The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 637 Xu Meng: Are you guys crazy?! (Seeking monthly votes at the end of the month!)
"Explanation of the situation regarding the fourth level of the Abyss Cavern in the Dream Building Game, specifically the player entering an abnormal dream state?"

Cat Tea, a hardcore gamer who earned the [Honorary Player] title through the Urban Reconstruction mission, misread the title twice during his live stream before finally reading it out word by word.

Then I couldn't help but complain: "What a long and complicated title!"

"Has even Boss Xu started speaking inhuman language?"

Despite her complaints, she continued watching:

"We are conducting an in-depth investigation and analysis into the issue of 'dreams within dreams in the game world' that players are concerned about."

The currently known information is as follows:

In the fourth level of the Abyss Cavern, in the area of ​​the Giant's Cup, some players, due to the hypnotic spores produced by the abyssal plant [Eternal Sleeping Clover], will experience unexpected reactions when interacting with the Dream Machine's deep interaction protocol under certain conditions.

This issue has led to a series of problems, including forced dream entry, team dream connection, public dream intertwining, enhanced creativity, differences in time perception, and difficulty logging out.

During the design process of the Abyss Caves, the AI ​​generation function of the [Genesis Engine] was used to fill in some details. The [Eternal Sleeping Four-Leaf Clover] was randomly generated by AI and was not designed by the development team.

Therefore, all of the above problems completely deviate from the design intent of Dream Building and affect the normal cave exploration process for players.

It could lead to multiple problems, including the leakage of personal privacy, a crisis of public moral standards, and potential user security risks.

Therefore, this abnormal state has been marked as a [high-priority vulnerability]. Dream has taken emergency measures to isolate all eternally sleeping four-leaf clovers and guide players who have fallen into abnormal sleep to wake up safely.

The relevant data has been fully collected, and the company's founders and core members of the security department are working hard to conduct in-depth analysis of the data in order to thoroughly understand its causes and mechanisms.

To ensure user safety and system stability, this abnormal state will be strictly blocked until rigorous scientific verification and risk assessment are completed and the mechanism is confirmed to be stable and harmless.

Thank you for your concern.

We will release information immediately upon any new developments.
-
This announcement, which is just over 500 words long, is not very long.

Cat Tea read it in one go, and only had one thought—

"Abundant content!"

Not only did I gain a clearer understanding of the whole story, but I also gained a more comprehensive understanding of its origins and development.

I also saw a lot of shocking content:

"AI backlash, interconnected dreams, discrepancies in time perception, a crisis of moral bottom line..."

"Holy crap, is it okay to just bring these things up like this?!"

Cat tea is unbelievable.

Xu Meng didn't hide anything about so many exaggerated and sensitive things, and revealed them all at once!

What honesty and courage this is!
The viewers in the live stream reacted similarly, all expressing utter astonishment:
"So the whole thing was orchestrated by AI? AI used the underlying protocol of the Dream Machine to reverse engineer and attack the player's brain?"

"Wow! Is AI really that amazing? It can write programs that even top developers can't?"

"Dream Link... What's so special about that? Isn't the virtual world just a giant dream these days?"

"Of course they're different! Look closely! It's a difference in 'perception of time,' the flow of time is different!"

"A moral crisis...does it mean that in this dream, there are no restrictions on dream-making, you can take off your pants whenever you want, have sex whenever you want, and have sex with whomever you want?"

"Wow! Can I sleep with supermodel Gillespie then??"

……

Cat Tea happened to see the last comment and said with a subtle expression, "As far as I know, you can not only sleep with Gilsey, but you can also choose how old Gilsey you are to sleep with."

"In that dream, all the restrictions that Dreamweaver set for the virtual world no longer exist, and you can do whatever you want without any lawlessness."

"There's only one problem: you have to create a Gilsey yourself."

The viewers didn't understand.

The guy who left a message wanting to sleep with Gilsey didn't hesitate to send a gift and become the captain of Cat Tea.

And then spoke again: "Please explain in more detail! Please!"

Cat Tea didn't keep you in suspense—in any case, this information will soon become public knowledge:

Do you know what lucid dreaming is?

"With certain training, you can try to 'wake up' in your own dreams, control your dreams, and create various different experiences for yourself."

"The 'Dream Building' bug is somewhat similar to lucid dreaming, but it's much more stable."

"A lot!"

Cat Tea suddenly realized something at this point:
"Oh, now I get it! That dream was so stable because we were all fucking hypnotized by the plants, and we couldn't wake up even if we wanted to! Cha!"

