He wasn't about get himself blown up by playing with a power plant after all.
But when he'd heard of a powerful new technique being developed at this lab, he jumped at the chance to get his son taught in it.
However, he was rather disappointed with what had found.
"So, what you are saying is that this has nothing to do with martial arts?" he asked the woman in the white coat in front of him.
Doctor Takeda nodded. "This is a lab where we are trying to develop new techniques in artificial intelligence."
"'Artificial' what?"
"Artificial intelligence. Basically, a computer program that would run itself. At the moment we're only in the development stages, but we hope that we will soon have a program with which a user would be able to have an ongoing relationship."
"Seems pointless..."
"I assure you that it is not. Imagine if you were to go to your dojo and want to try out a technique that you can't exactly remember. This sort of program would be able to help you call it up without having to lift a finger," she informed him.
"Now that sounds useful."
"It is, though I was surprised when I had heard that you and your son were interested in our program. Until then, the only ones who had asked about it were others in our field."
Glancing at his son, Genma frowned. "I was looking to make the boy a better martial artist, so when I heard that you were looking for children to test with, I jumped at the chance. Though I don't understand why you would want kids for this sort of thing..."
"Children are more open to new ideas and experiences. They don't assume as much, and like to play games. And with their uncomplicated communication, they can interface with our programs quite well. Though we would hope that they would be able to push the intelligences into thinking for themselves, but that would be a long shot at best."
"I see... Well then, I'm pretty sure that we can't do much here. I'm going to have to take my boy and head back out on our training trip."
"I understand, and though I would hope that you would reconsider, you can go. Just remember that you can not speak of this to anyone outside of the complex."
"You have my word, and our agreement," Genma told her as he patted the wad of cash in his gi before turning to look where his son was sitting. "Ranma, it's time to go."
"Do we have ta?" the pigtailed boy complained, "I was talkin' ta this nice girl."
"What girl is that?"
"The one on the other side of this line. We've been talkin' while ya were busy, and she's been pretty great ta talk ta. Even if it's real wierd talkin' ta somebody usin' a machine..."
Takeda blinked, and stared at him. "But that computer isn't hooked into any outside line. There should be no human contact possible from that unit."
"It is? But I've been talkin' ta her for a while now."
"I don't see how that's possible. Not unless you're talking to an... AI."
"What is it?" the portly martial artist asked.
"The only way that he could talk to anyone would be if he was talking to one of the artificial intelligence programs, but that couldn't be possible. We haven't gotten that far yet, and they were only giving preprogrammed responses."
"That's wierd," Ranma replied, "She doesn't like she's been programmed ta say anythin'. She even told me her name all on her own."
"Her name..?"
"Yeah. She said that it was:
(Posted Wed, 11 Feb 2004 21:13)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.