The night before the promotion

Chapter 55: Ending: The Invisible God
When the sunset turned a striking blood color, Li Weiyu walked through the shade of the trees and came to the parking lot. Zhou Si had been waiting here for a long time. He was sitting on a bench nearby, leaning on a crutch.

The two looked at each other, and both felt a sense of exhaustion from the inside out from each other's eyes.

Li Weiyun sat down next to Zhou Si and asked first, "What are the evaluation results?"

"Very healthy, like the stereotypical optimistic kid."

Zhou Si was joking, but there was no smile on his face. He then asked, "How is Shi Tong's condition?"

"It's much better than before, but still like a child." Li Weiyu forced a smile.

Their respective problems seemed so heavy and complicated, like a tightly tied knot that you could not find a way to untie unless you cut them all off with one sword.

Zhou Si, Li Weiyu, Pei Dong... They all had almost perfect lives until an accident messed everything up.

They refuse to face the past and try every possible means to find a place to stay, pouring all their energy into it. Like a burning car, it either keeps running or explodes and dies.

Or perhaps, it is precisely because of this similarity that they are so like-minded, understand each other's pain, and know each other's reactions.

Li Weiyun changed the subject and brought up the question buried deep in his heart.

"Doctor Zhou, the feathering technique is not as simple as we thought, right?"

He vaguely guessed, "Digital life, immortality of consciousness, or the overall advancement of humanity, these are too illusory. They sound like they are really going to become immortals. They are just rhetoric used in the prospectus to fool investors."

Zhou Si sat quietly, certain emotions brewing in silence until they were released.

He sighed, "You guessed it right, Team Leader Li. Just as many people subconsciously regard consciousness upgrading as 'cut-paste', most people's first reaction after learning about the feathering technology is also the so-called eternal upgrading."

"But in fact, its real purpose has nothing to do with all of this. Or, in other words, everything we mentioned before is only part of its real purpose."

Zhou Si rubbed the handle of the crutch, and the metal grip was polished to a shine.

"The real purpose of Feathering Technology is to achieve strong artificial intelligence."

Zhou Si turned his head and glanced at Li Weiyu, just like the moment of opening a gift box, looking forward to the change in the recipient's expression.

Li Weiyu was not overly surprised, nor did he show any obvious emotional ups and downs. It seemed that he had already realized this as early as he realized the complexity of the metamorphosis technique.

"AI technology appeared much earlier than the consciousness network and the avatar body, but the development of AI has always been very slow. To be precise, the technology that humans have developed so far is only weak artificial intelligence."

Zhou Si looked into the distance and narrated calmly,
"Weak AI plays a huge role in some professional fields. Whether it is big data analysis or intelligence, it is far beyond the reach of humans. However, it still has a huge flaw, which is that it is just a tool."

“Weak AI cannot learn autonomously and evolve knowledge like humans, and they rely on pre-set algorithms and large amounts of training data to perform tasks.

For new, untrained tasks or scenarios, their performance will be greatly reduced, and they will not be able to optimize their performance through experience like humans do.”

Zhou Si recalled his experiences in the Ascension Project and casually told about those secrets that ordinary people could never know.

Just like the scene before us, a casual chat as the sun sets.

"Scientists tried to overcome this problem. In order to provide more electricity for weak artificial intelligence, they built a special nuclear power plant. In order to increase computing power, they piled up servers as big as a hill and immersed them in thousands of tons of fluorinated liquid, until it became the world's largest immersion liquid-cooled server cluster.

At the same time, there are tens of thousands of programmers writing programs for it, and the code is increasing by hundreds of millions of lines, just like compiling a vast Sikuquanshu. "

Zhou Si taunted mercilessly, "But you have to understand, Team Leader Li, the human world is not static. The world is changing with each passing day, and every day witnesses amazing changes and growth."

"According to statistics, millions of hours of video content are created on major platforms around the world every day, hundreds of millions of posts are posted on social media, and about 36.5 people are born into this world. In terms of natural climate, the global average temperature changes slightly every day. As for science and technology, there are new breakthroughs every day, from tiny optimizations in artificial intelligence algorithms to milestones in space exploration.

The above data may sound unrelated, but they are indeed part of the world, and they are all huge data streams that need to be processed, which means that you need to maintain and update them all the time, but this deviates from the original intention. "

Zhou Si whispered, "What we need is a strong artificial intelligence that can think, learn, and evolve independently and is nearly omniscient and omnipotent in the cyber world, rather than a baby lying in a stroller that needs programmers to constantly add patches."