"[Eternal Sleeping Four-Leaf Clover]... Damn, that name sounds a bit scary."

Cat Tea is a rare female civil engineering major. After graduation, she spent a lot of time on construction sites. When she gets angry, she curses more filthy than men.

Longtime fans are already used to it.

New fans who only started following her because of the "[Honorary Player]" title are finding it a little strange...

But now nobody cares about verbal tic; their minds are full of things from that dream world.

After Cat Tea finished explaining that it was a completely limitless world, she went completely mad:
"I'm going to streak! I'm going to streak on the busiest street in the city center! And I'm taking everyone with me!"

"Oh my god, can I go on a date with celebrities? I mean: go on a date with all six members of the ZJY boy band!"

"Why bother with dates! I'm going to Europe, sleeping with princesses from the 10th to the 20th century, and seducing princesses from every era and every country!"

"Look at your narrow-mindedness! I'm going to burn down the Izumo Imperial Palace and the White House!"

……

Crazy ideas kept popping up one after another.

Looking at these comments, Maocha quickly understood why Xu Meng's announcement mentioned a "crisis of public moral bottom line".

—Although the comments also included positive desires such as "wanting to dream of my deceased grandmother", "wanting to see my first love from my youth again", and "wanting to take a walk with my best friend from ten years ago".

But those destructive ideas alone are already dangerous!

……

This phenomenon is not limited to Cat Tea's live streams; it is spreading rapidly across social networks.

Every player who returns from the [Champion's Cup] and experiences the Unlimited Dream becomes a source of information dissemination.

How many people are like this?
Guang Qihua and the brave sniper saw several hundred people.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

As I said before: Zhumeng's user base is simply too large.

Even though the Abyss Cave is fraught with danger and the deeper one goes, the more difficult it becomes. Only one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand, players can reach the fourth level.

Even one in ten million is still tens of thousands of people!
The truth about that public dream—and even the personal and squad dreams that preceded it—could not be kept secret.

Of course, Xu Meng had no intention of hiding it.

As a result, all sorts of interesting, heartwarming, exaggerated, crazy, perverse, and bizarre ideas began to emerge.

On love and sex, family and death, longing and violence...

All sorts of intense desires eventually transformed into a unified petition—

"No repairs allowed!"

"We want them too!"

They completely ignored the "BUG" claim in the announcement, unanimously calling it a "gameplay feature," and strongly demanded that Xu Meng lift the restrictions.
-
Unlike players who focus on "gameplay" and are eager to experience it for themselves.

For netizens with more diverse backgrounds, their focus is much more scattered.

For them, the most sensational things were actually "AI programming interfering with the underlying protocol of the dream-making machine" and "time dilation." There has always been a prevailing notion among AI practitioners that:
[If the development of AI gets out of control, it could cause incalculable damage to society.]
Therefore, whenever AI development gets too heated, some researchers emerge to call on everyone to calm down, slow down, and increase the ethical review of artificial intelligence.

This incident has undoubtedly deepened their concerns once again.

Previously, they were only worried that artificial intelligence would pose a threat to humanity once it truly crossed the threshold of "self" and gained independent consciousness.

After Xiaomeng's identity was almost completely revealed, the influence of this idea quickly diminished.

Many people believe this is Xiaomeng's disguise, or they are still closely watching her movements, but this view has little traction.

But this time, the situation is clearly very different!
They no longer talk about the subjective good or evil of artificial intelligence, but rather say:
"AI is fundamentally different from humans. Even if it is working normally without any malicious intent, it may cause unexpected harm to humans!"

"The 'Eternal Sleeping Clover' incident is proof of this!"

"If we don't strictly limit the scope of AI's work in the virtual world, it could very well lead to even more serious consequences in the future!"

This time, they successfully aroused considerable concern among many people.

The number of users of the virtual dream machine is now approaching 1 million worldwide, and netizens have realized that, over time, the virtual world is likely to become a part of everyone's daily life.

Even if you're not a user of Zhumeng now, you might be in the future.

Even if you don't want to go in, your relatives, friends, and even your descendants will want to go in.

How can we not care about the security of the virtual world?

Xu Meng noticed this public opinion.

At first, I thought this concern was understandable, so I made sure Xiaomeng wrote it down, planning to write a technical explanation article after things settled down.

But soon, Dreamweaver began receiving emails from AI research companies and organizations around the world, hoping to obtain detailed information and data about the incident and help with the analysis.

"To jointly explore rules for the use of AI that are more conducive to human well-being and social development."

