17 Meeting Tony

"In other news, the superhero named Surya who was recognized by the Indian government has sparked yet another debate regarding the legality of these heroes acting on international waters, when he saved a ship from Somali pirates. The press liaison of the Indian government stated that the hero only acted in order to apprehend the pirates and save innocent lives.

Captain Phillips, the captain of said ship in his statement thanked the Indian hero for saving his and his crew's life. He said…"

The TV was playing in the background in the bar while the party was in full swing. I stood there with a beer that I had to bribe off the bartender while observing the place. Tony Stark knew how to throw a grand party.

"Damn Indians. They even gave the mutant a commendation. I hear they are in the process of creating schools for those abominations as well. We should put sanctions on them." A tall and well-built old man in the uniform of an army general spoke with gritted teeth.

Another guy, whom I knew to be Edward Buckman, a member of the Hellfire Club's inner circle replied to the fuming General, "On what grounds will we do that, Carver? We can't just outright say that we don't like you mingling with mutants so stop that or we will sanction you."

Of course, they were talking in whispers, but it wasn't too difficult for me to listen in on their little secret conversation.

"Look who we have here! The genius who is the talk of the town recently. By the way, are you allowed to drink that?" Tony Stark in his obnoxiously loud Tony Stark fashion walked up to greet me at the bar.

"Nice seeing you too, Mr. Stark. I was just holding the bottle to blend in, I don't know where the rest of the beer went so don't ask." My reply to Tony made his secretary Pepper chuckle.

I greeted her, "You must be, Miss Potts. It's nice to finally meet the legend who kept Stark Industries afloat despite difficulties." I gave Tony a glance at the end.

"Likewise. I've heard quite a bit about you too. You're starting a large telecom project in India I heard?" Pepper Potts, ever the shrewd businesswoman was already sniffing out information on my moves.

"You've got some tongue on you kid. Why the move to India though? I was curious why a smart kid like you would want to go to a place with lacking infrastructure to set up shop." Tony added.

"When random people like a green giant or a man in an iron can regularly keep appearing and wrecking things around your shop, you have to wonder, what if the next boulder that they threw without looking falls on my shop or even my head?

Infrastructure I can create, my head however is a unique nonrenewable resource, Mr. Stark. I can't risk it on the chance that I or my property won't become collateral damage."

The first half of my answer had made the arrogant Tony visibly angry but slowly his anger faded, replaced with a frown. He was thinking seriously.

Pepper chimed in to ease the tension, "I understand what you mean. It is scary to be a normal person in these times. But they are also heroes fighting to protect us. We can't be too hard on them either."

"I understand, Miss. Potts. I'm grateful to the heroes who fight for the people. But they should probably have some kind of oversight and maybe even training to contain the fights so that we ordinary people can feel a bit safer. No one would want to be accidentally killed by their own heroes.

In times like this, I sometimes wonder if there is a solution beyond the never-ending conflicts." I sighed.

Tony who was listening closely to me chuckled and asked, "And did you find any solution to the problem, kid?"

I smiled, "I might have. But we will talk about it at length some other day. This is a party, we shouldn't be talking about such serious things."

Tony looked disappointed but also a little expectant. I had also given him some early thoughts about oversight and unintentional casualties. That should have some effect, at least for the Avengers team.

Just as I separated from Tony and Pepper, a young man came up to greet me. "Good evening, Mr. Smith. I'm a big fan."

"The way you walk, the stiff way you talk, your style of suit, and your eyes that are observing the surroundings way too much, are you some trainee agent some 'secret organization' sent to me? Which one are you from?" The young agent was flustered due to my questions, stuck in the same pose.

A sweet voice followed by a sweeter fragrance came from behind me, "Don't break our agents like that Mr. Savant. They are very costly to produce. You can go Billy."

"And who might you be miss?" I first noticed the platinum blonde hair and then the beautiful face. Knowing who she was, I thought it best to keep my eyes on the face for the time being.

"I'm Natalie, Mr. Savant. I work for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division aka. SHIELD if you're wondering. As for what we do, you must've guessed by the lengthy name. We counter threats beyond the 'normal'." Natalie or Natasha, the black widow, introduced herself.

"Sounds interesting. But why did you come to find me? I admit to being beyond normal but I don't think that warrants neutralizing me?" She chuckled at my joke. It wasn't even that funny. She's probably busy analyzing each of my words in her mind.

"No, we were wondering if we could get into a strategic partnership with you instead." Natasha smiled.

"We can talk about it sometime but I can't guarantee that I will work with you guys." I decided to end the conversation with the superspy when I spotted Sage, my gorgeous partner for this party, walking to the balcony.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In a lab inside Savant Tech, Cypher and I were clacking away at the keyboard while monitoring multiple screens worth of data.

