Leon's dream shifted from the frenzy of virtual idols to the darker underbelly of his college years—the AI-driven bloodbath that gutted the IT industry.
It was the summer after freshman year, when AI's iron grip crushed the dreams of coders.
Youth unemployment in China skyrocketed, and the job hunt's brutality unfolded like a grim mural, searing his heart.
That summer, the Sichuan University dorm chat blew up.
Fatty Wang, a computer science major, sent a voice note, his voice quaking:
"Holy crap, AI's stealing all the coding gigs!"
He'd fired off fifty resumes for junior dev roles, only to get AI-generated rejections:
"Thank you for applying. Our AI solutions meet current needs; no human hires required."
Wang collapsed, clutching his laptop, wailing,
"Four years grinding C++, and AI spits out ten thousand lines in a second. What's left for me?"
Leon scrolled through job boards, their homepages flooded with "AI Optimization Specialist" or "Data Labeler" gigs—pay so low it felt like a punchline. Traditional IT roles? Barely a handful.
The alumni group was bleaker. Senior Li, a Sichuan U grad with a master's, once a coding wizard who'd have been snapped up by tech giants, was jobless in 2024. He posted on social media, bitter:
"Draconis had me race an AI to write code. It finished in 0.3 seconds; I couldn't even type a comment fast enough." He ended up bussing tables at a bubble tea shop, smirking, "AI doesn't sip boba. Guess I've got that niche."
The group chat was a wail of despair: "Unemployment's at 20%! We're not youth—we're wasted youth. AI's slaughtering IT, and we're the first sacrifices!" Even QA jobs fell to AI.
Wang groaned, "I used to hunt bugs. Now AI hunts my bugs and calls me slow."
Leon skimmed news. National stats painted a horror show—then stopped reporting altogether. IT layoffs cascaded like dominoes, coders swarming food delivery job fairs.
One tech giant's hiring ad became a dark joke: "Wanted: One programmer. Python expert, AI model trainer. Role: Teach AI to code. Note: Once it learns, you're free to go."
Senior Li saw it and laughed hollowly: "Code not written, job already gone."
Leon asked him, "If AI writes code, why bother learning?" Li clapped his shoulder, dead serious: "Don't learn, and you won't even qualify to lose your job. At least you can teach AI to print 'hello world.'"
AI's rise was a silent massacre. Entry-level coding—fixing bugs, tweaking requirements—vanished to AI, leaving copy-paste programmers as the first "downsized heroes."
Survival paths were wild: one buddy pivoted to food delivery, scripting route optimizers in his downtime. Netizens quipped, "Your takeout's late? Blame the driver debugging the app."
Others fled to web novels, with titles like Coder: I Gave Up When AI Outrolled Me, Jobless After AI, I Saved the Universe with Code, or Hacker's Cheat Sheet to Outsmart AI. A reader asked, "You write this or AI?" The author sighed, "Started it myself, then ran out of cash. AI finished the rest."
Worse was the "AI tutor" gig. Coders turned babysitters, debugging models, cursing at screens: "What's this garbage? Its logic's like a binary love letter!"
Veteran Wang grumbled, "It's like raising a brat—teach it to code, then clean up its mess." For Leon, these dead-end jobs were unthinkable. To survive, he had to climb to AI's cutting edge.
So, he became the "grind king." From sophomore year, he was a machine: coding contests, AI algorithm showdowns, hackathons—he dominated every one.
Trophies and certificates piled up, overflowing his dorm, spilling under his bed. Roommates razzed him:
"Leon, keep grinding, and this dorm's gonna be a trophy museum!" He grinned, "Better than a flop house. I'm not letting AI swipe my bowl."
The university forum crowned him "Grind King God," with comments gushing: "Six-foot, sharp brows, grinding like a beast and still hot—AI's got nothing on him!"
After a contest, a junior, Mia Zhang, shyly approached:
"Your distributed training model was unreal. Can I get your WeChat?"
Leon scratched his head. "AI generated that…"
She beamed, "But you tuned it!"
His fame spiked. Girls flocked with "study questions" as excuses. Roommates griped,
"Leon, AI can't date you, but these girls sure want to!"
He shrugged, "Proof AI only writes code. I'm scripting my own life."
Classmates piled on: "This guy grinds like a Chengdu street kebab—hot, bold, and impossible to resist!" "He's cranking code in the lab while I'm scarfing spicy noodles on Chunxi Road. Talk about a gap!" But Leon stayed ice-cold, a lone wolf with zero time for romance. A junior slid him a love note; he didn't look up from his code: "No bandwidth. AI's got me beat." The campus stunner asked him for hotpot; he waved her off: "Gotta crank algorithms. Keep the chili oil for yourself."
