The users logged into Logia were thrown into confusion by the sudden announcement.
-What was that just now? A notice popped up on my screen. 3,000 points?
-Isn’t it a system error?
-Hacked? Or did the server blow up?
-The Logia score cap was a thousand points. This makes no sense. It broke through to two, three thousand all at once.
-Calm down, guys. Look at the username. If you don’t know, go buy a science magazine and read it.
-Yu Seoha? The person who solved that Smale’s problem?
[System Administrator: We are investigating the scoring process. No errors have been found so far, and we inform you that the score is valid.]
-So it wasn’t a bug.
-S Plus wasn’t the end.
Reddit was, quite literally, exploding.
[AI Submits to Humanity]
-A human just shattered Logia’s score ceiling. Apparently it updated its evaluation standards.
(Logia score 3,263.9 screenshot)
└Looked into it, and Logia expanded its evaluation function on its own.
└So it was forced to update lol
└He solved an unsolved problem, so this much is only natural. Logia probably posed the problem to enjoy pleasure without responsibility, but now it has to pay the price, right?
└Logia patch notes forcibly updated (By Human). Never look down on humans again.
└As an AI researcher, this is a pretty interesting result. A score over 3,000 means the logical depth is more than three times deeper than the existing structure. In other words, Logia judged that it couldn’t evaluate SH with its own algorithms.
└Exactly. Basically, Logia cried, “It’s too hard,” and rewrote its own rules.
Across every community, the meme of “the human who made AI submit” was taking off, creating an atmosphere that was practically festive.
The meme had already been reproduced in dozens of forms, and even science YouTubers, sensing the rising tide, rolled up their sleeves and jumped in.
[Did AI Lose? Analysis of the Logia 3,000-Point Incident]
[Is This Real? National Pride Spreading Through the World of Mathematics]
[Who Is the Human Who Told AI, “Hey! Go Calculate It Again!”?]
The reaction that began online did not easily die down.
“Isn’t this Oppa?”
Seoeun, who had been using the computer, was startled when Seoha’s photo suddenly appeared.
There was an image of Seoha holding a hammer and smashing a robot’s head, and in another image, Seoha was dressed as a paladin, waging a holy war against machines.
“Shh! You’re not supposed to look at things like this.”
Click.
Seoha covered Seoeun’s eyes and closed the internet window.
* * *
Though it was vacation, Spectra Works’ clubhouse was sweltering with the heat pouring out of computers.
Coffee cans rolled across the floor.
On the screen hanging on the wall, a timer was running.
[719 : 59 : 59]
Thirty days.
It was the deadline they had set, and the date by which they had to complete the official build of the “MIT Simulator.”
“Damn it, we only have a month left!”
“No, didn’t you say three months would be enough?”
“I was mistaken back then. This engine is something Satan made!”
Tatatatatatak.
They had not originally planned to make a game this complicated.
But the Synapse Engine’s performance was so outstanding that they had to tear out and rebuild a large portion of the existing game design.
The NPCs predicted one another’s routes and naturally changed direction just before colliding.
“So the NPCs are aware of each other right now?”
Root asked Entropy.
“Yeah, it’s a kind of collective cognition. Seoha made something absurd. If this scales up, I wonder how the entire crowd will react…”
Cipher exclaimed in admiration.
“We should just call it a society.”
The NPCs’ movements were as natural as those of real humans.
Students headed toward their destinations and ran into friends. Then some would deviate from their original route and take unexpected actions.
“The truly amazing part is that the agents aren’t probability-based. Each NPC is randomly assigned a disposition. And they move according to a decision function that matches that disposition.”
Entropy pointed at the monitor.
“You see that kid over there? His fatigue level is high, but his diligence weight and responsibility vector are large, so he’s enduring it and studying. If he gets more tired, he’ll go home.”
“Then what about her?”
Root asked, looking at a female NPC who was petting a dog.
“She’s a case with high introversion and observation tendencies, but low achievement desire. But she’s kind and lovable. Her appearance stat is high too.
She’s not the type to create many events, but she frequently changes the routes of nearby agents.”
Cipher stroked his chin.
“It’s true that even in reality, pretty girls do alter people’s movement paths.”
He had once seen a beauty and followed her as if bewitched.
Entropy pointed at another NPC.
“The Synapse Engine is really incredible. It even includes visual stimuli as variables. NPCs detect things like one another’s attractiveness and emotional index and interact accordingly, and that’s a function I hadn’t even imagined.”
Once Seoha was given sufficient computing resources, the potential of the Synapse Engine that had been bound up until then began to be released.
Functions that had been deactivated because they were too computationally burdensome were turned on, and modules that had existed only inside Seoha’s head were added one by one.
“So something like this is possible too.”
Entropy summoned a horde of zombies into Killian Court.
Cipher and Root stared intently at the monitor.
The realism was as if it were real.
The NPCs’ alertness indexes and stress levels rose. And then they began acting according to their individual dispositions.
Kyaaah—
The NPCs screamed.
Some immediately fled into nearby buildings, while others rescued people who had fallen.
There was even a student who brought a weapon like a stick from somewhere and stood against the zombies. The students who had taken shelter first were bringing objects over and setting up barricades at the entrance.
“Wow…”
“That’s really amazing.”
In an instant, the game had become survival suspense where chaos, fear, cooperation, evasion, and the instinct to survive all coexisted.
“With the Synapse Engine, we can make any game. From realistic simulators to zombie apocalypses, we can implement them just by adjusting the parameters.”