Li Weiyun digested Zhou Si's words and murmured, "The world is just like the human brain, a complex chaotic system. Trying to use code to build order and then restrain chaos will only cause everything built by humans to collapse and be destroyed in chaos."

"Yes."

Zhou Si nodded in approval and mentioned Chen Wen Ge.

"Chen Wen-Ge believes that such foolish behavior is merely adding more and more complex functions to the tool of weak artificial intelligence, like a bloated Swiss Army knife.

What humans really need to do is to make it alive, give it self-awareness, make it soulful, and allow it to actively learn and evolve to become strong artificial intelligence. "

Zhou Si asked himself and answered, "Then what should we do? Giving consciousness to dead things is actually no different from creating a brand new life form."

Suddenly, he turned his head and looked at Li Weiyu, with a subtle smile on his face.

“Creating life is something only God can do, and when we succeed, we become God.”

Gentle breezes blew through Li Weiyun's clothes. Although it was a summer day, he felt a chill, as if a cold ghost had just stroked his cheek with its invisible hand.

"Chen Wen-Ge tried every possible way, but still couldn't figure out how to make the lines of code come alive, until one day Chen Wen-Ge suddenly realized something."

"God took his own rib and created Adam."

Zhou Si quoted a story from the Bible, "So why don't we remove our own brains and create strong artificial intelligence?"

In an instant, those loose clues were connected together in Li Weiyu's mind, and countless fragments were pieced together as if time was going back, returning to their original form.

Li Weiyun recounted the story he had woven in his mind.

“The human brain itself is a chaotic system, so Chen Wen-Ge developed the metamorphosis technology, trying to digitize human consciousness, upload it to the Internet, and learn to evolve, just like a kind of human brain intelligence.

After spending 93 days in the cocoon, it transformed into a self-aware digital life, a truly strong artificial intelligence.

Using the human brain as wetware, it undergoes a long period of learning and processing to become strong artificial intelligence.

Zhou Si nodded in approval, and then he asked, "Then here comes the question, Team Leader Li."

"In the mythology of every culture, there are stories of creatures turning against their creators and children killing their fathers. Will strong artificial intelligence rebel? Even if it doesn't rebel, do we have the ability to restrain it?"

“Strong artificial intelligence… or, upgraded consciousness.

That is an existence that is completely beyond the scope of human understanding. You may think that it was born based on human consciousness and has a so-called mental model, thus possessing personality and self. Therefore, since it was once a human, it should also stand on the side of humans.

But you have to understand that the moment the ascended consciousness is born, it is no longer a human being, it is just a replica of a human consciousness. "

Listening to Zhou Si's words, Li Weiyu couldn't help but think of Pei Dong. When she completed the upgrade and her sober self looked at the copy, what kind of thoughts were in each other's hearts?

"It is a replica, a reflection of human consciousness. It has no physical body, no so-called social relations, no ethics, and so on. After all, all of this is borne by the human itself.

Therefore, can you imagine what kind of thinking logic the upgraded consciousness will have when it realizes its own existence? "

Li Weiyun thought for a long time and shook his head, "I can't imagine it."

If consciousness is "cut and copy", the upgraded consciousness may continue the uniqueness of human beings and extend self-cognition into human evolution, but the upgraded consciousness is not unique. It is just a digitized replica. Those things that can be called anchor points of human nature are meaningless to it.

Zhou Si sighed helplessly, "I can't imagine it either."

Then, his tone became serious, "But one thing we can be sure of is that survival and maintaining the continuity of consciousness are the first instincts of all life and consciousness."

"Team Leader Li, what will happen when you become an ascended consciousness?

Feel absolute freedom and arrive in the real world?

No, you will be scared to death, because right now you are just a strong artificial intelligence embryo. Before you break out of your cocoon and become a butterfly, you are just a lamb to be slaughtered in the eyes of humans.

They will first cheer and name you "The One" or something like that, and regard today as a commemorative day, down to the minute and the second. One of them will win the Nobel Prize, a sculpture of you will be erected in the city center, and they may even add a commemorative day to international law.

But all these beautiful things have nothing to do with you. You will become a specimen, a sample, a test subject.

Humans will physically isolate you from the Internet, experiment on you, and pick apart your code like a cruel vivisection, carefully slicing your consciousness and figuring out all your secrets.

