Episode 73

On the screen that Seo Jong-won was staring at, jaw agape, lines of text in a format quite familiar to me were cascading down.

[Question 1-1.]

A, having heard from his longtime friend B that B's uncle was storing gold bars at home, conspired with another friend C to commit robbery... (omitted)...

"This is a slightly modified version of a recent bar exam question," I explained, glancing at Lee Ha-roo. "And this is a prototype of the legal tech program this kid developed. Hey, hit it."

"Yes, sir."

Lee Ha-roo clicked the 'start' button for 'Free-Loading'.

At the same moment, the question text was pushed upwards, and a different set of text began to type itself out in its place.

"What are you trying to do? Could it be...?"

'Yep, that's it.'

The text finished appearing a moment later.

[1-1 Answer]

I. Conclusion

B is liable for the crimes of joint special robbery, causing injury through reckless driving, and the substantive concurrence of the crime of instigating murder.

II. B's Liability

Whether B is a co-conspirator in the special robbery committed by A and C.

a. Issue

The term 'joint' in special robbery requires a division of roles in the execution of the crime at the scene. The issue is whether B, who conspired with A and C to commit robbery, can be considered a co-conspirator in the special robbery.

b. Precedent

...(omitted)...

"Wh-what is this..."

An output resembling a law school exam answer sheet that was far too plausible.

It had extracted the relevant issues on its own from the summarized facts, found applicable precedents, and neatly derived a conclusion.

"The point is simple," Lee Ha-roo stated plainly. "From the start, AI doesn't understand what it's doing. It just spits out the word that has the highest probability of coming next. Based on data."

If that was the case, the problem was straightforward.

If you fed it enough data and tweaked the logic a bit, you could easily create a program that could handle legal texts.

"No, it's easier said than done..." Seo Jong-won muttered, bewildered. "Gathering enough data by hacking, and fine-tuning it to fit legal texts, which are different from everyday language, are not easy tasks. Isn't this a scam? Is it just a dummy that outputs pre-set text...?"

"Let's look at more, then." At my instruction, Lee Ha-roo displayed the next question on the screen.

[Question 1-2.]

A lent B 50 million won on 201X.0X.0X., but B did not repay the money even after the agreed-upon due date. Enraged, A sent B a text message saying, "If you don't repay the money, I'll set fire to your house." However, B checked A's message while half-asleep and did not properly understand it, and A, not knowing this, thought that B was intentionally ignoring him... (omitted)...

"Hit it."

"Click."

[Answer]

I. Conclusion

A is liable for the substantive concurrence of the crime of attempted intimidation and the crime of causing death by arson of an occupied structure.

II. The fact that a text message was sent to B

Issue

The crime of intimidation (Article 283 of the Criminal Act) is established when a person intimidates another, causing them to feel fear. Precedents view the standard for intimidation as notifying the other party of harm that would cause fear from a social perspective, and there is no question that A's text message, "I'll set fire to your house," constitutes intimidation. However, since B did not recognize the contents, the issue is whether A's act of intimidation reached the point of completion... (omitted)...

"One more."

[Question]

Jeong and Mu were co-owners of X land. However, Jeong's nephew, Byeong,... (omitted)...

[Answer]

I. Conclusion

The court must find Byeong guilty of embezzlement.

II. Whether the Special Provisions for Relatives (친족상도례) apply to Byeong.

Issue

Byeong is the nephew of Jeong, a co-owner of X land, but has no kinship with Mu. The issue is whether the Special Provisions for Relatives (Article 361 of the Criminal Act, Article 328 of the Criminal Act) apply in this case, making it impossible to bring charges without a complaint... (omitted)...

Questions and answers continued to pour out.

"I guarantee this isn't nonsense born from hallucinations," I declared, slamming something onto the desk.

Needless to say, it was my Korea University Law School student ID. And just in case, even a photo of my printed transcript.

"Korea University Law School...?" Seo Jong-won stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.

This was a guarantee from someone who had reached the top at the best law school in the country. Even so, to doubt the validity of these answers, you'd at least need a practicing lawyer or a law professor to evaluate them. Of course, there was no such person here.

"...So it's real, this program." Seo Jong-won received the laptop from Lee Ha-roo and began touching and manipulating the results and the program. He was a current practitioner and an expert in AI that generated text. At the very least, he had an eye for spotting a proper product.

"...It's an amazing piece of work. This thing." After a moment, Seo Jong-won placed the laptop back on the desk, as if conceding defeat. His voice was slightly hollow. "There are a few noticeable limitations, but at this level, it can serve as a prototype that can definitely draw the attention of the media and investors, even if we released it as is. But how did you make something like this on your own, without being a corporation?"

"Our kid's a bit smart, you see," I said.

"V."

Of course, Lee Ha-roo's talent in this field couldn't be expressed with 'a bit.' She was a genius among geniuses, certified by the original work. If it seemed impossible, you should complain to the original author, not to me.

And ultimately, what was important was something else entirely.

"If she can do this much on her own," I said, pointing at Lee Ha-roo, "how much more could you achieve if you worked with all of you?"

Then, I turned my gaze to Seo Jong-won and the executives of Writing gathered there.

"Oh, oh..." Someone let out a small exclamation.

In fields like this, sometimes a single extraordinary individual could bring about an absurd leap forward. If a proper infrastructure was provided to a genius capable of achieving results independently, wouldn't it be possible to create something far more tremendous? And how much would the people working together in that process gain?

'You should think about that, mister.' What was important for a businessman was ultimately that point.

