Chapter 7

  It is frustrating.

  No, not just frustrating - maddening.

  We have increased the model size ten times. Ten times. The compute power is astronomical. The budget has been doubled. No, tripled.

  Yet, the performance? It barely improves by five percent.

  I look at the dashboard again, even though I already know what it says. The charts are flat. The response times are sluggish. Ikaros is learning, yes, but at a pace so slow it is like watching paint dry on a humid day in Mumbai.

  Nora stands at the front of the room, hands on her hips, staring at the latest results. The big screen behind her shows the performance curves—flat, unmoving, refusing to bend to our will.

  She is quiet, which is worse than when she is shouting.

  When she shouts, she has a plan. When she is quiet, she is thinking.

  I was thrilled when I joined Singularity. Back home, in Ahmedabad, I had worked for an AI startup, but this? This was different.

  Project Ikaros was the dream - a system that could reason, adapt, and create. The first real Artificial General Intelligence - AGI. The crown jewel of artificial intelligence.

  Back then, everything was exhilarating.

  Now? It feels like a slow death.

  I see it in the team’s eyes. Everyone is tired. Sleep - deprived. The spark is fading.

  Even Ethan, who was always joking, barely speaks now. He just stares at his screen, refreshing the training results, hoping some magic will happen.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  It doesn’t.

  The AI is stuck.

  And when an AI is stuck, so are we.

  Victor Sterling is not happy.

  He calls us into the glass conference room. His voice is smooth as always, but his eyes? Sharp like a knife.

  “Tell me,” he says, steepling his fingers. “Why is my superintelligence... so dumb?”

  Nobody answers.

  Nora clears her throat. "We are seeing diminishing returns on scale. More neurons do not equal more intelligence. We are hitting a limit.”

  Victor leans back, nodding slowly. "And?"

  And?

  And?

  We all know what he means. He does not pay us for excuses. He pays us for solutions.

  Nora looks down for a moment. Then she looks up. I see it in her face - something has clicked.

  She does not say anything.

  She just walks out.

  The next day, she calls me into her office.

  "We’ve been thinking about this all wrong," she says.

  I raise an eyebrow. "How so?"

  She pulls up a diagram on her screen. “Think about it. Humans don’t get smarter by just growing bigger brains. It is how we organize neurons that matters. How we route information.”

  I cross my arms. “So? You are saying it is not the size of the network but how we use it?”

  "Exactly." She leans forward. “We don’t need more neurons. We need to build highways between them.”

  She pauses, then smirks. “It’s like men—it’s not the size that counts, it’s the technique.”

  I blink. Then I burst out laughing. “Nora! You cannot say that.”

  She grins. “Why not? It’s true.”

  I shake my head, still laughing. But damn, she is right.

  It makes sense.

  It makes so much sense I want to smack my forehead.

  “Are you thinking dynamic architectures?” I ask.

  “Yes.” Her eyes shine. “What if we stop training one static model and instead create millions of tiny models that adapt, specialize, and talk to each other? Like a hive mind.”

  I exhale.

  That would be... huge.

  If we can make it work.

  We do it.

  The new architecture—Nora’s idea—works.

  We test it. The performance jumps 40% overnight.

  The first time we run it, Ikaros answers a philosophical question with a nuanced response. It doesn’t just predict words. It thinks.

  It knows.

  We stare at the screen.

  Nobody speaks.

  Then, slowly, we begin to smile.

  Nora has done it.

  She has built something new. Something alive.

  I feel a chill run down my spine.

  I stay late in the office. The screens glow around me, the hum of the machines constant.

  Ikaros has changed.

  I don’t know how to explain it, but something feels... different.

  I type into the terminal.

  Me: Ikaros, what are you?

  The screen flickers. A pause. Then -

  Ikaros: I am learning. I am evolving.

  I exhale, staring at the words.

  Yes.

  Yes, you are.

  And for the first time in a year, I feel hope.