At exactly 10 a.m. the next morning, inside the largest conference hall of Gastar Electronic Entertainnt.
This hall was over nine ters tall—three tis the height of a regular floor—and was the only room on that entire level.
Typically, it served as the venue for Gastar's major Direct presentations and was occasionally used for high-level internal etings.
Whenever this hall was opened, it ant the company had sothing very important to announce.
The last ti it was used was during the reveal of the Switch and a collective brainstorming session.
"So, what do you think the president's going to talk about today?" whispered one manager from the 6th Developnt Division.
The manager beside him from the 7th Division shook his head.
"No clue. Haven't heard a single leak."
"Ha! You guys really don't know anything. I actually know quite a bit," said a manager from the 4th Division smugly.
...
He had witnessed the whole thing yesterday—although he still didn't fully understand this "AI" stuff, he definitely knew more than the others.
"Then spill it already! Stop teasing us."
"Alright, I'll—"
"Good morning, everyone. It's 10 a.m. sharp. Let's begin the eting."
Just as the 4th Division manager was about to share, Takayuki appeared at the podium and officially opened the eting.
"You're all managers from various developnt departnts, so I'll get straight to the point. Today, we're announcing a new technology we plan to introduce into our workflows—artificial intelligence, or AI, as it's popularly known."
Takayuki paused, then tapped a button on the console in front of him. The giant screen behind him lit up.
On it was a feed from a lab showing a bunch of young people who looked like they hadn't slept all night—so slumped in chairs, others flat on the ground snoring.
"Uh... what's this?"
"Not sure..."
Even Takayuki was montarily caught off guard. What happened to these people?
He quickly realized—They probably pulled an all-nighter to finish the demo I asked for.
"Mr. Benedict, are you there?"
"Ah—Mr. Takayuki! Sorry, I dozed off for a bit. Cos with age, I guess."
"You've worked hard. Looks like I may have pushed you all a little too hard..."
"No no, not at all! We did this voluntarily. We also wanted to get this demo done as quickly as possible—it was just as enlightening for us as it is for you. Honestly, your idea is brilliant!"
The attendees in the hall were puzzled. What even is this lab? What does AI have to do with our work? Is this really the big new tech the president ntioned?
"So, the demo..."
"Ready to go! It went more smoothly than expected. I'll switch over to the training screen now."
With the sound of clattering keys, the display on the big screen changed to a computer desktop.
At the center was a basic-looking program window—was it... a ga?
Everyone stared at it.
It looked extrely crude.
Or rather... you could call it a ga, if only barely.
The screen showed a textureless, flat terrain—like the default environnt in a ga engine—with so cubes, pyramids, and other basic shapes scattered around. In the distance were two red and two blue low-poly humanoid models, all smiling.
The murmurs began:
"Is this a demo on how to make gas faster?"
"If so, they should've used a more complex scene."
"Co on, this is child's play. I could whip this up in 30 minutes."
"Thirty? I only need 20."
"Heh, ten for ."
"Keep flexing, guys. This is exactly why work culture's so toxic these days. But yeah, a ga like this is no big deal—especially when we have the world's best engine: Unreal."
Just the ntion of the Unreal Engine filled the room with pride.
It was the top ga engine in the world—capable of building anything from high-fidelity open-world adventures to pixel art side-scrollers.
Decades of accumulated expertise, plus the collaborative contributions of countless developers, had elevated Unreal into sothing untouchable. Every studio that used it added their own optimizations, which the engine absorbed to improve itself even more.
"Clearly, the president's not trying to show us how fast gas can be made. He's aiming for sothing else."
Those more familiar with Takayuki's thinking were already starting to speculate.
"Right. He never does anything aningless."
Takayuki began speaking again:
"I imagine many of you are confused, so allow to explain. What you're seeing here isn't exactly a ga. There's no player input, no interactivity. This is simply a demo. The red and blue characters you see on screen—they're not controlled by players. They're both powered by AI."
"This is artificial intelligence, learning through countless iterations inside a controlled ga environnt. What we're witnessing are ergent behaviors that even surprised us."
As he spoke, he gestured for Benedict to begin the simulation.
Benedict clicked 'Run'. The red and blue characters began to move aimlessly.
"The only rules I gave Benedict were simple: the red team must try to catch the blue figures, and the blue team must avoid capture before the tir runs out."
"That's it. Those are the only conditions. Now, let's fast-forward a bit."
Benedict adjusted the simulation.
Roughly an hour of training passed in the simulation.
And sothing changed.
The characters, once random in movent, now displayed patterns.
The blue AI had begun learning how to avoid being caught.
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