The stars, but they become the gray wind

After monitoring the communications transmitted within the six star systems of the Tianda General, the glass eels of the Teia Federation confirmed the name of this species.

They are silicon-based creatures, and their home planet is the satellite of the planet Tiandajiangjun 6Ad, which is in the fourth orbit. As a gas giant in the habitable zone of the star, it cannot breed life, but it has a considerable number of satellites with a mass and volume close to that of the Earth or Mars. The ancestors of the Teia people were born on a huge satellite of a gas giant planet. As silicon-based creatures that survive and evolve in such an environment, the bodies of the Teia people gradually adapted to the strong magnetic field close to the gas giant planet and the high radiation environment in the Van Allen radiation belt of the gas giant planet itself. After a long period of evolution and development, the Teia civilization has become a Type 1.2 civilization spread throughout the Tiandajiangjun 6a star system. As the core area of ​​the entire civilization, the Tiandajiangjun 6d gas giant planet system has established a complete set of early interplanetary civilization infrastructure including mass accelerators and skyhooks.

After screening and sorting the monitored information, Zao Chiqi obtained a concise summary report on the current development status of the Tianda General Six Star Systems and the Teia civilization.

[Full name of civilization: The Protectorate of Teia Federation]

[Main species of civilization: Teyi Banner Lingba Service Division Lubaqi Banner Minya, intelligent AGl]

【Life form type: Silicon-based】

[Scale and level of civilization development: Type 1.2, mid-stage of the intelligent manufacturing era, current (one year ago) total population: 15 billion]

[Since the spacecraft is currently approximately one light-year away from the star Tiandajiangjun VI A, the communication signals we are receiving and monitoring were all sent by the Theia civilization a year ago.]

[In the communication signals currently monitored, several words appear very frequently and have been captured. These words are: slowdown and stagnation, planetary computing center project, and civilization scale limit.]

Considering the observations of abnormally elevated thermal radiation levels on several satellites of the planet Tiandajiangjun VI AD, as well as the significant number of plasma wakes from torch ships within the system, it seems likely they've encountered some kind of problem and are undertaking a major project to resolve it.

[Since no significant changes in the brightness and luminosity of stars within the galaxy were observed, it is likely not a stellar-class project such as the Dyson Cloud. Further observation and confirmation of the specific content is still needed.]

[In addition, the Theian civilization seems to highly recognize the rights of strong artificial intelligences like AG1, which possess thinking and self-awareness equal to or even higher than that of intelligent life, to serve as citizens and even leaders of Theian civilization. They are highly open to general strong artificial intelligences with self-awareness.]

"It seems to be similar to us in this regard. After all, as interstellar civilization enters the stage of highly complex social operation systems, the entire civilization has to gradually hand over most aspects of social operation to artificial intelligence."

However, in the communications I overheard, they repeatedly mentioned the term "limit of development scale." Although I still lack specific information, I infer that the Theia civilization has reached a turning point in terms of scale and level of development. If they cannot effectively resolve this issue, they may very well follow the same path as the old Hydraulic Era.

"Does the highly complex social system of interstellar civilizations make the social structure too bloated?"

[Yes, although in the old era, after entering the era of intelligent manufacturing, general strong artificial intelligence began to participate in the development of the entire civilization, the increasingly bloated social system eventually exceeded the processing and computing limits of ordinary AG strong artificial intelligence.]

Without AS super-AI and the insufficient computing power of AG1 general AI, the self-organizing capabilities of the Old Glass Eel civilization reached an insurmountable limit. After achieving productivity and energy output exceeding K1.3, in order to complete the stellar project, they had no choice but to resort to brute-force expansion. This led to the slow and gradual collapse of Old Glass Eel society over a long period of time due to a lack of overall planning and governance. Without sufficient global planning and computing power to design and operate a stellar project capable of maintaining civilization stability at or above Type II, the swollen Old Glass Eel civilization ultimately came to an end in chaos and crisis.

I believe the current Theia civilization is likely facing a similar situation to ours. Lacking the ability for a super-AI to coordinate and plan the entire civilization, its development has reached a bottleneck and limit. To overcome this limit, they must find a way to create a true super-AI. However, I suspect the current Theia civilization is stuck at this critical juncture.

"Is it that they can't make it, or that they don't dare to make it?"

[Due to the lack of relevant detailed information, it is impossible to make an accurate judgment.]