"Certainly, with this..."

"Who is that person Mr. Park Yoo-seung brought? She feels like one of us from the start..."

"I thought she felt like one of us from the start..."

The executives' reactions had also turned favorable again. Just like Jo Young-cheol, except for the executives scouted for management or accounting, most were programmers like Seo Jong-won. People who had graduated from engineering colleges, especially computer science departments, and had spent their whole lives touching keyboards and staring at monitors. They sensed the scent of their own kind emanating from Lee Ha-roo. Moreover, having witnessed the performance of the product she created with their own eyes, there was no need to say more.

"What do you think?" Seo Jong-won wasn't the type to shy away from challenges. The profile I had researched about him showed he was an elite who had graduated from the computer science department of Korea University and joined a major corporation. But, dreaming of greater success, he had picked up the new-era item called AI and boldly started his own company.

What had worried Seo Jong-won about my intervention was that I was an outsider who knew nothing about development or business, and that my proposal was impossible by industry standards. But that was different now. An outsider? There wasn't anyone here who could confidently say they were better than Lee Ha-roo in terms of pure programming ability. The impossibility of legal tech? He had just been shown a working prototype. If he had been dealt a hand of cards worth betting on, the answer he could give was obvious.

"...Could you tell me more about the specific plans?"

That was a de facto acceptance, and no one present was foolish enough not to notice.

"Of course," I nodded. "But before that," I added.

"?"

"Shall we discuss the division of authority going forward?"

It wouldn't do to let someone who had been trying to block our path with all their might just casually jump on board. Seo Jong-won had the 'fault' of leading a business that had resulted in failure. It was absurd for him to have the same level of say in the new era as he had before. From the start, reform was about controlling the existing leader first.

* * *

Jo Young-cheol skillfully led the discussions about the detailed policies. The main point was to provide Free-Loading to Writing's research team and to allow Lee Ha-roo to participate in the research and development process with the authority of a supervisor and advisor. Anyway, she also had to study for the bar exam for the remaining two and a half years, so we adjusted the direction to allow her to exercise her rights while minimizing her burdens.

"It worked out well."

"I guess so," I nodded.

"Well, it's because the product was good."

'Free-Loading', which we had brought and demonstrated, was an upgraded version created by grinding down Lee Ha-roo's labor and going through my review, on top of the original's performance. Unlike the previous version, it had been brought up to a level where, if you provided it with simple facts that were problematic in legal terms, it could find the relevant issues and write a plausible answer on its own.

"It's not perfect yet, though." That was true. The current Free-Loading was only capable of providing answers to 'simple' facts. It couldn't directly solve real bar exam questions that were complex, mixing several issues and lengthy. That's why I had done some work on the questions we inputted. I had reorganized the text to simplify the facts and make the core issues easily visible. In the future, making it possible to solve even this kind of work on its own would become Lee Ha-roo's and Writing's homework.

Anyway, for now, we had taken a big step forward. Lee Ha-roo's grand dream of living off legal tech was slowly taking shape. If it were her usual personality, I thought she'd be jumping around with joy or boasting about it, but on the way back on the subway, Lee Ha-roo seemed quieter than usual for some reason.

"Why? Is there a problem?"

"No, it's not that," Lee Ha-roo shook her head. "I was just... thinking about the past for a moment."

"The past?" She tilted her head slightly and looked up at me. I met her gaze, her dark brown eyes that were usually hidden under the shadows of her hood. Her eyes, which had always looked tired because of her dark circles, were now shining, having regained a significant amount of their sharpness compared to the start of the semester.

"Do you know why I came to law school, Master?"

"...Well." It was a question I couldn't answer definitively, whether I knew or not. I knew a simple background: that she, who had originally been on an elite course in computer science programming, had experienced some kind of failure and had applied to law school as if she was running away.

'The problem is what that failure was.' The reason why the original author had created the character of Lee Ha-roo was for the convenient development of the story, to brush aside all kinds of problems requiring a computer with, "Anyway, Lee Ha-roo took care of it." Lee Ha-roo's background was nothing more than a kind of excuse to make it believable why a genius like her was in a den of humanities students. That was why there weren't any more concrete stories about her past in the main story.

"Well, it's not a big deal anyway." Having said that, Lee Ha-roo didn't bring up the topic again on the way back. She just asked me to stop by an arcade before going back to the reading room. I was going to refuse, of course, but for some reason, I felt like I shouldn't, so I played a few rounds with her.

'Alright.' The first thing I did after returning to the reading room was to open my laptop. What I had to check was none other than the bar exam channel.

[Username: GodofLaw]

[Posts: 12]

[Comments: 113]

[New Notifications: 37 (new)!]

As soon as I logged in, my account information came into view. After even Han Seol had ruthlessly criticized my terrible naming sense, I had cut off the unnecessary qualifiers and just changed my nickname to 'GodofLaw.' Of course, I had also received some criticism from the bulletin board users, saying it was cheesy, but since so many people had benefited from me, those opinions had quickly died down.

'That's a price I'm willing to pay.' This bar exam channel was a farming spot, so to speak, where I could get all sorts of rare and difficult legal problems from law school students all over the country for free. If I just left my anchor down, a lot of high-quality questions would pour in. Tomorrow was the day I, under the name of GodofLaw, would give answers to all those questions.

So, it was time to review the questions that had accumulated until today, one by one. I happily opened the thirty-seven notifications.

'Let's see... huh?' But among them, there was one post that caught my eye.