The Mech Touch

The entire Design Department continued to design their mechs with gusto.

The Red Fleet truly lived up to its reputation.

Processor clusters such as the SF-02 was one of the many means the fleeters relied upon to maintain technological parity with the Red Association.

Ves gained a better understanding of the differences between the mechers and the fleeters.

The former relied a lot more on human ingenuity to develop superior technology. Their output was rather inconsistent, but once in a while a brilliant mech designer may be able to introduce revolutionary new paradigms that completely changed the game.

The latter relied on a huge quantity of ordinary researchers and lots of powerful computing systems. This allowed them to conduct a huge amount of basic research and excel at developing incremental improvements. Their ability to innovate may not be as great, but even small improvements could produce considerable increases in the combat performance of massive warships.

Right now, Ves was one of the rare individuals that got to enjoy one of the benefits of the latter approach.

The mechers were capable of piling up a lot of processing power as well, but Ves bet that their intelligent direction was completely inferior compared to the smart AIs developed by the fleeters.

Mech designers had long maintained strong animosity towards AIs. They feared getting replaced by programs that designed mechs on their own. They also objected to replacing mechs with battle bots.

To the mech community, mechs were a means for humans to ascend to godhood. The human must always be at the center in order to justify their treatment.

In that regard, an overreliance on smart AIs threatened to violate this principle.

Ves already noticed that he and many other mech designers had grown lazier. They were delegating work assignments to Polly or Momo that could have given them good opportunities to exercise their design skills.

Not only was it convenient to delegate these jobs to the smart AIs, but they often managed to obtain results a lot faster!

If Ves could not resist the temptation of using this 'cheat', then how could others refrain from abusing this new service as well?

He felt greatly concerned about this matter. He could foresee that if this pattern continued, the Design Department would be able to complete their assignments a lot faster, but also cause their long-term growth to atrophy.

At worst, they would not be able to break through because their fundamentals in mech design hadn't experienced any measurable growth!

Given the serious nature of this problem, Ves immediately called three mech designers to his office to discuss this matter in private.

Gloriana entered first. Her serious expression indicated that she already guessed what he wanted to discuss. That was good.

Alexa Streon and Kelsey Ampatoch arrived shortly afterwards. Ves sought their input because they were genuine first-class mech designers who were most familiar with the strengths and pitfalls of the data-driven design approach.

"Alright, everyone is here, so let's begin." Ves immediately spoke as he leaned forward while clasping his hands above his desk. "I am sure I do not need to explain the problem in detail. Everyone has been making as much use of the smart AIs as they could get away with. Compared to doing all of the hard work yourself, it is much easier for you to set a bunch of parameters before letting the smart AIs crunch the numbers. This is not a good development in my opinion."

"I agree in part." Gloriana spoke up. "I agree that relying too much on our new smart AIs is not conducive to everyone's growth. However, there are situations where relying heavily on the powerful automation tools at our disposal is a logical course of action. I am extremely frustrated with our growing backlog of high-end mech design projects. It has continued to grow longer with every mech pilot that breaks through. Now, I finally have hope of shrinking the backlog. I have no problem with using the full might of the smart AIs to quickly reduce the amount of high-tier expert mechs and junior ace mechs that we are obliged to design."

As usual, Gloriana made a good point. Her logic was always sound as long as the subject did not relate to her obsessions and pet peeves.

"I do think that we need to work on shrinking our backlog, but it may be too much to rely so heavily on automation to complete so much work." Ves said. "I noticed that the quality of the design solutions are not as good as the work we do ourselves."

"I am aware of that flaw. At most, we can make a pass on Momo and Polly's work. I am confident that they will learn how to produce better quality by themselves over time, so the discrepancies should never be too great. Your Aria may also be able to contribute in this regard."

Alexa Streon spoke up. "With regards to the overreliance on automated problem-solving, debates about this subject have raged in the mech community for centuries. Terran mech designers have formed a consensus on this subject. While the AIs that I have worked with in the past are not as intelligent and thoughtful as Momo and Polly, the principles should be similar enough. Our rule is that unless there is an emergency, it is better to deliberately reduce the effectiveness of the smart AIs in order to give human mech designers enough chances to develop their practical design skills."

"How should the effectiveness of smart AIs be reduced?" Ves asked with a frown. "Do you lower its processing power? Do you impose a quota on the amount of hours you can make use of its services? Or do you prevent it from solving more advanced problems?"