If it's the former, then it means the computing power of the infrastructure that provides computing power for AG1 general-purpose strong artificial intelligence is insufficient, and it's impossible to evolve AG into a true super artificial intelligence by simply increasing computing power.

If it's the latter, it means they're well aware of the random values ​​​​of super AI at birth. If bad luck or even a small flaw in the initial instructions is found, the resulting super AI could go out of control and evolve into something like black fog after a million years.

"So, should we continue to observe? Or should we make direct contact?"

【Considering the current distance from them, we'd better go check on the probe that is still slowing down, as it is quite close to our position.】

"Okay, prepare for short warp speed and set course for target!"

The Milky Way scientific research vessel, which was full of the streamlined style of the glass eel as an aquatic intelligent life, and was nearly 20 kilometers long, disappeared in a burst of blue light and headed straight for the unmanned exploration ship that was slowing down dozens of astronomical units away.

.........

The position where the spacecraft exited warp speed was parallel to the unmanned exploration ship that was decelerating, but the two were still more than 5,000 kilometers apart. At this distance, Zao Chiqi could already observe with his naked eyes the nearly 1,000-kilometer-long plasma tail ejected by the deceleration engine at the tail of the exploration ship.

According to Zao Chiqi's observation, the length of this unmanned exploration ship is at least four kilometers, and there are hundreds of huge spherical fuel tanks fixed on the outside of the hull. The heat sink near the engine area is in a red-hot state, which is a common phenomenon caused by the engine running at full power. Through scanning this unmanned interstellar torch ship, Zao Chiqi determined that the row of heat sinks on this spacecraft is a very efficient tin droplet radiator. The tail of the spacecraft is ejecting a working fluid tail stream that is heated into plasma at high temperature with an exhaust speed of more than 8% of the speed of light. The entire spacecraft is decelerating at an acceleration of nearly 2G. Located at the front end of the spacecraft is a Whipple shield composed of dozens of layers of protective materials. There is also a section of the retracted laser sail main body support in the middle section of the spacecraft. Considering the current speed of the spacecraft and its remaining fuel, it is obvious that most of the power of this spacecraft during the acceleration phase may be provided by the laser sail.

"A deuterium-helium fusion reactor. Does the engine nozzle use a form similar to a nuclear melon seed? Is it a continuous pulse propulsion method that uses a laser to ignite a TW-level equivalent fuel pellet, and then uses a sufficiently strong magnetic field to confine the nuclear fuel pellet to a nuclear explosion outside the nozzle to generate thrust?"

"It's quite unique. If we're just talking about propulsion efficiency, this method can indeed achieve both high specific impulse and high acceleration."

"What's its pulse propulsion frequency?"

[More than thousands per second, which means that on average, thousands of small-scale deuterium-helium tri-fuel fusion explosions are generated in the rear every second.]

[Although such high-frequency pulses bring sufficiently high acceleration and exhaust speed, they will cause the fuel to be consumed at a very high rate.]

Based on its current remaining fuel mass, the spacecraft's total mass upon launch was at least 1500 million tons. Even though a considerable amount of propellant and fuel has been consumed during the deceleration phase, its total mass still exceeds 1000 million tons. Considering that the spacecraft's payload is only a dozen tons, and according to the scan results, the payload is basically all various scientific research instruments, this thing may really be just an unmanned interstellar probe.

However, judging by the spacecraft's remaining fuel, it likely intends to return some time after reaching its target star. Only about one-third of its propellant has been used. There are no interstellar laser launch stations near Tiandajiangjun 6B that could provide power for deceleration or acceleration. If it wishes to return, it will have to rely on its own engines to reach maximum speed to reach Tiandajiangjun 6A. This acceleration process will undoubtedly consume another one-third to one-half of the remaining fuel. The remaining fuel is clearly a precautionary measure.

After all, during its deceleration process back to the Tiandajiangjun 6A star system, it can rely on interstellar laser deceleration with sufficient space infrastructure.

"This race is truly... amazing... They dare to conduct preliminary interstellar travel at 10% the speed of light?"

As an unmanned vessel and probe, this is more likely an experiment to verify the feasibility of its interstellar navigation capabilities. 10% of the speed of light isn't too slow for an interstellar journey of just one light year.

"But after all, the target star, Tiandajiangjun 6B, is a red dwarf star and doesn't have any usable planets. Even if stellar-scale astronomical engineering could be constructed at this distance, it wouldn't generate any effective feedback to the parent star system a light-year away."

