Chapter 043: A Path Different from One's Intentions (2)
Hee-soo wanted to see the real face of the Daebul Industrial Complex.
Looking only at the company presidents, he did not think he could make an accurate judgment.
Chief Jang checked Hee-soo's intentions.
"Wouldn't it be better to go later with those company presidents guiding us?"
"I want to see it without makeup."
"No matter how much makeup you put on something, you can't completely hide its bare face."
"Still."
"All right. I'll cancel the scheduled industrial-complex tour with them."
The car entered the nearby Daebul Industrial Complex.
It was lunchtime, so workers heading out to eat filled the sidewalks.
"Hee-soo. What do you think of this place?"
"There are a lot of foreigners."
"And a lot of older workers too."
"Right? Young people don't want to work here."
"That's understandable."
"There's almost nothing here except work and money."
"It's not even a place where you can earn that much."
"A lot of people work for close to minimum wage."
"The work is hard too."
"So young people call places like this shitty small companies and refuse to come."
"Instead, foreigners who can live on this level of income and still send money back home come here to work."
Hee-soo silently nodded.
"It's a vicious cycle."
"Companies have their own circumstances too."
"If worker skill is equal, naturally they'll look for cheaper labor."
Chief Jang watched the scene quietly before speaking again.
"Then do these companies not need good workers?"
"They always need good people."
"Why do they need them?"
"To put it crudely, if you could train a monkey to run the line, wouldn't that be more profitable?"
"That's one of the reasons I want to build AI-based automated lines here."
"Now that you mention it, I'm curious."
"Why come all the way here to build automated lines?"
"You could just build them inside Suseong."
Hee-soo smiled.
"Because AI-based automation technology doesn't just fall from the sky."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"To automate using AI, the AI needs something to learn from."
"The more skilled the worker it learns from, the better the automated robot becomes."
"Hmm. So that's how it works."
"In the end, you're taking their skills."
"Correct."
"Then after that, are you taking all those robots away?"
Hee-soo shook his head.
"There's no need."
"They can keep using the robots."
"I only need the AI training data after it has learned."
"In the end, the real asset is the training data."
"So if you install the same training data in another robot, it can move like the robot at the actual factory?"
"Yes."
"They won't even realize their skills are being taken from them."
"Let's call it preservation."
"We don't say reading a book is stealing the author's knowledge, do we?"
"Hahaha. That's true."
At that moment, Hee-soo's stomach growled.
Grrrr.
Chief Jang asked,
"Want to go to McDonald's?"
Hee-soo smiled.
"Let's do that."
The car stopped in front of a nearby McDonald's.
They ordered large meals and sat down.
Hee-soo took a large bite of his burger and drank cola.
Only then did his face brighten, as though his brain had finally started working again.
"Haah. I ate things like this all the time in America."
"Not necessarily McDonald's, but I went to Five Guys or In-N-Out pretty often."
"You went to places like that too?"
"Yes. My friends always asked me to go with them."
He was about to take another bite of his burger when a familiar phone notification sounded.
Ding!
Hee-soo pulled out his phone like lightning.
A red marker was displayed on the screen.
A victim?
His eyes widened.
He suddenly stood up.
"Chief Jang. Just a moment."
Before Chief Jang could even answer, Hee-soo ran outside.
There was a public parking lot not far from the McDonald's.
Hee-soo stopped at the place closest to the red marker.
A children's shuttle van was parked in front of him.
He could not see anything inside.
This is the right place.
Hee-soo moved slightly and checked the location again.
"It's here."
As he wandered through the parking lot, Chief Jang approached.
"What are you doing?"
"There's someone inside this vehicle whose life is in danger."
Chief Jang was briefly confused by Hee-soo's sudden statement.
But he did not hesitate.
He immediately called the police.
"Police? There's a vehicle parked here, and someone is trapped inside."
"A parking lot? Which parking lot?"
"We're near Pyeonghwa Park."
While Chief Jang was on the phone, Hee-soo went to the car, took out a crowbar, and prepared to break the shuttle van's window.
Chief Jang quickly stopped him.
"Hee-soo, wait a little."
"I called the police."
"We don't have time for that."
It was June.
Mokpo's sunlight was different from Seoul's.
The outside temperature was below thirty degrees Celsius, but the inside of the car looked like it had reached at least sixty.
Without hesitation, Hee-soo struck the corner of the front door window hard and precisely.
Cracks spread through the tempered glass as the crowbar punched into it.
Hee-soo pushed the crowbar farther in and pulled hard.
The top part of the window tore away.
Calmly, Hee-soo put on leather gloves, gripped the opening, and ripped the remaining glass away.
The front door window came completely off.
Scorching air rushed out from inside the car.
