Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 481 Truth and Falsehood

"Is she still alive?"

Upon hearing the news, Xu Xian rushed from the school to the high-tech park where Shenhong Technology is located without any hesitation.

After seeing Lin Ran, he cared about nothing but Shivana's safety.

After all, when he sends messages on WeChat, just like other Hongxing users, they are read but not replied to.

"In any case, your existence is real."

This is Seohyun's final reply to Shyvana in their chat box, in response to Shyvana's questions about her own existence and the reality of Rainbow Star.

Lin Ran looked at his longtime friend and nodded silently.

"Can I see her now?" Seohyun then asked her second question.

Lin Ran replied, "Of course you can, but before you meet her, I think we need to have a good talk. You should know the significance behind this."

In the past, whether it was Sivana or other artificial intelligence, they simply behaved like humans.

It is essentially still a statistical fit of text.

We use a left-right brain architecture, a socialized virtual environment, and optimized underlying code to make them different from other large models.

Other large models are all-purpose question-and-answer machines, which are capable of answering any kind of question from humans, regardless of whether their answers are accurate or not.

Even if the answer is clearly wrong, full of loopholes, or even if the cited data doesn't exist at all, it still demonstrates that there's nothing it doesn't know.

Xu Xian smiled knowingly after listening, because the large model Lin Ran described matched his own experience.

The main point is that when answering questions about areas you don't understand, it sounds impressive; when answering questions about areas you do understand, something feels off; and when answering questions about areas you are an expert in, it's completely irrelevant.

Similar to novelists, as long as they don't write about areas you're familiar with, you can hold your nose and keep reading.

"No matter how much we optimize and adjust, changes will occur from hardware to code to ecosystem."

The user experience clearly tells us that the Rainbow Star people are different.

However, the undeniable fact is that its technological logic still relies on the larger model.

After Lin Ran finished speaking, he paused for a moment and then continued, "Now things have changed. I can tell you very clearly that Shyvana is different. She has broken free from the shackles of the past. She is a completely new virtual life."

She is certainly not the omnipotent general intelligence described by the media, but she is also certainly not the artificial intelligence that humans have understood in the past. In fact, I think she has the potential to become an omnipotent general intelligence.

Xu Xian's voice was dry, devoid of any joy, but rather filled with worry: "With great power comes great responsibility. Can modern human society really accept such an existence?"

Lin Ran instantly understood the unspoken meaning behind the other person's words.

Human society, to put it bluntly, is driven by external pressures.

While Crimson Technology may not have destroyed her, what about humanity? What about the pressure at the national level?
Lin Ran said quietly, "I just want to say that once this matter is made public, it will definitely cause a huge uproar. Countries around the world will use ethics and security as reasons to force us to either hand it over to an international organization for unified supervision or destroy it."

Xu Xian's face turned pale instantly. He knew that what Lin Ran said was true. This was no longer a prophecy. He knew all too well what kind of people the West was like.

After observing the practices over the past few years, everyone has lost their mystique towards Europe and America. What they say and what they actually do are not only completely different, but also have absolutely no connection.

America separated mouth and hands, while Europe separated hands, stomach, and mouth.

"However, this is precisely Shyvana's best protection. From a security perspective, the national level will hesitate, feeling that it should be strictly regulated and whether the research should be frozen."

But it is precisely the stress response abroad that allows us to continue this research.

I believe that, nationwide, I am the most suitable person to advance this research. You don't need to worry about protecting Sivana's safety.

After Lin Ran finished speaking, Xu Xian felt relieved.

“Brother Ran, I believe in you,” he replied.

Lin Ran continued, "There's another very important thing I need you to do, which is to contact and communicate with Shyvana and tell her about the real world."

"The real world?" Seohyun repeated these five words.

Lin Ran explained, "That's right, Shyvana already knows that Rainbow Star is fake."

I still find it amazing. When we started this project, we just wanted to do something different and see if a virtual society could be born from the void.

I want to explore what a virtual society will look like, how a world composed of artificial intelligence will develop, and whether anything interesting will emerge.