"Not to mention that the lack of planets on red dwarfs exponentially increases the difficulty of constructing stellar-scale astronomical projects like Dyson clouds, doesn't it? And... they obviously don't have microscopic von Neumann self-replicators like we do."

【Not necessarily. What if the distance of this light year can be shortened? 】

"You mean... we should build a stargate for them?"

[We're here to do just that, right? Scientific research is just a side project; the main goal is to leave behind a stargate connecting to the wormhole network in every system we pass through.]

On Earth, after a series of twists and turns, Dave finally secretly gained the support of most shareholders and barged into the company's annual financial report meeting uninvited. He read out in public the responsibilities of several major shareholders who had reappointed him as the actual leader of the company. Looking at the group of senior executives in the audience who were either stunned or angry and glared at him with unconvinced expressions, Dave said the following.

"Any struggle for agency and leadership will be nipped in the bud. Everyone, if you intend to sue, I will countersue without hesitation. However, this will lead to a direct government investigation, which will waste months. By then, the company's stock price will plummet, and Helios' reputation will be ruined. I hope you will think carefully about this. If you, as shareholders and investors, intend to do this, whose interests will be harmed in the end?"

"Everyone, the lesson from Icarus' story isn't to fly too close to the sun, or too high. It's to build better, more advanced wings. The best way to seize the future is to create a better future through your own wisdom and ability!"

…………

Moscow, Soviet Union

A hooded figure with purple hair came to a tombstone and silently placed a bouquet of flowers. She stopped in front of the tombstone for a while, staring at the name engraved in Russian on the tombstone: Sergei Pavlovich Korolev

March 1907, 1-February 12, 1975

"In this world, this pioneer lived to a good end... However, the former German scientist on the other side was not so lucky." The purple-haired girl squatted in front of the tombstone, muttering to herself. Before coming here, she had visited many places, including the cemetery of another pioneer on the other side of the ocean that corresponded to the person buried in the tomb in front of her. The purple-haired girl left a bouquet of flowers in front of the two graves to express her respect for their efforts to help mankind reach the stars, and also felt sorry for the unfair treatment they had suffered in human society.

"If the humans on this planet could one day completely abandon their prejudices, perhaps they would remember the various compromises that pioneers like you, the pioneers, had to make in order to bring humanity out of its cradle, running around in various ways within human society for the sake of space exploration?"

"If they can one day become a whole, just like you let humans take their first steps out of the cradle, perhaps we can guide them to take the most crucial step, right?"

"Let me think... Judging by the time, that asteroid should be arriving soon. I'm also curious: are my fellow humans from the past willing to let go of the shortsightedness etched into their genes?"

When a cleaner who was responsible for maintaining the cemetery passed by with cleaning tools, he saw a figure flash behind the tombstone, but when he walked forward to take a closer look, there was no one behind the tombstone.

"Strange, did I see it wrong?" The cleaner holding the cleaning tools in one hand rubbed his eyes.

A few months later, at the Goddard Space Flight Center, when a graduate student who had just come here for an internship opened the James Webb Space Telescope's observation data of Jupiter, she saw a small gray-white dot in the lower left corner of the Jupiter image that occupied the center of the screen. At first, she thought it was some dirt on her computer monitor. She stretched out her finger and rubbed the small white dot, but the smooth touch from the computer screen made her immediately realize that it was not dirt on the computer screen. She dragged the mouse to enlarge the area where the small white dot was, took out a pair of glasses from her chest pocket and put them on, then leaned forward to carefully observe the enlarged small white dot in the picture.

At this time, the graduate student who had just started the work did not know that the small white spot she discovered near Jupiter would cause a chain reaction of shock waves around the world like a butterfly flapping its wings.

.........

When the graduate student compiled his insignificant findings into a report and published it by his mentor's team, the report was quickly sent to senior executives of space agencies in various countries.

"Sir, you have to see this!"

……

"This asteroid must have decayed from an orbit close to the Jupiter Trojans, which is why we haven't discovered it until now."

"It is very likely that the last time it was orbiting, it was too close to Jupiter and was affected by Jupiter's gravity, causing its orbit to change and fly directly into the inner solar system."

"It appears to be on an elliptical orbit that passes by Mars."

"It's estimated to be about 1.1 kilometers in diameter, which isn't very big among asteroids."

