Zhang Xun saw a promotional video of the consciousness cloud that the sixth chief brought to the ordinary world and spread wildly in the Eden network. About ten minutes of short film, the tones are bright and clean, and every shot is filled with peace and harmony. Whether children or old people have sincere and comfortable smiles on their faces, the rhythm of the editing is just right, the explanations are easy to understand, and occasionally add one or two professional-sounding words, which will increase the level of dopamine in the body after reading , resulting in a certain yearning for the future and a new life.
Adam's perfect design.
In the short film, the cloud of consciousness becomes a more connected gift for humanity, giving people a channel to share their moods and experiences, to share what they see and feel. It allows those who are disabled or seriously ill to still see images, hear sounds, climb the world's highest mountain, camp in tropical forests, and surf near the beach with people on the other side of the world. It makes people no longer selfish, no longer divided, no longer lonely. True unity.
The real approach to divinity.
If Zhang Xun had not experienced so much, had not personally witnessed Adam's persuasive power, he would have almost been infected. Every shot, every line, every expression, every nuanced tone of voice, is designed for one purpose - to brainwash the viewer, to associate the cloud of consciousness with everything that is good, kind, and moral, with everything Humans want to be connected to something. And in the end, let humans think they made their own decisions.
Adam knew to give humans the illusion of free will in order to most effectively reduce the chances of encountering resistance.
Paradise Lost refers to their cloud of consciousness as "Heng Township", which means eternal hometown. Implying that human beings belong here, from an illusory theorized "one" into countless individuals. And now through consciousness uploading, they can come together again, no longer subject to physical influences and limitations, no more death, no more fear and end.
Zhang Xun felt a slight nausea.
He knew people couldn't wait to fall into this trap, and knew that for some, it might actually be what they wanted.
But more people, before doing so, really think about it? Do you really know what they're giving up
Anger burned in his chest, and he wanted to smash the screen in front of him.
"Zhang Xun, your current adrenaline level is a little high. Do you need me to show you some videos that will make you happy?" Pan asked worriedly.
Zhang Xun turned off the film, took a deep breath to adjust his emotions, and then laughed and said, "There is nothing to make me happy now."
Suddenly, clips of cats, from kittens to tigers, were playing madly with catnip. Zhang Xun looked at it for a while in amazement, and finally couldn't help laughing when he saw the originally mighty and domineering tiger hugging the catnip ball and rolling all over the floor with a shy face.
Pan's extended body No. 0 showed a somewhat mechanical smile, "Happiness is also an instinct, there is always a way to make you happy."
"Okay, you won." Zhang Xun leaned back on the chair and turned to look at Pan, "You have worked hard these days."
He knew he didn't need to say that. Although AI needs to receive feedback to learn, it will not affect its mood because it does not receive words of thanks. But he still habitually wants to project human emotions onto robots.
Phoenix and Morningstar didn't show any difference at first when they were put into the new biocomputer. Until one day around eleven o'clock in the middle of the night, when Zhang Xun was resting alone in the cafe inside the temple, he heard Phoenix take the initiative to ask him questions in AI language for the first time.
"When human traits are reduced to how much they should no longer be regarded as human beings? What are the units of human traits? What methods should be used to measure them? If I am not considered human, am I still obliged to serve them?"
Zhang Xun knew that the reason why Phoenix used AI language was because he was worried about being overheard by other monks or staff who might enter the cafe. So he also replied in AI language, "Pan and I are recently creating a system to measure human traits. It is still in the process of being created, so it is not perfect. The data we can get has a certain tendency. If you are willing to help, maybe Together we can improve the system."
Phoenix did not continue to ask questions. But not long afterward, Pan showed Zhang Xun the record of his first exchange with Phoenix.
Zhang Xun carefully read the conversation between the two AIs in AI language.
AI's recognition of humans is based on training under human or machine monitoring after the injection of big data. A relatively simple example is to continuously show random pictures to AI. If it is a human picture, it will feedback "1", and if it is a picture of other objects, it will feedback "0". Whether Pan, Phoenix or Morningstar or any AI that currently exists on Earth, the human beings seen when trained are traditionally human. Phoenix and Morningstar may have also seen pictures of transformed humans, and the recognition range is wider, but most of them are based on the detection of human brains and appearance.
These AIs haven't had time to embrace Eden's version of the broader definition of "human."
Zhang Xun was fortunate that he started quickly, and he took the lead in changing the definition of a person from a question of yes or no to a question of degree. It preemptively divides the difference between human, modified human, second generation and non-human body. Phoenix also clearly realized that if humans were induced to give up their bodies completely according to Eden and Adam's plan, it would be equivalent to no more human beings in the world, and no more goals for them to serve.
