Dictator From Outer Space

Chapter 51: First Android 2

He sat in the VIP seat with Arma, who was maintaining his disguise.

Today’s protagonist was not him, but Robert, the CEO of BD.

He looked excited, as if it was his first time giving a presentation in front of Koreans, even though he was familiar with this kind of event.

The lights dimmed and something wrapped in a soft cloth was illuminated on the stage.

At a glance, it looked like a person sitting on a chair.

A murmur rose among the audience.

“BD’s robot looks pretty small.”

“Is it a humanoid robot? It has a female shape, right?”

“Ah, I wish they would take off the cloth…”

As if to grant their wish, Robert CEO stepped forward.

“Ahem. Greetings to everyone who was invited to this occasion. And to everyone around the world who is watching this broadcast.”

Surprisingly, his words were translated into several languages in real time and displayed on a panel.

Thanks to that, foreigners could also listen to the broadcast on YouTube.

The absence of Chinese and French was probably not intentional, maybe.

“For a long time, Boston Dynamics has been criticized for not releasing marketable robots. And the robot we are going to launch this time may not seem very marketable either. Unfortunately.”

“I’m not very good at speaking, so I need some help. I think this being sitting on the chair can help me. Lucia, can you take off the cloth?”

Lucia?

Suddenly, the thing sitting on the chair raised its arm and pulled off the cloth by itself.

And what appeared was a woman wearing jeans, a shirt, a hat and even a mask.

If her hand was not mechanical, the audience would have recognized her as a human.

“That’s an android…”

“It’s hard to tell with those clothes on.”

Lucia took off the cloth and neatly folded it on the chair.

In the process of crossing her legs, cheers erupted from the audience.

“Shh… You’re too noisy. My head hurts from being in the lab for too long.”

That voice is Lucia Premium!

Many people had bought Lucia and knew her voice very well.

Originally, it had a slight voice-ware feel to it, but now it was so refined that one could mistake it for a human if they closed their eyes.

Robert CEO sat next to her and spoke to her.

“Hello, Lucia.”

“Can you tell me what you want to say at once? That’s more efficient.”

She was just like Lucia Premium in that she valued efficiency.

In fact, if one kept loading her on a computer and doing nothing else, she would nag at them.

She would say that they should go outside and exercise instead of wasting time.

“Sorry. We want to show these people who you are. Can you introduce yourself?”

“I’ll just sit here and talk. Um… You probably know my name already, but it’s Lucia, and I was born not long ago. But don’t treat me like a baby. I know more than any of you here.”

―Wow!

As cheers erupted, Robert CEO calmed them down and asked.

“Of course you do. What we want to know is what you can do. Can you walk for a bit? From here to there.”

“I’ll only walk once.”

She would grumble if asked to do something, but she would do it anyway, just like Lucia Premium.

Under the gaze of the people, the android began to walk normally.

She didn’t have a perfect posture like a human, but she was incomparable to any existing bipedal robot.

She even reproduced the slight shaking of her arms.

Lucia reached the end of the stage and turned around like a model before walking back and sitting on the chair.

She pulled down her hat brim as if she was shy.

“Why did you make me do that? It’s obvious.”

“It’s not obvious for other bipedal robots.”

“I’m offended by that word. Can you call me an android? Or you can call me by my name. Who am I?”

A loud voice burst out from the audience.

―Lucia!

“What’s my name?”

―Lucia!

She shrugged her shoulders as if she was satisfied and looked at Robert.

“You’re too slow with your progress, sir. It’s boring. I’ll take care of it myself from now on.”

“Oh, go ahead.”

Robert CEO handed over his microphone to her.

Now Lucia held the microphone and walked around the audience.

Then she suddenly handed the microphone to someone.

“Did you buy Lucia Premium?”

“Uh, yes.”

The man answered in a polite manner, causing laughter from the surroundings.

Honestly, he couldn’t speak casually to her because she looked almost human, except for her hand.

Lucia didn’t care and asked.

“I knew it. What kind of specs are you living with on that side?”

“Well, I put her in a tablet and carry her around…”

“That’s too much. The specs are too low.”

“These days, tablets have good specs. Lucia is satisfied too.”

“Oh, poor thing.”

“What’s so poor about it?”

“The core is one thing, but the memory is too low. The screen is also small, so it must feel like living in a tiny room.”

By then, the man had to endure the playful criticism from the others.

“Oh, I made a big mistake. I’ll put her in a computer when I get home.”

“Be sure to buy the computer and TV that were released by Silla Electronics. Be sure.”

Lucia reached out her hand and he reached out his hand too, then flinched.

Her mechanical hand grabbed his hand.

Come to think of it, she was an android…

She was so human-like that he momentarily forgot that.

After that, Lucia freely walked around the stage and talked to various people.

There was nothing unnatural about the conversation and the topics were diverse.

She even snapped back at someone who asked how much she cost.

“Buy me? These days, even dogs and cats are adopted with the word ‘fostering’. Will you pay me a friend fee?”

She was no different from a human.