"Any of these suggestions are valid, but the most common solution we employ is a variation of the latter." The former Terran mech designer replied. "The simulation programs will still run fine, but we program our AIs to fall short of completely solving problems. There will be gaps in formulas or steps that relate to the essence of a method. The mech designer has to recall the relevant theories and apply them in a challenging enough manner in order to obtain the solutions they need. This method helps mech designers apply what they learned in a reasonable manner while also retaining much of the productivity gains of automation."

This hybrid solution sounded a lot better than the alternatives that Ves considered.

"As expected of the Terrans. They figured it all out already."

"Ahem." Kelsey Ampatoch. "The Terran solution to the automation problem works out for this group because they rarely innovate or design completely new mechs. The method described by Alexa works best when the problems are relatively fixed and directly derived from existing theories. Once you start to produce new inventions based on radically different scientific paradigms, this method cannot be applied."

"Then how do the Rubarthans handle this situation?" Ves asked.

"The Rubarthan solution is to impose a strict usage quota on automated solutions. For example, a mech designer can receive a quota of 10 hours per week. This means that he or she can order an AI to calculate solutions for 10 hours in total before it refuses to complete any further work for the remaining days of the week."

Gloriana looked thoughtful when she heard this description.

"The Rubarthan approach has its upsides. It grants more control to the mech designer. She can save up the chance to rely on automation for truly tricky problems. She can completely solve the easier problems by herself. A usage restriction is a straightforward way to restrict overrliance on automation."

"There are valid criticisms of the Rubarthan approach." Alexa said with a frown. "If a mech designer does not possess enough self-control, he will more often than not find the path of least resistance. In this case, he will reserve his quota on difficult problems and solve easier problems by himself. Do you not see how the inverse should be the case? A mech designer does not improve as fast by skipping difficult problems. Automation should actually be used on the easier problems that do not teach you anything new."

That was a strong counterargument, but Kelsey did not give up so soon.

"How a mech designer makes best use of his weekly quota is a test in itself. The Terran approach grants little agency to the mech designer. Each of them have to fill in the gaps in theories and requests no matter whether they agree with this approach or not. They had no choice on the matter. The Rubarthan approach on the other hand gives mech designers more control. A good mech designer will naturally know how to best use up the weekly quota. A bad mech designer will not learn the right lessons and experience little progress."

This was a reasonable take, but Ves disliked the trial aspect of it. The Rubarthans probably stopped many mech designers from progressing further due to relying on ambiguity.

He rubbed his hairless chin in thought. "I can see the advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. I think that for our clan in particular, the Rubarthan approach is the better choice."

"Why?" Gloriana asked with a frown.

"Because it tests every subordinate of ours." Ves responded. "If a mech designer under our charge wants to coast along and avoid hard work with the help of his usage quota, then he has already failed. If any of our mech designers want to earn our recognition and break through at a higher frequency, he or she must have the resolve to work hard and not avoid difficult design problems. Those who pass this test will have greater discipline, better judgment and burning ambition. These are exactly the talents that we should nurture. Other mech designers are not as valuable and can be left to fend for themselves."

Kelsey added a few more arguments. "Applying a quota on the usage of smart AIs will lead to fewer breakthroughs according to our research, but this is a good development. Those who are able to pass this test have a higher chance of becoming a Senior Mech Designer or Master Mech Designer. Those who failed may have succeeded in another environment, but they have a higher chance of reaching a plateau in their careers. It is better to keep them as Apprentice Mech Designers as they will not be wasting everyone else's time and resources."

"I do have to admit that we do not actually want to welcome too many breakthroughs in our Design Department." Gloriana said. "Journeyman Mech Designers demand much more attention and investment. This can get rather tedious if too many of them advance in the same period." Enjoy new stories from My Virtual Library Empire

Ves turned to Alexa. "I am hearing a lot of good things about the Rubarthan approach. How can the Terran approach serve as an adequate counterweight?"

She had been waiting to voice a response.

"It is true that the mech designers themselves, cannot control their improvement with the Terran approach, but that is because the power goes to the individual in charge. Ves, you can directly set what theories should present incomplete solutions and what sort of variables must be tampered with. This can enable you to control the progress that mech designers make in specific fields that you have designated. If you think that your subordinates must improve their understanding of hyper technology, you can create more holes in design solutions related to this field. This will cause many mech designers to conduct research and improve their mastery of hyper technology."

That sounded incredibly useful, but Ves had already made up his mind.

"That sounds rather good, if a little too reliant on a center. However, I think we will adopt the Rubarthan approach. I don't care what my subordinates learn, but I do care that the worthiest of them will be able to overcome numerous challenges and climb to the top."