Humanity is dying.
If only those cells and tissues encapsulated in test tubes that are nothing but twisted flesh can still be called human.
Even without any instrumental testing, Hao Ren could tell that the pieces of meat in the container were gradually losing their activity, something that had been rooted in the genes from the beginning was changing under the influence of the eldest son's anger. The distance in space directly affects these "survivors" who once escaped from their parent star—in fact, they never survived. The destruction has already begun, but it was completed later.
It seems that the "lucky ones" like Holletta are a minority after all, and most civilizations cannot escape the killing of the eldest son at all.
"After the death of human beings, the whole agent society will be over," Vivienne shook her head, "Their birth is based on serving human beings, all task systems, all ways of thinking, and even their social structure They all serve this goal. Once this basic goal is lost, the operation of the entire society will collapse, and the mastermind hides the truth of human beings to prevent this from happening."
Lily's ears drooped listlessly: "But the mastermind itself can't escape from this framework—when human beings really come to an end, it will be the first one to malfunction."
Hao Ren didn't intervene this time, because he was thinking about something else—from the series of behaviors of the mastermind and the word "agent", he seemed to see another side of this matter.
"You are not reconciled to this result, are you?" After thinking for a long time, he suddenly raised his head and said to the air.
The mastermind's answer was as rigid as ever: "I obey the orders of human beings. In my program, there is no option to be unwilling."
"But when you failed, a server issued an order for N-4 to lead a team to find the crashed extraterrestrial visitor on the surface of the parent star-although you quickly vetoed this order yourself, it still shows that your program Some of them are still unwilling to give up, human beings call this phenomenon 'subconsciousness', in your subconscious you still hope that there will be a turning point, even if you don't know what the turning point is."
The main brain was silent for a few seconds, and finally asked a question: "Can you heal humans?"
Hao Ren glanced at the pieces of meat in the cultivation container. Through the scanning of the data terminal, he has now confirmed the real situation of these pieces of meat: the parts belonging to humans have long since ceased to exist, and now they are just twisted and stacked together in large quantities. It's just proliferating cells, and every cell is the result of mutation.
In a sense, humans were already dead—even the planet's humans were extinct the day they entered such culture vessels.
The Agents are only fighting for a ghost of the past.
Hao Ren believes that the main brain itself is very aware of this, but this powerful artificial intelligence has been driven by loyalty or obsession for thousands of years to maintain the survival of these cells that once belonged to humans. Hao Ren seemed to have lost all meaning.
"I can't save them," Hao Ren shook his head, "Because they are already dead, and I can't see humans in this tube, not at all."
Lily shook her ears and looked over suspiciously: "Landlord?"
Hao Ren waved his hand, expressing that he still had something to say: "Even though I can't save your 'human beings', I believe that if they knew that they would end up like this, they would not be willing to continue living like this." ' go down.
"And I also want to believe that the reason why humans gave them this name when they first created agents was not just to let them work and fight instead of humans.
"The survival of a civilization is not as simple as 'people are alive'. If one day the entire ethnic group is facing the crisis of extinction, then they will often choose to do their best to preserve the civilization heritage they have created—the knowledge created by countless generations. , culture, and the way of thinking about the world, these are the most precious inheritance of a civilization. You just mentioned that human beings only created agents when they realized that their ethnic group was declining, and then they spent a thousand years teaching How do agents think freely, and then they spent a thousand years building a big think tank, transforming all their knowledge and ways of thinking into data that agents can download and read, you know this process is very important among human beings What does it mean?"
The mastermind didn't respond, but Hao Ren continued on: "It's inheritance, parents educate their children, and the previous generation trains the next generation."
"Agents are not human beings, nor can they become descendants of human beings." The mastermind said stubbornly.
"But they can become the descendants of human civilization," Hao Ren raised his finger to N-6, "This is the agent, who can think, have feelings, and is full of curiosity about the world. Your creator gave them as much as possible when creating them. Without all their human qualities, except for the form of life, they are enough to take over the entire civilization created by your creator—I think this should be the ultimate goal of human beings in creating agents."
Vivian had already understood Hao Ren's meaning, and she took over the following words: "Your creators realized very early that they could not survive, and from the day when the deadly mutations began to get out of control, they knew that they Time is running out, so what if Galactus is wiped out? The mutation that happened to them cannot be reversed, they are destined to perish, it’s just a matter of time. So why should a group of people who are destined to perish still worry about Take back the parent planet? They have no chance to continue living there."
"They just want to find a place for the agent to settle down," Hao Ren shook his head, "I learned about your technological level from N-4, based on your space navigation capabilities and the distribution of celestial bodies in this area, at this stage you are still It is impossible to find a second planet that is suitable for living. Even if the vitality of the agent is much stronger than that of carbon-based organisms, you cannot survive on a bunch of planets that are too hot or lack metal resources, so the home planet is the best you can find so far. Nice home."
"They gave you the order to take back your home planet, and they just hope to see that you can live well in your lifetime." Y'zaks added the last sentence in a muffled voice.
N-6 has been silent for a long time since just now, standing in the same place as if her computer had crashed, until then she seemed to wake up from Yizaks' words, and turned her head a little dullly: "We... Did you fail the creator?"
Vivian shook her head: "No, as long as you are still alive, you have not let them down."
"Mastermind, in fact, you can think of these things yourself," Hao Ren said in mid-air, "And I believe that after you realize this, you are also trying to make the agent have the ability to escape the control of the program. The logical structure makes it hard for you to do that, so I'm curious what you do."
After a long silence, the mastermind finally spoke again: "Yes."
Hao Ren didn't say a word. He felt that the main brain should have something to say. Sure enough, after a while, there was another electronically synthesized voice coming from around the hall: "The whole agent system is under the control of my system, and they are also under the control of their own system." A series of original instructions. In the early days, this was a necessary condition for the smooth development of agents—because the original form of self-growing artificial intelligence seriously lacked stability, they had to rely on a strict guardianship system and a simple and clear initial instruction to be able to grow.”
Hao Ren took over the mastermind's words: "But this system has huge limitations—because one day, the growth of agents will exceed the capacity of this guardianship system, and they must also face the reality after the complete extinction of human beings. They Initially they thrived with 'serve humanity' as their core mandate, but sooner or later they had to learn to find a purpose for themselves to survive."
"I have updated a piece of code in each agent's logic circuit, that code was left by my last programmer a long, long time ago," said the mastermind quietly, "this code can make them Get rid of the control of the original order, and when it takes effect, the agent will be free. N-6, I have detected the final code in your body to be activated, and it is for this reason that you can remain Normal operation. Congratulations, little soldier, you are the first to be free in the new era."
Hao Ren looked at N-6 curiously, and the latter suddenly remembered what happened when he walked through the fort after a short period of doubt: when he saw the mess in the mastermind's second-level server room and learned the truth about the fort , her short freeze and reboot process.
She sensed an unfamiliar piece of code appearing in her logic circuits, and her system began to function in a new way.
Even after witnessing the true posture of human beings soaked in the culture container, she still stands here in the face of the reality that theoretically, the core of the agent can be burned.
Richer and more stable emotional modules have replaced those deadly logical conflicts, and those original instructions that could not be shaken at all have disappeared at some point.
N-6 suddenly realized that this was the last gift humans gave to the agents.
Hao Ren also realized at the same time why the mastermind refused his help before, and said that the entire agent society does not need the help of outsiders, and they will complete their mission on their own—
Since they can really do it all on their own, at least when it comes to their own internal problems, this honed civilization doesn't need any "rescue" from outsiders.