Chapter 29: The Uses of "Artificial Intelligence" (Happy New Year)

Looking at Hettie's hopeful gaze, Lucian smiled faintly and said, "It really is quite a crude and impractical artificial intelligence..."

Huh? Hearing their teacher's words, Hettie's expression immediately fell. Cheri, Ophelia, Lovi, Blake, and the other mages who had participated in its creation also wore dejected looks.

Sprint, however, was quite happy to take the opportunity to knock Hettie down a peg—she was usually so carefree and bold. "See? Even the teacher thinks this is basically just a toy. And a clumsy, enormous toy at that, one that ordinary people can't even use."

In his view, the machine was mediocre in almost every respect. The only thing worth praising was that it required no mage to operate it—it ran entirely on electrical power, so all you needed was an ordinary person who could read the instruction manual, and the calculations would be done. The problem was that it was far too large, far too heavy, far too intricate, and far too expensive. It was utterly unsuitable for widespread use.

"My auxiliary calculation circle is only mid-tier mage-level. Swap it out for the advanced operating circles in the laboratory, or the teacher's legendary-grade auxiliary circles, and they'd make your artificial intelligence so ashamed it would spontaneously explode. Heh heh, even the teacher's mental arithmetic alone could defeat it perfectly," Sprint said, pressing his advantage without mercy.

He wasn't hostile toward Hettie. On the contrary, he considered Annick and Hettie and the others among the very few true friends he had. It was simply that he believed the harder he pushed Hettie now, the more motivated she would be to improve the artificial intelligence. If it were him, he would absolutely be fired up with fighting spirit, refusing to admit defeat!

This had always been his nature, though the unruly edge had dulled considerably.

Hettie glared at him fiercely, secretly swearing that she would build a perfect artificial intelligence that would thoroughly crush Sprint's auxiliary calculation circle, leave his mouth hanging open with no way to close it, and make his jaw hit the floor.

Elistine and Nordaniel wanted to console Hettie, but lacking knowledge of the artificial intelligence domain, they couldn't find the right words. Katrina and Leilia, on the other hand, gave her an encouraging thumbs-up, signaling that achieving this much on a first attempt was already remarkable.

Beside them, a playful smile had already appeared on Natasha's face. Based on her understanding of Lucian, blunt criticism was often the prelude to praise, while words that opened with compliments frequently led into refutations and tactful admonitions. In his own words, this was called "subtlety."

"...Although this artificial intelligence has numerous shortcomings, the spirit and direction it embodies are more than worthy of an Arcane Award," Lucian continued, just as Hettie had suspected.

Huh?

What?

Hettie unconsciously rubbed her ears, suspecting she had hallucinated. A crude and impractical artificial intelligence that embodied the value of an Evans Arcane Award? This had to be a joke, right?

Lucian chuckled. "Crude and impractical—there's no question about that. But in the most ancient era of magic, the first spells our predecessors built by extracting patterns from magical creatures were equally crude and impractical. In our eyes, they may seem laughable and pathetic—they had to use four or fifth-circle spiritual energy to cast a spell that has since been simplified to apprentice level. But can we deny their contributions on that basis?"

"No..." Lazar answered, perfectly in sync.

Sprint and Annick and the others nodded gently. Without those early mages' efforts—efforts that looked so ridiculous and impractical—there would be no arcane civilization today.

"Which is why both arcane science and magic have developed step by step. Hettie, Cheri, Lovi, Blake, and Ophelia started from nothing—from a blank slate of design principles for artificial intelligence—and similarly arrived step by step at today's first working prototype. It wasn't easy. Although it's still crude, enormous, and clumsy, the thinking and direction it embodies hold extremely important value." Lucian's expression was solemn.

Hettie finally confirmed that her teacher was praising her. She immediately lifted her chin with satisfaction, then blushed slightly with a touch of embarrassment. "Teacher, the design principles owe a great deal to your guidance."

"My guidance was quite limited—merely the proposal of a concept. The actual substance was basically all your work." Lucian surveyed Hettie, Cheri, and the others. "Setting aside issues of volume, weight, and power supply, by how many times could you increase this artificial intelligence's computational speed?"

"...Perhaps four or five times. If there were a breakthrough in crystal research, maybe we could increase computational speed by tens or even hundreds of times without any increase in size or weight." Hettie's gaze grew slightly distant as she spoke of her visions for artificial intelligence. "At that point, it would be able to rival a high-tier mage's mental arithmetic or a mid-tier auxiliary calculation circle!"

Sprint looked somewhat surprised. The potential for improvement was that great?

Lucian nodded slightly and addressed the puzzled looks on the faces of Natasha, Lazar, Katrina, and the others. "According to the design principles they've established, the bottleneck lies solely in materials and components. And the development of materials and components is in turn extremely dependent on arcane research."