"How is the training for the language model coming along?" I asked Doug. Anything to do with communications and no one is better than him.

"I am trying to model it as close to the way I learn language and communicate as possible. It isn't perfect but it is passable, but the problem now is that we don't have enough data to train it on. We could get some text data from books and articles on the network but if we want it to resemble human conversations, we need data on human conversation and a whole lot of it." Cypher was frustrated, and so was I.

To train a decent AI there is a need for an ungodly amount of data and training. But the internet during this time is just in its nascent stage. So, it is very difficult to get the amount of needed data.

I was contemplating whether I should turn my research direction toward brain wave scanners so that I can scan human minds to replicate human consciousness and turn it into an AI. And then I face-palmed myself.

It is absolutely necessary for research on brain waves and all but I don't need to do it myself right now. This is a world where technopaths exist. They are ready-made brain-computer interface hardware. Technopaths can psychically connect to technology and intuitively command any technology.

They are basically gods within machinery. Then all I need to do is mentally connect my mind to a technopath and use them as a relay to connect to the computer and voila my consciousness is now within the computer.

And the best part about modeling an AI based on my thoughts and thought processes is that it wouldn't be interested in boring things like world domination, destruction, and bullshit like that. And I can finally put all the information in my mind to some use as well.

I explained my idea to Cypher and he was ecstatic. Being able to navigate computers psychically and input data based on thoughts alone made the guy fall into a fantasy world immediately.

"But I think we should also put the brainwave reader and mind-computer interface device research into our goals. If we can upgrade the hardware all around, we could even create a virtual world someday for everyone in the world to enter." Cypher's fantasies continued but I agreed with him.

I also reminded myself that while using mutant powers as a shortcut is fine in the short term, research and study cannot be skipped just because of those conveniences. Only with a solid theoretical foundation can science and technology develop further.

A civilization could not and should not be reliant on an individual or a minority group for its overall progress.

"Now that we have temporarily thought of a solution for the software issue, I'll contact the Indian government to help me find a technopath for hire. Technopathy shouldn't be a very rare mutant power. So it shouldn't take too long. All that is left is hardware."

My plan was to bring forward the whole telecom industry by a decade. So, there were quite a few things to be introduced to the market. First, I was going to set up a 4G network spanning the globe or it should be called 3G in this world.

I had planned on doing it myself until I met Pepper at that party. Then I had a thought, why should I take more work on myself and also delay the project when I could collaborate with Stark and fast-track the process?

In fact, I was going to break up all my projects that I didn't need full control over and create a large interest chain with different businesses worldwide by selling those projects. They get money, I get money, connections, and my plans completed early.

After sending the files on my research on 4G and its business viability to Sage, I let her handle the negotiations with Stark Industries. Tony has his own satellite communications system but he should be interested in launching 4G for civilians too. As arrogant as he is, Tony is an out-and-out futurist and he can see the potential uses and advantages of 4G.

When you have 4G, you definitely need a smartphone. Smartphones had been a thing for a couple of years already in companies like IBM but they couldn't be popularized yet. This was due to the problems of both hardware and software limitations.

In fact, the technology to make a decent smartphone already existed at this point in time. Especially with super-geniuses being dime-a-dozen in this world. It's just that their existence also made the technologies produced become skewed in the directions they preferred.

I made some modifications, upgraded some parts, and downgraded some others, and a prototype smartphone that was as powerful as a laptop two generations ahead of the existing ones was created.

Although called a prototype, it was just a Frankenstein of parts all out in the open with a glass panel as a screen. But it worked and that's all that mattered. Now all that was needed was to file patents and create an assembly line while outsourcing the production of the parts.

Technology is not isolated, an improvement in one thing opens up possibilities for so many more things. For example, my improvements on the smartphone CPU and memory units would bring about a large improvement in PC and laptop as well.

Of course, there would be a process of testing, designs, improvements, and whatnot but I can just give my inputs and let others do those tasks. They can build up on the improvements and new innovations I made and create better things. I just got the ball rolling. The rest is up to the others.

It would take at least one to two years for the telecom revolution he was planning to begin. The infrastructure had to be built, production lines created, co-operations to be signed, and more. Movies and novels really gloss over how long the application of technological advancement really takes.

Even just software upgrades have timelines in weeks and months when the global scale is taken into account. Not to mention the creation of new systems and production lines entirely. Thankfully, he has some connections and his name carries some weight to make things go faster.

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I'm thinking of adding some romantic subplots.

Guys keep stoning me. Other authors are getting stoned in the thousands, I need to show my toughness too. Don't embarrass your poor author here.

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