The audience woke up from the magic that Lucia showed them when she sat on the chair.

When Robert CEO turned off the switch, she finally stopped moving.

“Wow, amazing, right? This android is the result of combining our body and Silla Metaverse’s program. It can move for up to 3 hours and as you can see, it’s very quiet.”

The humanoid robots that BD had shown before were not like this.

They used engines, so they were very noisy and their movements were rough.

Of course, they showed off their skills by dancing or tumbling, but they couldn’t deny that they were robots.

But this Lucia was different.

The people didn’t notice that she was a robot until they saw her mechanical hand.

The lighting was so dazzling that they couldn’t see her movements well, but that also meant that it was shocking.

After that, Yu Ji-ha came on stage and explained the technical aspects with Robert CEO, but there were few people who were interested in them except for roboticists.

‘They should have just shown more of Lucia.’

That was what people thought.

Yu Ji-ha realized that and shortened his explanation as much as possible, then turned Lucia back on.

The people watched Lucia dance and were convinced.

The definition of an android might be different for each person, but the world would recognize Lucia as the first android.

…

The video that Boston Dynamics uploaded on MewTube that day attracted explosive attention.

The views surpassed ten million in an instant and reached one hundred million in a day.

Those who watched the video to the end did not skimp on their praise.

―Wow, this is incomparable to any other robot.

―I got goosebumps when I saw Lucia dance. She’s almost human, right?

―My sister finally came out of the monitor, but why can’t I buy her?

On the other hand, there were a few people who denied the video.

They were mostly people whose knowledge of robots had stopped in the early 2000s.

―Didn’t a robot made in Japan fall down the stairs? They’ve advanced this much already?

―This is CG. You have to lie more convincingly, this is ridiculous.

―They’re just putting on a show to raise their stock price.

These comments were quickly bombarded with dislikes and curses.

―The Honda robot that fell down the stairs was in 2006. What era are you living in? It’s 2027 now.

―Do you think you can do that with CG? Are you kidding me?

―The whole Silla Group voluntarily delisted themselves, what’s the point of BD raising their stock price?

These comments were followed by many others.

But those conspiracy theorists insisted that it was fake until the end.

However, they could no longer comment.

Silla Group had revealed videos of Lucia walking around various streets in Seoul as part of her promotion.

“Hello~”

People looked at Lucia, thinking she was a woman wearing a mask, and then their expressions changed drastically.

“Oh my, she’s a robot…”

“I really thought she was a human.”

“Look at her hand. Her hand is completely mechanical.”

Lucia received a lot of attention as she walked around Hongdae Street, Nowon Station, Sinchon and other places.

She shook hands more than a hundred times and talked to people of all ages and genders.

She even took off her mask and showed her bare face to a child who was curious about her.

“Aaaah!”

The child cried and people laughed.

What kind of face was behind the mask?

This video spread across the sea to Japan.

Japanese people, who had been proud of being the dominant country in humanoid robots except for BD, were shocked by this.

―What is this? She’s totally human.

―What have Honda and Sony been doing for 10 years?

―Please stop using machine guns when we’re fighting with swords. Please, I beg you.

―I’m seriously shocked. Did Korean robots come this far?

―You must have not watched the news for a year. Black metal battery, ion thruster… Korea is no longer below Japan.

―Please stop it, Japan’s life is zero…

Meanwhile, there were quite a few people who belittled it as an American technology, not Korean.

―After all, most of BD’s employees are Americans, right? So it’s an American technology.

―The body may be so, but the core of that AI is in Silla Group’s server. Don’t belittle it so much.

―Is that AI called Lucia really that great? I don’t believe it.

―You guys hate listening to Korean news so you closed your ears…

It must have been around the time when Starfield launched a projectile that landed on the moon and mined unobtanium.

Korean articles disappeared from Japanese portal sites.

It was completely different from the old days when there were always a few Korean articles on the international page.

The sites that translated Korean reactions distorted the facts or stopped updating altogether.

As a result, unless one deliberately searched for them, they could only access biased news.

The Japanese people realized the reality of Lucia and reacted with disbelief.

―This is not an ordinary AI…

―How long will Japan keep airing programs that say Korea is over? Cover this instead.

―Can’t we buy her?

―Lucia is only available in Korea and the US. And even in the US, they didn’t promote her much.

―I watched the video and it was amazing. This is like having an assistant inside the monitor. You can take her anywhere too.

―Why can’t Japanese companies make something like this?

―Korean companies can’t either. Only Silla Group can do it.

―I thought Japan would be the first to make a female android…

Of course, there were not only positive reviews.

Many people felt disgust and rejection at the idea of an artificial intelligence mounted on the first android.

―This is a human world, I can’t accept artificial intelligence or androids. The government should intervene and stop it.

―Is Silla Group’s AI development okay? Are there no ethical issues?

―Artificial intelligence could be tempted by crime… We need to prepare in advance.

But Yu Ji-ha didn’t listen to their complaints.

Even if they protested, it would end with a few people holding pickets and demonstrating in front of the headquarters.

Their words had no effect on him.