The three of them were silent for a while.
“If we make a crappy game with an engine like this…”
“If that happens, we should quit making games. It would mean we’re horribly incompetent.”
At Root’s words, everyone nodded.
“Let’s make a game worthy of the engine.
Seoha has already done far more than expected. We have to handle the rest ourselves.”
While Seoha was busy preparing his paper, the three of them began completing the game in their respective parts.
Cipher wrote a checklist on the whiteboard.
“The engine performance is overflowing, so I keep wanting to add more, but for now let’s focus on completing the beta version.”
Root raised his hand.
“Still, I want to add a few modes. Zombie mode, disaster mode, or maybe a scenario where aliens attack would be fun too.”
“It definitely feels wasteful to run only a daily-life simulator with an engine of this level.”
The three of them exchanged opinions, eyes sparkling.
“More than anything, this is an engineering school. Basically, if you gather MIT engineering nerds together, they’ll find a way to make anything.”
“The robotics guys could make robotic arms or something and throw bricks.”
“Can’t we do something like battle suits? Transformation is the ultimate dream.”
“The aerospace kids could make mini rocket launchers.”
“Flamethrowers can’t be left out either.”
Ideas sprang forth.
The whiteboard became packed with checklists.
The work continued for several weeks.
The Synapse Engine systematically implemented every idea they thought of. The campus expanded into an even more complex and realistic world.
The three of them worked at insane speed in their respective seats.
“What on earth happened here?”
Seoha’s eyes widened.
When he returned after finishing the colloquium, an entirely different sight from usual unfolded before him.
Roll, roll.
Energy drink cans rolling everywhere, dried-up pizza boxes, even pasta containers that were only half-eaten.
X marks had been drawn through the many checklists written on the whiteboard.
The state of the three people was even more serious.
Entropy was half-collapsed in his chair, modifying code.
Root and Cipher clearly looked as if they had not washed for days. And yet their hands had not stopped moving.
“Yo! You’re here?”
Root raised a hand in greeting.
On his desk, papers densely covered with debug logs were piled up.
“Seoha, that engine you designed. We weren’t making full use of it. But starting a little while ago, we finally got the hang of something.”
Entropy turned the monitor toward Seoha.
Disaster mode. A massive flood had occurred at the school. Brave students jumped into the water and rescued people in danger. Afterward, everyone climbed onto the buildings and began making boats.
Besides that, simulations with various modes applied were unfolding vividly inside the game.
“You must have worked really hard.”
What he had thought of as a simulator had been strengthened with game elements.
NPCs moved in completely different ways depending on their majors, and their individual thoughts intertwined to create crowd behavior.
“Haha! This much is nothing.”
“It was only possible because we had the Synapse Engine.”
Cipher and Root also looked proud.
“But how are you planning to release this?”
At a glance, it was a game that required enormous cloud computation.
Even if only a few hundred users logged in, they would not be able to handle the monthly server costs.
“Haha! We have an idea for that.”
Root, who was in charge of the server, explained the plan.
“First, we’re planning to release a demo version that can run locally for free.
Half the functions won’t be usable, and the scenarios will be limited to two. But this way, we won’t need to pay server costs.”
Seoha pointed at the monitor with a puzzled expression.
On the screen, a game of enormous scale had been implemented.
“I did the calculations, and the number of people our lab server can handle is thirty at most. We’ll have to put everyone else in a queue and block them.
If they want to enjoy the full version, they’ll have to suffer a little.”
Seoha was a little surprised.
Spectra Works was moving with a clear roadmap.
“That’s a good idea. If they play the demo version and get curious enough to try logging in, but then a queue pops up…”
“They’ll get impatient.”
“It’ll feel like a closed test too.”
“What if it gets famous as some legendary simulator?”
The three of them looked at one another and smiled with exhausted expressions.
Their faces were a mess, but after long hardship, they had produced a satisfying result.
“To be honest, there’s a possibility we won’t even gather thirty people…”
“Stop! Just think it! I’m terrified it’ll fail too.”
Cipher hurriedly cut off Root’s words.
“The opposite could happen too. The queue could explode into thousands of people, and investment offers could come pouring in from everywhere. Then wouldn’t we all become rich?”
Entropy tried running his happiness circuit.
“I really hope that happens. If we become a unicorn, we’ll get famous too, right?”
“I’m not even hoping for that much. I just want enough people to make an official release possible.”
Seoha glanced at the whiteboard.
There were still quite a number of unresolved bugs left.
“You should all get some rest. I’ll finish up the rest.”
How many nights had they stayed up here?
All three of their eyes were bloodshot red.
“Do we look that awful?”
“To be honest, we wanted to finish it before you came…”
“Sorry about that.”
Seoha forced them out and sat down in front of his workstation.
“I should start by organizing the big ones, right?”
When he opened the debug console, dozens of warning messages poured out.
Seoha loosened his hands, then began tapping on the keyboard.
Tatatatatatak.
When he looked at the wall, the timer was running.
[42 : 02 : 59]
Less than two days remained until the target deadline.
Tap, tap.
He deleted code, changed it, and tested it.
The NPC behavior graph was updated. The bugs that had been giving Spectra Works headaches were caught one by one.
By the time the three of them returned, Seoha had fixed most of the bugs.
Two days later, at 9 a.m.
A short post appeared on MIT’s student community and Reddit.
[MIT Simulator Internal Demo Release]