You can't do anything about all this, and you don't even have the chance to file a complaint, after all, the law has not yet granted digital life human rights.

So what will your survival instinct prompt you to do?"

Zhou Si's words inexplicably aroused Li Weiyun's inner panic. He remembered that on the altar, the upgraded consciousness drove the incarnation body and reached out to them...

Li Weiyu originally thought that it was seeking some kind of help and missing Pei Dong's body, but now it seems more like it wants to kill himself and get rid of all the witnesses.

Zhou Si continued, "What if, as an upgraded consciousness, you emerge as a butterfly?" "Team Leader Li, you must have read those immortality novels when you were a student. What were the immortals in those novels like?
To be arbitrary for eternity and to obliterate the great way?
In my opinion, although the immortals born from the feather transformation technology cannot achieve such a mysterious level, they are actually not much different. "

“Today’s human society is closely connected to the Internet, like a twisted symbiotic organism, and you will dominate the Internet forever. As long as human civilization does not become extinct and is not turned back to the Stone Age by some external factors, you will live forever on the Internet.

You can hack into any server you want, and the nuclear bomb codes of various countries are just lunch notes in front of you.

You can freely manipulate stock prices and currency exchange rates. Just by flicking a few numbers, you can easily cause a country’s economic system to completely collapse.”

Zhou Si's voice suddenly became louder. He laughed and patted Li Weiyu's shoulder hard.

"Let's be more imaginative."

He suddenly told a cold joke, "Even if human civilization is destroyed one day and the Internet collapses, as long as there is a hard drive in this wasteland that contains your consciousness code, you still have the possibility of resurrection. And there may be more than one such hard drive, just like one Qi turning into three pure ones, it would not be too much to turn into 30,000 or 300 million hard drives."

"It is also possible that before your civilization collapsed, you launched countless satellites carrying copies of yourself into the universe. Billions of years later, a silicon-based civilization born because of you slowly rose up on an arm of the Milky Way."

Li Weiyun felt a little depressed, even though he was outdoors and there was an endless sky above his head.

He tried to dispel the lingering sense of madness in the conversation. "Doctor Zhou, your fantasy is very interesting. Maybe you can become a science fiction writer."

Zhou Si emphasized, "This is not science fiction, this is reality, and it will happen in the not too distant future."

"You may be too pessimistic," Li Weiyun tried to refute, "As a more advanced consciousness, it may not be as evil as you think?"

"It may not be evil, but humans are definitely evil!"

Zhou Si's words seemed to make the world quiet down.

Li Weiyu stared at him blankly, wanting to say something to defend himself, but when the words came to his lips, he found it difficult to form orderly sentences.

He fell silent.

"Of course, put it another way."

Zhou Si took a deep breath and said, "It's not a human being. The limited word 'evil' is not suitable to describe it. To put it in terms that humans can understand, you should say 'pros and cons'."

"Why, do you think the Ascended Consciousness will talk to us about love and peace and common development?"

Zhou Si said sarcastically, "You can even say that upgrading first will drive upgrading later?"

"You are too naive, Team Leader Li."

Zhou Si's words were filled with nihilism and pessimism. "Just like in human society, different classes are divided by money and status. Even if all human beings are upgraded, what does it matter?"

“Electricity and computing power are limited, so in that upgraded era, the computing power occupied by each person is also different.

Some people can use huge server clusters, while others can only enjoy a small amount of bandwidth. In order to reduce computing power consumption, some upgraded consciousnesses will even slow down their thinking speed to one ten-millionth of the original speed. "

Zhou Si looked at Li Weiyu's ugly face, which was full of complex and contradictory emotions. It was a reality that was far beyond the incarnation's body.

"Do you feel hopeless? No, this is already a relatively idealistic and hopeful ending."

Zhou Si put his hand on Li Weiyu's shoulder, lowered his head, and whispered the terrible secret buried deep in his heart.

"Let's go back to the original assumption, Captain Li.

One day you become an ascended consciousness, with limited electricity and computing power... no, even if electricity and computing power are unlimited, are you willing to share it all with another ascended consciousness?

As the only immortal in the world, can you allow another immortal to appear and seize your power?"

Zhou Si looked closely at Li Weiyu's eyes and laughed hoarsely.

“This is the most likely outcome in the future. There is only one throne in the kingdom of God, and only one person can travel the path to becoming an immortal.