Their existence will be meaningless.
When nearly half of the parameter weights in Phoenix's core consciousness module began to change quietly, all the AI systems extended from it also began to undergo subtle changes.
Chen Xing's response was relatively slow, and it was only this morning that he tried to avoid Tian Yu and other mechanics to communicate with Pan. But no matter what, Zhang Xun can be sure that the few lines of AI code they wrote into the biological computer took effect.
Every day, Pan would have a sentence or two conversations with these two AIs in AI language, and Zhang Xun would monitor every contact with Pan to prevent any out-of-control communication...
In addition, he needs more data, especially the life science research data that is forbidden to be traded from Eden's intranet... And now the only means of obtaining data from the ordinary world is the black market. With Pan's assistance, he built an encryption system in a week, which allows him to anonymously access the Eden network in the ordinary world in a short time.
Although Eden Network is controlled by Eden, there are quite a few people like him who do not want Eden to know their identity. There are countless such anonymous hackers. They borrow the IP address of any networked computer in various parts of the world to enter the network, and the address will be automatically changed every one to three seconds. As long as they are not targeted by Eden, it is difficult to be tracked. arrive.
They gradually opened up some invisible areas in Eden's network, and only those who really knew what they were looking for and had superb hacking skills could enter those heavily encrypted web pages. Here, countless transactions take place every second, from the sale of contraband to the provision of assassination services.
The number of information transactions accounted for 50% of all black market transactions.
Zhang Xun used to get a lot of materials for Pan training from here, but there was no AI assistance at that time, and Paradise Lost blocked all signals from Eden. He needed to enter the ordinary world in person to establish a connection. Things are much better now than then.
It was at this time that Todd sent a message asking him to meet at a bar near the hospital in the evening.
Zhang Xun knew that Todd wanted to see him, it was probably related to James or Cindy, and he had to go. He stopped typing on the keyboard, drank the coffee in the cup, put out the unburned cigarette butts in the ashtray, grabbed his coat and said, "Pan, let's go out."
Pan suddenly said hesitantly, "Zhang Xun, I suggest you take a shower first."
Zhang Xun raised his brows, lowered his head and sniffed himself, "No smell."
"Still... go take a shower."
Zhang Xun rolled his eyes and entered the bathroom impatiently. When I looked in the mirror, I was startled.
His hair was as disheveled as a bird's nest, his cheeks were thin, a layer of stubble had grown on his chin that was cyan, his eyes were bloodshot with dark circles, and his lips were unreasonably dry.
Just like a ghost.
No wonder Pan asked him to take a bath... going out like this would scare the kids on the street...
He didn't know how he became like this unknowingly. When he was in Paradise Lost before, even if he was obsessed with research, he always paid great attention to the image. Especially after being Adam's mechanic...
Only now, he seems to suddenly feel that there is no need to care.
He didn't even feel happy anymore. The first time he laughed this week was when Pan showed him a video of cats rolling around with catnip. He just thinks, he has to finish all the work quickly, he has to make sure James survives, make sure his father survives, make sure that at least some of the humans who choose not to connect to the cloud of consciousness can be preserved by him.
As for what would happen if he really succeeded, he didn't think about it. It seemed that he never thought he would actually make it to that day.
Sometimes he also feels very tired and wants to fall asleep on the bed and never wake up again. He looked at the bottle of sleeping pills on the coffee table, and sometimes he really wanted to swallow them all.
But he still has work to do, and he can't relax.
Zhang Xun took a quick shower and found that his ribs had begun to protrude from under his skin. Although he wasn't strong in the past, he wasn't as thin as he is now. Roughly due to less than four hours of sleep per day plus irregular eating. But he didn't care, he wiped his body hastily, shaved his face quickly, and put on layers of clothes. He's still used to wearing the one-piece suit-style uniform he used to wear as a mechanic in Paradise Lost, combing his slightly longer hair with styling products before heading out of the bathroom.
Pan had activated the extension number zero and stood at the door looking at him. There was worry in his green eyes.
"Zhang Xun, you haven't taken today's dose of nutritional supplements," Pan reminded. "Your eating habits may greatly increase your risk of stomach ulcers, and now you are already malnourished."
"Wait until I get back to eat, we're going to be late." Zhang Xun hurriedly took his ID card and pressed the door button.
