696 The Use of Artificial Intelligence (1/2)

Looking at Heidi's hopeful eyes, Lucien smiled and said, ”It's indeed a shabby and highly-impractical artificial intelligence…”

Huh? Heidi immediately pulled a long face after hearing her teacher's remark. Chelly, Alfalia, Lowi, Blake and the other sorcerers who contributed to the creation were frustrated, too.

Sprint, however, did not hesitate to mock Heidi who always seemed carefree. ”Do you see? Our teacher also thinks that this is basically a toy. A toy so clumsy and enormous that the ordinary people cannot use it at all, no less.”

In his eyes, the artificial intelligence had nothing worth complimenting at all except for the advantage that it could be powered with electricity without a sorcerer. Therefore, an ordinary person could complete the computations as long as he could understand the user manual. However, the problem was that the machine was too big, heavy, delicate and expensive to be promoted.

”My ancillary computation circles are only the level of middle-rank sorcerers. Your artificial intelligence would explode in embarrassment if it were the advanced computation circles or our teacher's legendary ancillary circles in the laboratory. Hehe. Our teacher can beat it even by calculating with his brain…” Sprint did not intend to let Heidi go easily.

It was not because he was hostile towards Heidi. Instead, he felt that Annick, Heidi and the other classmates were his few real friends. He merely felt that the more he frustrated Heidi, the more momentum Heidi would have to improve the artificial intelligence. If it were himself, he would've been full of battle desire under the mockery and wouldn't give in after all!

He had always been like this, but he sounded much less disobedient than before.

Heidi glared at him, swearing to herself that she would create a perfect artificial intelligence which would crush Sprint's ancillary computation circles so hard that his mouth would never be closed and his jaw would hit the ground!

Iristine and Nodanielle intended to comfort Heidi, but they did not know what to say due to their lack of knowledge about artificial intelligence. Katrina and Layria, on the other hand, raised their thumb encouragingly, hinting to Heidi that it was already an incredible result for a first try!

Natasha, who was standing not far away, however, put on a meaningful smile. With her understanding about Lucien, straightforward criticism was usually the harbinger of praise, and if he complimented someone at the beginning, it would usually be followed by rebuttals and indirect accusations later. To quote himself, it was called 'subtlety'.

”…Despite the many drawbacks of this artificial intelligence, the spirit and the direction that it presents deserves an Arcana Prize.” As she expected, Lucien went on.

Huh?

What?

Heidi rubbed her ears subconsciously, suspecting that she had hallucinations. The crude and impractical artificial intelligence deserved an Evans Prize in Arcana? Was it a joke?

Lucien chuckled. ”This machine is undoubtedly primitive and impractical, but the original spells that our ancestors constructed based on the patterns on the magic creatures in the primeval age of magic were also primitive and impractical. In our eyes, they may be so hilarious and pitiful, and they had to perform a spell which has been simplified to the level of apprentices today with the spiritual power of the fifth circle, but can we deny their contribution just because of that?”

”No, we can't…” Lazar replied cooperatively.

Sprint and Annick also nodded. Without the seemingly hilarious and impractical efforts of the sorcerers at the beginning, there wouldn't have been the magic civilization today!

”All achievements in arcana and magic are made step by step. Heidi, Chelly, Lowi, Blake and Alfalia have built the first prototype from scratch without any knowledge in artificial intelligence. It's not easy. Although it is shabby, huge and clumsy, its idea and direction are very valuable.” Said Lucien solemnly.

Heidi finally confirmed that her teacher was praising her. She raised her head proudly, before she somewhat blushed. ”Master, we couldn't have designed it without your guidance.”

”I offered little guidance except for the notion. Most of the details were completed by yourselves.” Lucien looked at Heidi and Chelly. ”Without considering the size, weight and power supply, how much faster can the computation speed of this artificial intelligence be improved?”

”…Approximately five times. If the research on crystals have groundbreaking developments, it's possible to improve the computation speed by dozens of times without increasing the size and the weight.” Heidi's eyes became hazy when she described the prospect of artificial intelligence. ”By then, it will be as powerful as the brain of senior-rank sorcerers and the middle-rank ancillary circles!”

Sprint was rather surprised. Could the performance be improved so greatly?

Lucien nodded and, looking at Natasha, Lazar, Katrina and the rest of them who were confused, said, ”According to their design, the bottleneck of the artificial intelligence lies in materials and parts, and the development of materials and parts is highly dependent on arcana studies.”