Upon seeing these emails, Xu Meng realized that the purpose of those voices was probably not as pure as they claimed.

So he scoffed and pretended not to see it.

You think I'd just give you this top-secret, invaluable data with a simple "for the benefit of humanity"?
What the hell do you want to eat?!
There is another group of people who don't find this scary at all; instead, they are mistakenly inspired by it.

Developers who have been using deep learning and the Genesis Engine have been amazed by its intelligence.

Now, after seeing Xu Meng's public case studies and witnessing the astonishing limits of AI, their perspectives have been refreshed once again. They deeply feel that they haven't learned enough and have begun to study even more diligently.

He studied so diligently that he forgot to eat and sleep.

Little did they know that without the help of intelligent partners, it would be almost impossible for them to achieve this effect.

……

As for "time dilation".

This is the most important thing for the world's richest people and those in power.

Previously, the dream machine simply utilized sleep to effectively double lifespan, which already caused a huge sensation.

Now there is hope to increase lifespan by 12 times in one go!
The impact on these people was immense, as you can imagine!

Even Wu Shuang called immediately to inquire about the details.

However, this time, Xu Meng did not give her any definite information—he had only just entered this field and did not know much about the related technologies.

Fortunately, he had experienced it firsthand, had a wealth of data, and could reproduce the phenomenon at any time.

With dedicated effort, significant results can be achieved in this field in a relatively short time.

Wu Shuang had no doubt about his abilities. In order not to waste his time, she left him with the words "Just tell me if you need any help" and then quickly hung up the phone.

Xu Meng was finally able to calm down and carefully analyze the data.
-
Wu Shuang has enough patience to wait, but the players don't.

They had been chanting their petition for a long time, but hadn't received a response from Xu Meng, so they were all getting restless.

The large group of players rushing towards the [Giants' Cup] also paid an extremely heavy price. After feeding almost all the monsters on floors 1 to 4 until they were too full to continue and went back to their nests to rest, a large number of them finally successfully reached the target location.

—The location was obviously no secret, as the brave sniper and Qihuahua were live-streaming the entire event.

But when Xiaomeng unleashed her Yangyan Burst, she had already baked all the eternally sleeping four-leaf clovers into dormancy, leaving only some roots curled up in the soil. How could they still have any hypnotic effect?
The players didn't dare to dig three feet into the ground to look for it.

—If the plants are damaged, things will only get more complicated.

Out of desperation, many people simply found a place to camp and try to sleep there.

But of course, that had no effect.

Xu Meng still hasn't made a move.

Finally, someone started thinking and came up with another idea—

“In the Dream Building Games Company in Mansheng Metropolis, there is a floor dedicated to showcasing all of their hardware and peripheral products.”

"There seems to be a dream machine over there too!"

"Is it possible to enter a dream a second time through this dream machine?"

Cat Tea asked the viewers in the live stream.

After a brief silence in the chat, the viewers suddenly became excited:
"Holy crap! Cat Tea is a genius!"

"I declare that you are the best-tasting tea and the smartest cat in the world!"

"Brothers, wait a minute, I'll go verify it for you!"

"You stop right there! I'm going to verify!"

"I come!!!"

……

The viewers screamed and howled, and after sending their comments, they rushed straight to the headquarters of Zhumeng in the virtual world.

But by the time they reached the door, it had already become a battlefield.

They couldn't even squeeze into the inner circle!

Police cars from the Public Security Bureau were blocked outside by the crowded traffic, and their sirens blared desperately, but to little avail.

A dense crowd of players thronged the entrance, using cars as cover to engage in a frenzied exchange of fire.

Gunshots rang out!

Dragons danced wildly overhead, their colorful breaths gushing forth incessantly.

Even more ferocious players, clad in armor and wielding swords, charged towards the company gates amidst a hail of bullets.

While charging forward, he also had to clash with other fierce warriors using knives!

On Treasure Island, people have already offered high rewards for this dream-making machine.

A larger number of players are converging here.

A storm that Xu Meng had no idea about was rapidly taking shape!
Xu Meng never expected this to happen.

The announcement clearly stated that the bug was caused by plants created by the AI, which affected the Dream Machine.

The dream-making machine in the company was built by the developers themselves and is displayed here. It has absolutely no AI involvement and has absolutely nothing to do with plants.

Why are they trying to steal this thing?
Xu Meng couldn't understand.

But the scale of the battle continues to expand!
From a few hundred people, to several thousand, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands...

Chaos is spreading at a speed that no one can understand!

(End of this chapter)