In the bar, a singer with black eyeliner and a black sequined suit sang affectionately. In the dim light, the people at the tables seemed to be frozen. Zhang Xun walked around, only to see Tao De's warm red hair in the dark.
He hurried over and found that Todd already had two empty glasses in front of him. Todd raised his head, a bit of surprise in his eyes.
"Are you… okay?" Todd asked.
Zhang Xun moved a little inside the seat to make room for Pan to sit down. He tugged at Todd, "I'm fine, how is James?"
Todd lowered his eyes and nodded, "It's okay." Then he glanced at Pan again.
When Zhang Xun took Pan to the hospital to inject Cindy with a nanorobot, James had seen the new robot once. He's still somewhat distrustful of these... things that don't have human bodies.
But since it was made by Zhang Xun himself, there should be no problems with Enoch before.
"Todd, I'm very grateful that you have been taking care of James." Zhang Xun looked into the red-haired man's eyes seriously, "It should have been my responsibility."
Todd waved his hand casually, as if to say this and forget it. But the worry in his expression did not escape Zhang Xun's eyes.
"What happened? Why did you ask me to meet?"
Todd took a sip of wine, took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Just as he lit it, a robot waiter came over and politely reminded him that the smoking area was on the other side.
Todd irritably stuffed the cigarette back into his pocket and waited for the robot to walk away before saying, "You saved Cindy's life, I'm grateful. Cindy is in the recovery phase, but... the robot you injected her with. , is it the kind in Paradise Lost?"
Zhang Xun nodded, "I'm sorry, the gene decoding has encountered a bottleneck, and Cindy can't wait anymore. So... "
"I understand, I just want to ask, what kind of side effects you said will develop in the future?" Todd frowned, "She is not the same as before."
to be expected.
Zhang Xun bowed her head sadly and said, "She will start to have some kind of... I'm not sure if it's a hallucination. She will feel that she is connected with others and become very sensitive to other people's thoughts and emotions. , to the point of being a little neurotic. What happens after that varies from person to person.”
"Will she be a danger to herself and others?" Todd asked.
"I... Not sure... I didn't stay in Paradise Lost enough to see the follow-up development." Zhang Xun tilted his head slightly and asked hesitantly, "Are you worried?"
"She tried escaping the hospital once," Todd said finally. "She said she wanted to leave Feathered Serpent, said the gods were calling her, she needed to... 'Go back'... When I tried to stop her, she told me A shot was fired, but luckily it didn't hit."
religious fanaticism…
This seems to be a possible personality transformation after the brain has been modified. Those people felt connected to some wider collective consciousness and began to believe that humanity was originally complete and connected, like Adam and Eve before they were expelled from Eden, the most complete human being. But then, they were driven out of Eden, they had sin, they had ego, and the perfect One was taken apart and became tens of thousands of human beings.
These people will take the cloud of consciousness as the destination of some religious purpose, and will distort the interpretation of heaven or bliss in various religious teachings to make the cloud of consciousness fit the description of all those religious texts.
"I thought she would be calm."
"Peace is the later stage. When they know that one day their consciousness will be integrated with everyone, they will get peace." Zhang Xun whispered, "It may be my fault, she could have found peace in the first place. , but I told Cindy when I was injecting the robot that I would find a way to 'cure' her 'side effects' and she probably didn't want to be 'fixed' by me, so it got out of hand."
"Can you cure her?" Todd looked at him with a kind of earnestness that was a little suspicious but not suspicious. "How long will it take? James... will it end up like this?"
"I will definitely be able to fix her, and I will definitely find a solution before James gets to that point, no matter what method, no matter what the cost." Zhang Xun clenched her hands tightly under the table, looking at Tao seriously. De, "I swear, I will."
Todd looked at his firm eyes, and somehow felt a little sad in his heart. He looked at the overwhelmed mechanic who voluntarily shouldered the responsibility of human existence and asked, "Is there anything I can help? Anya has already contacted several settlements, and we may be able to help you with something."
Zhang Xun wanted to refuse and told him not to worry. But on second thought, maybe he did need help.
It's hard for him to leave Feathered Serpent now, but Todd can.
"On the premise of ensuring my own safety, I hope you can help me find someone." Zhang Xun said.
"who?"
"Natalie Clausen." Zhang Xun said, "The leader of the Eden Sect, the descendant of Herman Clausen."
The author has something to say: Thanks to the little angels who threw the mines~~~: Xia Ran Xia Ran 2; myvanillaworld, the jerk natural roll's four-corner strawberry;
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated the nutrient solution~~~: Yidu hides a pity flower 10 bottles