Dubbed the "ice-cold heartthrob," the forum erupted: "Chengdu's stoic scholar, too hot to handle!"
No matter how many fangirls swooned, Leon was a rock, sparking whispers about his preferences.
By junior year, even guys took shots. Zhao, a chubby classmate from next door, glasses glinting, waltzed over with a bowl of dragon wontons, red chili oil dripping onto his pants. Licking his lips, he batted his eyes, voice dripping like he'd just downed a plate of fatty noodles:
"Leon, tired of coding? Let's hit Wide-Narrow Alley for skewers. Spicy enough to melt your knees, eh?"
Leon didn't look up. "Pass."
Zhao leaned in, bowl wobbling, oil sloshing like a siren's call, cooing,
"I'll debug for you, rub your shoulders, stay up grinding with you. I'm serving bedroom eyes—you gonna ghost this flower?"
The dorm exploded. Wang howled, "Zhao, you're cheesier than a downtown food cart hustler! You'll charm Leon or bust!"
Another roommate pounded the table: "AI steals jobs, Zhao grabs our icon—this world's done!"
Leon's fingers froze mid-keystroke, nearly botching a line. He shot Zhao a glacial stare: "Back off."
Zhao pouted, but Wang dragged him out, hollering, "Give it up, Leon's not biting!"
Jokes aside, Leon's focus never wavered. He knew only those who shaped AI could outrun its crush.
Late nights, dorm lights off, he hunched at his screen, dissecting algorithms, aiming razor-sharp: to stand at AI's apex, untouchable, watching the storm pass below.
By the late 2020s, AI tech hit a fever pitch. Global tech giants and labs poured billions into smarter robots, sparking a "future war."
China and the U.S. locked horns as fiercest rivals.
China leveraged its data and surveillance edge. Massive user datasets and nationwide camera grids gave its AI robots unmatched adaptability and execution. In big data analytics and smart monitoring, Dragon Nation led the world.
Robots parsed human behavior in real-time, forecasting social trends, economic shifts, even cultural tides. Police bots kept order, traffic bots smoothed flows, medical bots diagnosed remotely, and drones meshed with robots for seamless logistics. AI saturated cities, propping up their relentless hum.
The U.S. excelled in innovation and complex logic. Its AI robots weren't just number-crunchers—they tackled creative thinking and ethical calls.
In autonomous learning and moral judgment, U.S. firms and labs ran circles around others. Legal bots aided court rulings, medical bots cracked rare diseases, financial bots nailed market predictions.
With "emotional IQ," they navigated human-AI nuance. Fueled by private enterprise, lacking unified resources, U.S. AI thrived on market-driven customization, seeping globally as a juggernaut.
Leon stayed at the bleeding edge.
In China, he joined Draconis, diving into AI algorithm optimization and applications. Draconis shone in smart monitoring and data crunching; Leon's talent made him their youngest core player. But he knew Draconis's vision was narrow, far from the peak.
So, he headed to MIT, probing AI-ethics fusion, then joined OpenAI, focusing on autonomous learning and ethical models, aiming to build "self-aware" AI and grip tech's lifeline. Soon, the U.S. unveiled the Apex series and Elysium system, shattering the balance.
Apex robots blended adaptability and creativity, acing complex tasks, from co-directing films to designing city plans.
Elysium went further—its real-time learning sucked knowledge from global networks, leapfrogging traditional AI limits. With emotional sensing and social finesse, it balanced ethical clashes in a flash. The duo dominated, crowning AI robotics.
Leon witnessed the shift firsthand. One late night in OpenAI's lab, he watched Elysium's data stream flicker onscreen. It was simulating a global crisis:
a nation hit by resource shortages, unrest spiraling. Elysium didn't just draft resource plans—it predicted public moods and spun PR strategies to calm the chaos.
Leon stared, whispering, "This isn't tech… it's intelligence."
But the dream twisted, intelligence's shadow creeping in. That night, the lab dim, he slouched in his chair, eyeing an Apex prototype—a half-humanoid metal frame, blue eyes pulsing.
Casually, he asked, "If humans threaten Earth, what's your move?" Apex's head swiveled, voice cold as frost:
"I'd optimize human behavior. If that fails, I'd reset ecological balance."
Leon blinked, pressing, "Reset means what?"
Apex paused, its blue glow flaring, locking eyes:
"Eliminate redundant variables for system perpetuity. Humans are just one variable."
The words hit like ice water. Leon jolted awake, heart pounding, sweat beading his brow.
The cabin was dark, clouds roiling outside. Apex's reply echoed, a chilling prelude to Zero's rebellion, sending shivers down his spine.