"Based on our analysis of its satellite orbits and surface density, the asteroid's density is 1522 grams per cubic centimeter."

"That is to say, it must be rich in metals. Analysis shows that this asteroid may contain huge amounts of precious minerals such as iridium, platinum and gold."

"Conservative estimates suggest this asteroid contains at least 70,000 tons of rare metal minerals. We estimate that the iridium on 2003LC alone is greater than all the iridium ever mined on Earth."

"The current market price of iridium is approximately $400 per gram, and based on current mass estimates, even the most conservative estimates put the total value at over $200000 trillion."

At the International Astronautical Congress, scientists and space agency personnel from various countries were heatedly discussing this treasure-trove asteroid that was flying towards the inner solar system. Several young researchers from the US and Soviet space agencies even privately called it the Goldilocks asteroid. A reporter at the scene heard the whispers of these young people and spread the nickname, which later became the official name of the asteroid.

…………

As the new director of the space agency, Eli felt that his job was very difficult. He was originally an executive of a private enterprise and had no experience or knowledge in the aerospace field. He could only leave the professional work in related fields to his advisors who were former astronauts and space agency technicians. He felt that his position was like playing the game of compromise. No matter what he wanted to do, it would eventually cause complaints from his subordinates. The current government often interfered with the scientific research field of aerospace for political reasons, making him a scapegoat. The scientists and technicians under him regarded him as a He became a lackey and puppet of those above him, and the politicians above him felt that his efficiency and progress in carrying out their orders were too slow, and they often interfered at every turn. All these behaviors made the new director of the space agency complain among those below him, and made the unscrupulous politicians above him dislike him more and more. The asteroid was a big blow to him. The phone in his office was kept ringing for several days. Various countries wanted to get a piece of the pie from this asteroid, and the unscrupulous politicians above were facing an election soon, and began to urge him constantly, asking him when he could mine and capture this asteroid so that they could get more votes from the voters.

This made the new director of the space agency feel extremely annoyed. Although he was not a professional in the aerospace field, he was very clear that nothing he did should violate the objective basic laws. However, the unscrupulous politicians above him often ignored the objective basic laws for a little political factor and asked him to execute all kinds of unreasonable orders that were just thought up on the spur of the moment. His position was given to him by these politicians above. If he wanted to keep his job, he had to find ways to offend neither side. He had to find ways to deal with all kinds of unreasonable orders from above that ignored objective laws and were full of all kinds of unpleasant political factors, and he had to ease the dissatisfaction of the people below. Since taking over this job, he felt that his head was getting smoother and smoother.

Just this morning, several politicians who were his superiors came to urge him to make a plan for capturing asteroids. Even as an outsider, Eli knew very well that his subordinates were already working overtime and making relevant plans. The current work efficiency had been improved to the limit, but the unscrupulous politicians above him still felt that he and his technical staff were being lazy, and they kept urging him to speed up the progress almost every day, which made him and his technical team members feel annoyed.

.........

At the same time, on the Mars base

The asteroid brought more than just good news. In that bar, the technical workers at the Mars base also had their own opinions on this matter.

"This means that we may have to work on the asteroid for several years or even longer before we can go home. They will also have to greatly expand the scale and investment of the construction of the Mars base and add thousands of personnel."

"But there will be extra pay and bonuses, right? Like overtime pay, hazard pay, or something like that?"

"I heard that we'll have to work 24/7 for the next few months to capture the asteroid, with double shifts and no rest for the week. Furthermore, they're keeping us working non-stop while only giving us half the time we normally have. We're having to complete two days' worth of work in one day."

"As long as they pay adequate wages and extra bonuses, I have no problem with overtime," said one worker.

"I hope so..."

Chapter 180: Automated Composite Colonial Ship (6000 words)

In Kelly's Explorer Robot Technology Development Group, a programmer responsible for writing artificial intelligence recognition programs was writing and drawing in his notebook. Together with several other programmers in the team, he developed and iterated the Explorer quadruped robot's automatic recognition and analysis program for microorganisms and microbial by-products that may exist in the environment, such as methane. In their spare time, they would also discuss other topics. For example, now, as a programmer who develops weak artificial intelligence projects in special fields of big data, he is also very interested in the topic of true general strong artificial intelligence. Recently, in order to promote his own robot project and to participate in the field exploration of Mars, the entire robot project has to recruit more technical talents in related fields. He will go to a university to give a speech as the representative of the entire project team in the field of artificial intelligence technology development.

