And it can make real-time balance decisions in those environments with the response precision of a human-designed reflex arc. He paused. What it cannot do is replace the decision about whether someone needs help. That decision is human. This machine is the bridge between the decision and the action.
Han looked at him for a long moment. He said, "We will sign the contract." The contract was signed 2 days later. $437 million. The 37 million added in the revised terms that director Han's office submitted after the demonstration, citing what their technical review team had categorized as performance metrics that exceeded the original proposal specifications. Victoria signed for Blackwood. Daniel was in the room.
When it was done, when the papers were signed and the hands were shaken and the formal photographs had been taken, Victoria and Daniel stood together for a moment in the corridor outside the conference room while the delegations moved toward the arranged lunch. Just the two of them briefly in the particular quiet of an aftermath. Victoria said 37 million above ask. Hans team said it was for performance metrics. It was Daniel said, "It was also Victoria said carefully for trust." Han told me privately that the way you handled the first failed demonstration, the fact that you tried to stop it, that you had documented evidence that you stayed and fixed, it was worth more to his organization than the technology itself.
Because they're deploying this machine in field conditions where the team running it won't always be in the room. They need to know that the people who built it will tell the truth about what it can and can't do. She paused. He said, "That's rare." Daniel said, "It shouldn't be." "No," Victoria said. "It shouldn't." They stood there for a moment.
She said, "I want to ask you something personally." "All right. When you walked onto that testing floor last week with your tool bag and your gas station coffee and your notebook, did you know how it was going to go?" Daniel thought about this honestly. He said, "I knew the system was going to fail. I knew I was going to try to stop it. I knew nobody was going to listen to me." He paused.
I didn't know about the email chain. I didn't know about the patent application. I didn't know you were going to throw the manual at me, though. I knew something like that was possible. Another pause.
I didn't know that at the end of the day, I'd be asked to fix what I'd built and be given the space to do it. If you had known it was going to take all day and cost you a public humiliation in front of 43 people, Victoria said, "Would you still have walked out there?" He looked at her. He said, "My daughter asked me something similar this morning." Victoria waited. She asked me if I was happy now at work. And I told her yes.
And she said, "Were you happy before when you were fixing things?" And I had to think about it because the honest answer is complicated. He paused. I was doing what I needed to do, and that has its own kind of satisfaction, but happy. He looked at the contract folder in Victoria's hands. This is different.