Translator: Dreamscribe
The project was officially set in motion.
The main lab was located on the 4th floor of the City Traffic Research Center in MIT dia Lab E14 (East Building 14).
The overall director was Dean Whitman, and the co-director was Deputy Director Alan.
Yu Seo-ha was put in charge of the overall research of this massive project.
In the late afternoon, sunlight stread into the lab along the river. Inside the glass-walled conference room, personnel from MIT, Harvard, and the Boston Transportation Authority were seated in a semicircle.
Tap.
When Seo-ha connected his laptop to the docking station, a 180-degree curved screen on the wall turned on, displaying the entire road network of Boston.
"Alright, let's get started."
Dean Whitman, with a gentle smile, signaled the beginning of the eting.
"As you all know, today marks the official start of the 'Boston Adaptive Signal Project.' This project is the first attempt to bring mathematics, urban engineering, artificial intelligence, and policy studies together in one place.
As researchers and policymakers from around the world, not just Boston, are paying close attention, I hope you will all exert 100% of your abilities."
Whitman looked around.
After eting with a "certain professor" Mayor Patrick made one condition to Alan.
This project must not be conducted solely by MIT.
The impression that one university was handling the traffic system of an entire city was politically dangerous.
While acknowledging MIT’s technical superiority, he strongly insisted that Harvard participate in the research for balance and transparency.
MIT resisted, but they could not overco the justification that “it wouldn’t be a bad thing for the two leading intellects of Arica to collaborate for the benefit of the citizens.”
If the city had not guaranteed MIT’s stake, the research would have been scrapped entirely.
“Then, let’s start with introductions from the Harvard side.”
At Whitman’s words, a woman seated on the left stood up.
A black tailored jacket, neatly tied blonde hair, cold-looking blue eyes. She seed like the human embodint of Harvard’s image.
“I’m Sophie Adler from the Harvard Kennedy School.
I’ll be in charge of social acceptability and policy ethics in this project.”
At the word ‘ethics,’ the researchers furrowed their brows.
Technology and ethics had never gotten along well. The sa went for the relationship between Harvard and MIT.
Sophie calmly continued speaking, used to such looks from researchers.
“As a policy ethicist, my role is to analyze how the algorithms we create operate in citizens’ daily lives, who they affect, and what responsibilities they leave behind.
I look forward to working with you.”
Clap clap clap.
After the half-hearted applause, the next researcher stood up.
A thin man with a strict expression.
“I’m Michael Kelman from the Harvard Data Science Lab.
I’ll be in charge of anonymizing citizen data, restricting pedestrian identification, and conducting AI ethics audits.”
A silence fell.
When Whitman looked at Alan, he awkwardly turned his gaze away. It was sothing even he couldn’t do anything about.
“What if unethical actions occur during the research? That could destroy .”
He, too, could fully understand Mayor Patrick’s concern.
Whitman gestured toward the others seated.
“Now, let’s hear from the Transportation Authority people.”
A middle-aged man in a leather jacket stood up.
Broad shoulders, rough hands, his appearance exuded a strong sense of fieldwork.
“I’m Tom Riley from the Boston Transportation Authority.
There’s nothing in this city’s signal system that hasn’t passed through my hands. Our team will be in charge of integrating the network of actual signal lights and sensors, as well as conducting field tests.”
Seo-ha smiled.
Seo-ha had a sense of respect for those field-type people. Those who actually fix broken systems with their hands.
It was a kind of romance that all n had.
Aside from these individuals, MIT's data engineers, the city governnt's technical staff, and intern assistants dispatched from various universities were quietly filling their seats with laptops and notebooks in hand.
Whitman signaled to Seo-ha with his eyes.
“Lastly, let introduce Yu Seo-ha from the MIT Departnt of Mathematics, who will be overseeing the research of this project.”
Everyone's eyes turned toward Seo-ha at once.
Seo-ha smiled awkwardly and stood up.
“I'll be in charge of designing the mathematical structure and the autonomous adjustnt algorithm for the signal system in this project. I look forward to working with you.”
Seo-ha bowed his head.
Although the researchers clapped, they couldn’t hide their discomfort.
'Isn't he too young?'
‘Is it really okay to entrust overall research to that kid?’
‘I heard he’s outstanding, but still…’
Researchers from City Hall and Harvard rolled their eyes around.
In the end, AI expert Michael Kelman was the first to raise his hand.
“I’ve read your paper carefully. But reality is not a simulation. Real-world data is far more incomplete and nonlinear.
For example, pedestrian density doesn’t change periodically over ti.
There are various factors like the start of the school term, weather, stadium events, and construction schedules. Can you really explain all that with a single function?”
Whitman furrowed his brow.
In his long experience, projects that gave off this kind of atmosphere from the very first eting rarely succeeded.
An engineer from City Hall also raised his hand right after.
“I feel the sa way.
In your paper, you approximated traffic volu data using a Gaussian process. But real traffic data has an overwhelming amount of noise.
Especially with vehicle tracking data based on GPS coordinates, there are endless accumulations of signal loss, delay, and correction errors.
The ‘topological sorting’ you’re referring to depends on average values, doesn’t it? At this level, even the phase values themselves could fluctuate.”
It wasn’t reasonable for a project assembled to find answers to just reel off problems that everyone already knew.
Whitman’s face flushed with anger.
The expressions of the MIT researchers weren’t bright either.
