching it, I tried to keep quiet, but the news somehow leaked. Someone contacted me and kept hinting at buying my new creation, and I'm pretty sure they were from the army. Although I rejected them, I have no doubt they eventually stole it."
"Now that you mention it, there were some suspicious events right after you delivered it to me. A few people tried to steal the laptop. And I think I caught someone plugging something into it."
"I'm not surprised," Zane said.
"Aren't you a bit too cavalier about your life's work being stolen?" Ton Nguyen asked.
"It happened a lot to me; I'm numb to it."
Tom Nguyen paused; he could relate.
"Plus, I was careful this time. The encryption and security measures I put on that program and the laptop would give even the best hackers nightmares. Technically speaking, Myk is the only person who can use it. And if he doesn't activate it correctly, everything will be wiped out."
Zane glanced at the laptop. "I'm pretty sure I put a failsafe and a chemical inside the computer to also destroy all traces if someone opens it incorrectly, but I can't remember."
"I've been carrying something so dangerous?"
"You're fine, aren't you? And I'm pretty sure I told you about it."
"Oh, right, you did."
"See? Who is the forgetful one?"