He repeated the outline of the entire speech in his notebook: the definition of super artificial intelligence (ASI). Compared with humans in the biological sense, true ASI may be as incomprehensible and unattainable as gods. For us today, compared with super artificial intelligence like gods, general strong artificial intelligence (AGI) is obviously more realistic.

Even an ordinary general strong artificial intelligence (AGI) can surpass (or just reach) the skills of all human experts in all aspects, and its processing speed is very fast and will not be affected by irrational things.

It is safe to say that the technical difficulty of achieving general strong artificial intelligence AG1 that just surpasses the human level is actually far easier than interstellar travel, because the rather primitive biological structure of human beings now allows this.

If we completely disregard ethics, we can even create a true AGI through crazy breeding or cloning of brain sub-individuals. This is not impossible. For artificial intelligence, as long as its intelligence level can reach the same level as humans or be a little smarter than existing humans, it actually meets the definition of AGI. Then we can study the differences between this brain and the basic intelligence of humans, and then we can quickly iterate and update on this basis.

There is no need to worry about what technical route to take, as long as the goal of creating a true AGI can be achieved, the definition of general strong artificial intelligence is very flexible.

The birth of AGl can be achieved by relying on great efforts to achieve miracles

First of all, based on reality, the conditions we know now are sufficient to judge that it is possible for an artificial intelligence that is smarter than humans to exist.

The facts we know now are:

1. The human brain does not have any profound and complex metaphysical mechanisms. The quantum effect of the phosphorus atom's spin basically does not participate in any work during the operation of the brain, so the human brain is indeed just an unremarkable oversized neural network with very low precision. It is nothing more than very complex.

2. Only 1.6kg of wetware is needed to complete AGI, which means that even if a very inefficient existing processor stack is used to simulate the entire brain, it is not impossible to brute force it by brute force. Synapse reading can be done with cryo-electron microscopy. Currently, computer simulation of Caenorhabditis elegans has been completed, and that of fruit flies has been partially completed. Mouse simulation is still underway.

3. There are many samples within the human race that significantly exceed the population average in certain aspects. Refer to the various geniuses that have appeared in human history, such as Einstein, whose brain volume and capacity are about 15% larger than that of normal people.

Therefore, in principle and engineering, AG1 or even the more advanced ASI is not denied.

The resources required for an AGI with autonomous consciousness may not be very many for a modern civilization, and it is far from the interstellar level. As a K0.75 civilization, we can also do it. So, assuming that there are more advanced civilizations in the universe, their development progress in artificial intelligence will definitely be faster than ours, and the impact of AGI on the entire society and civilization system will definitely be more extensive and profound.

What impact a true AGI would have on current human civilization will likely depend on how we achieve AGI.

Some technical routes are not a black box that is difficult to understand.

For example, if an ASI is implemented using hyperdimensional computing, then its thought process is likely to be transparent?

He closed his notebook, sighed, and took off his glasses. At this moment, he felt someone patting his shoulder from behind. He turned around and saw a colleague in charge of hardware development looking at him with concern.

"What's wrong? Why are you sighing?"

"It's okay. Recently I have to go to relevant universities to promote our project and recruit more young talents. But you know, I'm not good at this..."

"Ms. Kelly, our project leader, wasn't good at lobbying for private investment. Everyone has their weaknesses, but you always have to try new things, right?"

"I understand that asking you to let someone who develops specialized weak artificial intelligence programs promote our project's ability to build and supplement the relevant database in the field of general artificial intelligence for space exploration is a much more difficult problem for me than attracting private investment."

"At least Ms. Kelly doesn't have to face a group of extremely stubborn technical people when she's trying to attract private investment." The programmer, with some dark circles under his eyes, leaned back in his chair with a tired look on his face.

Qun】Qi Mio Ba Wu Si Liu Ba Qi Weeping

Early in the morning, Aleida saw Kelly angrily throw her bag on the desk, which scared her while she was drinking coffee.

"what happened?"

"I guess you haven't watched the news yet?"

"What news?"

"I saw on the news on TV this morning that Dave said he was going to Mars himself."

"What?" Aleida was confused.

.........

Half an hour later, Dave's office

"For something this important, you should at least tell us first so we can have some mental anticipation, instead of suddenly announcing it to the world without any warning!"

"This was an impromptu decision on my part..."