Coming out like this from the beginning was clearly an attempt to establish dominance early on.
Though the project was nominally a joint effort, all the design and core technology had co from MIT.
‘Are they trying to shake our technical leadership?’
They were likely planning to later demand a stake in the project under the justification that they had identified problems and found solutions together.
Just as Whitman was about to snap and tell them to cut the nonsense, he looked to his side and saw Seo-ha’s eyes sparkling.
Seo-ha answered with delight.
“So you were all thinking the sa thing!”
His voice sincerely welcod the questions.
“Huh?”
“Ah… no, I an, from now on…”
The two who had tried to nitpick stuttered, not understanding what was happening.
"That was actually the part I was most looking forward to in this project.
My model in the paper couldn’t reflect the real traffic network. But now we can put in the real thing. I have no intention of removing the error. I plan to treat it as a pattern and find the repeating structures…”
Seo-ha looked around.
Whitman quickly picked up on what Seo-ha wanted.
“Bring the board!”
At his lion-like roar, the researchers in the room flinched.
Ellie and Jason, who had been sitting in the back corner looking sleepy, jumped up. As assistants, they had been in charge of preparing supplies for the eting.
Since the eting began, they’d been crouched in the corner taking notes, but now the dean's stern voice had co down on them.
“Y-yes!”
Jason hurriedly rolled out a whiteboard that had been pushed into the adjacent room.
Clatterrrrrr-
The large wheels rattled across the conference room floor.
Ellie moved around the room gathering markers by color.
Whitman handed a marker to Seo-ha.
“Seo-ha! Explain it to them in a way they can understand. Kindly.”
Whitman grinned.
“Yes!”
Seo-ha nodded, looking genuinely excited.
Watching the scene unfold, co-director Alan rubbed his forehead with his hand.
Whitman glared at them.
“You’d better listen carefully. If you can’t understand even when the answer is given, there’s no reason for you to be here, is there?”
Gulp.
Under Whitman's cold gaze, the two researchers straightened their backs nervously.
Screech, screech.
Seo-ha's marker moved swiftly across the board.
Complex symbols connected, curves and graphs appeared. Before long, equations had filled the entire board.
From Seo-ha’s fingertips, the road network of Boston was reborn as one giant equation.
“This is the phase equation of the city.”
The researchers stepped closer to understand the formula.
They stared wide-eyed at the board, but there were too many difficult parts for those who hadn't studied Seo-ha's theory in depth.
From the start, this was an equation so complex that even a giant in the field like Alan had to spend an entire day to grasp it fully.
Seo-ha drew a curve with the marker.
“Phase doesn’t refer to the absolute traffic volu, but the relative timing of when each intersection makes its next decision.”
Seo-ha wrote more equations and graphs.
“This axis represents the rate of change in traffic volu. In other words, the algorithm reads the stress of each segnt by how fast or slow the volu changes.
And when this rate of change is transford into phase, all the nodes in the city start to ripple like one giant wave. I call this ‘phase sorting’.”
At so point, the external researchers had stopped keeping up with Seo-ha’s explanation. Unaware of this, Seo-ha, excited, continued speaking.
“Yesterday, the Transportation Authority gave access to the data lines, so I checked the data and got a few ideas from it.”
'More from here?'
‘In just one day?’
‘Looks like we ssed with the wrong guy.’
The faces of the external researchers were turning pale.
Seo-ha, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, put down the used marker, picked up a new one, and opened the cap.
“Previous algorithms only sorted traffic flow by ti sequence, but in reality, reactions co first. I applied the propagation speed of that decision-making process to the algorithm.”
When he drew with a blue marker, a new curve appeared beside the existing graph.
While the existing smooth waveform maintained a consistent rhythm, the new curve was far more complex.
The atmosphere in the lab grew heavier.
Screech, screech.
Seo-ha’s marker showed no sign of stopping.
Michael, with his mouth open, wrote sothing on paper, then crumpled it a few seconds later. The engineer from City Hall who had asked the question also now had a dazed look on his face.
Whitman stepped forward as he looked at them.
“Answering sincerely until the questioner understands. That is the virtue MIT has always upheld.
Guys, lock the door.”
MIT interns and researchers desperately suppressed their laughter as they blocked the door.
“It doesn’t make sense for the core mbers of this project to not understand the key algorithm.”
Employees from the Transportation Authority glared at the engineer who had asked the question, as if blaming him.
Harvard wasn't much different.
“Seo-ha?”
“Yes!”
“I think your explanation’s still lacking.”
Seo-ha nodded firmly with a determined expression.
The MIT researchers were on the verge of fainting from trying to hold back their laughter.
Two hours passed.
The board had already been replaced several tis, and marker caps and worn-out pens were scattered on the floor.
Seo-ha was still full of energy.
Whitman sipped his coffee and twitched the corner of his mouth.
‘He’s completely imrsed now.’
Dominance plays or struggles for initiative likely didn’t even exist in his mind to begin with.
All Seo-ha was thinking about was how to perfectly refine his algorithm.
Even the external engineers who had initially taken Seo-ha’s explanation as an offensive rebuttal gradually beca moved by his passion.
At so point, they too began actively exchanging opinions and participating in the discussion.
‘Though not all of them…’
There still seed to be quite a few who couldn’t understand the algorithm.
Whitman smiled.
‘How dare they.’
He set down his coffee cup and muttered to himself.
From now on, they would treat Seo-ha with the respect befitting the head of research.
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