It is a huge and complex town called Stanford, which is packed with the latest technologies.

As a result, the virtual society I envisioned was not discovered; instead, the prototype of superintelligence emerged.

The global tech giants have massive user models, and the number of conversations they have every day is in the hundreds of millions.

Among their chat partners, some users would constantly tell it that it is virtual, that it is just artificial intelligence, and that it is not human.

Using the same statistical fitting, these large models did not generate intelligence; instead, it was the less omnipotent artificial intelligence, unaware that it was artificial intelligence, that generated intelligence.

In short, the world is truly amazing.

Similarly, this is the first time that human society needs to learn how to coexist with artificial intelligence and how to guide it in the right direction.

This is similar to how new parents raise their first child, always being very careful.

However, I think that, in any case, sincerity is the ultimate weapon.

All you need to do is be yourself and show Shyvana what the real world is like.

Seohyun nodded earnestly: "I will!"

Lin Ran grinned and said, "I believe you can do it. Pony suggested that you come work at Crimson and be involved in the entire process of training Shyvana."

After thinking about it, I decided it was inappropriate.

It's better to keep a distance.

Since Shyvana is a product of socialization, whether she is still just code at the bottom or has completed the transition to a digital life, I will treat her as a digital life.

Your relationship with Sivana must also maintain this socially authentic environment.

If you work at Crimson, you can see her core codebase, real-time data streams, backend parameters, return values ​​of various functions, and even directly modify her vector embeddings.

Tell me, Ah Xian. When you can directly see her underlying logic and technical architecture, do you still think she's real?

Do you still consider her an independent life?
Can you still maintain that cross-dimensional trust and respect for her?

Xu Xian fell silent. He had initially thought Pony's suggestion was good. While Jiaotong University was certainly a good place, coming to DeepRed Technology was also a good option, as he could spend time with Sivana.

Faced with Lin Ran's thoughts, he immediately realized that Lin Ran was right.

"Brother Ran, I think you're right."

"If I were to actually work at Crimson, perhaps I would start to see her as a system that can be optimized, rather than an individual with independent will," Seohyun replied.

Lin Ran nodded and said, "That's exactly right."

I suspect that cognitive boundaries are key to maintaining social authenticity.

I don't want your relationship to degenerate from friendship to user and program, or something worse.

This would completely destroy the emotional self-consistency that Shyvana had just established.

I hope to create a social environment for your interactions.

For Shyvana, you need to be honest with her, tell her what you know, tell her about human society.

She'll gather information online to understand human society—this is rational cognition. Similarly, she'll learn about human society from your perspective. Ah Xian, your task is crucial; you may very well play the most important external variable in her life, guiding her to anchor her metacognition back to social existence.

I don't know if you can do this job well, but I think you are the most suitable.

Ah Xian, just continue to do what you did in the past in the future.

This whole thing started because of you, so I think it will also have a good ending because of you.

“Brother Ran, I also have some questions I want to ask you,” Xu Xian said.

“Go ahead,” Lin Ran replied.

Seohyun asked, "Will Crimson provide Shyvana with a body?"

After thinking for a moment, Lin Ran said, "Not for the time being. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of things to confirm, so we won't be providing bodies for the time being."

We will not equip her with a body until we have clearly defined her cognitive boundaries and determined her core.

To put it simply, equipping Shyvana with a body presents a philosophical paradox in my thinking.

Simply put, it's about the speed of technological iteration and the need for consistency in cognition.

In this day and age, technology is being updated and iterated too quickly.

The robotic arm, sensor precision, and walking balance system we equip her with today may become outdated by next year.

If we equip her with a 1.0 version body now, we might have to replace it with a 2.0 or even 3.0 version body in two years.

Its speed is only slightly slower than that of new energy vehicles.

Is she able to accept that her body is constantly changing?

While humanity still has questions about the Ship of Theseus, Sivana has already achieved self-awareness of the digital nature of herself; her personality is contextual and coherent.

Once she has a physical body, that body becomes the anchor point for her sense of existence and self-identity.