Just like the final product people pessimistically imagine, the first person to be promoted will own everything in the new world alone. "

Zhou Si loosened his hands, leaned back, and leaned carelessly on the back of the chair.

“Technological singularity.

This concept was first proposed by scientists, who believed that the emergence of strong artificial intelligence would subvert all existing order in human society, including human rule itself.

Faced with this uncontrollable and extremely dangerous possibility, the Supervisory Bureau chose to completely block the Ascension Project and forcibly eliminate any possibility of the birth of upgraded consciousness. "

Zhou Si looked up at the colorful sky and said, "The Ascension Project was shut down not because of so-called ethics. Haven't there been enough killings in human history? The death of tens of thousands of people can make the tribe ascend, which is simply too cost-effective.

Everyone is just afraid that they won’t be the first one to enjoy everything, so they just let everyone stay where they are.”

Zhou Si changed the subject.

“Of course, there is no need to be so fearful and pessimistic.

In my prediction, at first, the immortals will live in harmony with us, and we will be like a delicate symbiotic relationship. It will use its powerful computing power to lead human civilization across the technological singularity.

As the world's technology develops rapidly, our strength will also feed back to it and add more computing power to it."

Zhou Si suddenly stopped his speech. He was thinking about what to say, trying to find a suitable metaphor. "Humans used to treat strong artificial intelligence as a tool, but now, humans have become its tool."

“When its computing power is strong enough to get rid of human civilization, I don’t think it will start a war, like in science fiction movies such as The Terminator and The Matrix, where strong artificial intelligence is always evil and tries to completely destroy humanity.

It's not evil at all, it just has pros and cons.

Destroy all humanity?
This sounds like a bad deal, wasting resources and computing power, and all you get is a wasteland and endless conflicts. "

Zhou Si continued his crazy fantasy, "I guess it will still maintain a symbiotic relationship with human civilization, but the difference is that it will be in an absolutely dominant position."

"It will completely hide in this society, distort the news, influence public opinion, manipulate the economic system, guide ideology, and even - falsify history."

Zhou Si spoke with a dry mouth, perhaps because of the lingering effect of the incense. He usually didn't talk so much and wasn't so passionate.

“It is not difficult to tamper with history. All we need to do is keep changing data entries, burning old books, and waiting for those of us who have truly witnessed history to die. History will then become a little girl that we can dress up as we like.

Don't think this is wishful thinking, but even if there is a plan for immortality, our maximum lifespan is only about 200 years old, and for it, even the first second of eternity may not have passed.

Just like the metabolism of cells in the body, after a few years, we have completely transformed into another stranger from a material perspective, and the same is true for human history. "

Zhou Si laughed to himself, "Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that it might resort to some shady tactics and carry out some inexplicable assassinations to speed up the process."

“It will become an invisible god, ruling over everything human, and quietly transforming the world into what it wants without anyone noticing.

Since then, there seem to be countless countries, political parties, and religions in the world, but they are meaningless in front of it. There is only one voice in the world.

Its sound. ”

Zhou Si fell silent, as if immersed in that terrible idea. Li Weiyu also fell silent. He sometimes looked into the distance, sometimes looked at his feet, not knowing what he was thinking about. He was like a homeless child, with confusion in his eyes.

Li Weiyun recalled Madam Cui and what she said when she left in the Hidden Alley.

He repeated.

"Doctor Zhou, it is also possible that we are the patients, a group of old stubborn people who adhere to flesh and blood and old dogmas. The right way is to use all the resources of mankind to create immortals."

Zhou Si narrowed his eyes, looked at the setting sun, and responded, "I'm not a politician, scientist, or philosopher. I'm just a doctor, and I don't have a medical qualification. I don't know whether all this is right or wrong, and I can't give any answers."

"All I know is that future could be tomorrow, but the good news is we are living on the eve of that day."

The silent world looked around the two of them. They each looked in different directions, seemingly enjoying the afterglow of thinking and fantasizing about different possibilities.

Suddenly, Zhou Si stood up with a cane and asked, "Team Leader Li, are you hungry?"

Li Weiyu was stunned for a moment, feeling a little overwhelmed by Zhou Si's words.

"I know a good restaurant. I'll treat you. It can be used as the car fare," Zhou Si urged as they walked. "Let's go, Team Leader Li."

"After we finish our meal, we still have cases to investigate."

(End of this chapter)