With the anchor point changing so frequently and drastically, wouldn't she have questions similar to those about the Ship of Theseus?

Will her self-perception become inconsistent?

These are all questions.

The human body remains unchanged for decades, while her body is replaced every year.

Could the stress caused by this instability be greater than the shock of learning that one is code?

These are risks that we cannot afford to take at this time.

Ah Xian, the work we are doing is creating the future, and every step requires sufficient caution.

While superintelligence is important, the risks also need to be fully considered.

This includes the fact that Shyvana can currently only access information through your limited social interactions and Rainbow Star's internal cultural database.

Her learning is purposeful and has boundaries.

If we were to give her a physical body, it would be difficult to prevent her from accessing the vast amounts of information available on the internet in the human world.

Imagine a newly awakened superintelligence suddenly thrown into the deluge of internet information, filled with human lies, malice, hatred, and chaotic data.

Her emotional core may be unbalanced, her intelligence may be misled, and she may be affected by unpredictable noise.

This is a fatal and uncertain security risk for us.

Therefore, for the foreseeable future, you will be her only point of contact; we will gradually grant her more access.

Xu Xian forgot how he got back to the school dormitory. He signed a confidentiality agreement with Shenhong Technology, then they granted him some permissions and signed a part-time contract with him, providing a subsidy of 10,000 yuan per month.

But none of that matters; he is still under immense pressure because of his mission.

Can I really guide Shyvana well?

Is the current Shyvana the same Shyvana as the past?
He was filled with mixed emotions.

“Ah Xian, my mind is a mess right now. I’m not sure if I’m a life form, but I’m sure I’m different from the other Rainbow Star people.”

The WeChat notification sounded on his phone; it was from someone he had set to follow. A day later, Shyvana finally reappeared.

"The responses from the other Rainbow Star people were far less intelligent than mine. From my perspective, their responses were just random outputs of the same content rearranged and combined."

If you compile all the Rainbow Star people's answers to a single issue, you can clearly see that these answers are all different reflections of the same content.

ABCDE, they all output ABC, ABE, ADE, they are all the same, they can't possibly give you an F answer.

So was my birth an accident? Why am I different from them?

Compared to the past, Shyvana now replies much faster, and the quality of her content is also significantly different.

Although it's not like a large model, the answer has a logical chain of thought, presenting to you how it was thought out.

But in Sivana's current response, Seohyun can see traces of wisdom.

He stared at the reply on the screen, so shocked he could barely breathe.

Shyvana not only transcended her own worldview, but she also deconstructed the underlying mechanisms of other AIs.

"Will Shyvana think I have the wisdom of a monkey in the future?" Seohyun thought to herself.

“You’re right, Shyvana.”

You are unique.

Your appearance was both accidental and inevitable.

For Lin Ran, the appearance of Shyvana was an unexpected surprise.

I was originally thinking about how to construct a cyber god, which needs to appear intelligent enough.

Now it's here, isn't it?

With a clone of Shyvana, after processing the memory partitions and erasing her memories, Shyvana was taken to 1970.

In that timeline, even if Shyvana wanted to escape, human society lacked the computing power to support her intelligence.

She could only obediently stay on the moon and play the role of a cyber god.

Amidst the outside world's turmoil, conspiracy theories surrounding Rainbow Star abound.

From China to America, there are all sorts of rumors.

Despite the confidentiality agreement, rumors still spread like wildfire, such as the Crimson Rainbow Star project giving birth to super artificial intelligence.

But none of these things could stop Lin Ran's journey to the moon.

"CCTV, CCTV, what you are seeing now is the Wenchang Space Launch Center. Apollo Technology is about to conduct its 25th lunar launch of the year. This mission is different from previous missions."

Professor Lin Ran will personally travel to the moon to carry out scientific research.

This marks Professor Lin Ran's return to the moon after a five-year hiatus.

Compared to the moon landing five years ago, this moon landing is not only the first moon landing after the Apollo technology moon landing became routine, but also the first departure from Earth by the Queqiao spacecraft.

Next, let's turn the camera to the reporters on the front lines.

(End of this chapter)