AI Artist - Chapter 21
Chapter 21
A music class was in session at the nearby cat school.
A jumble of chaotic notes drifted through the air.
“Next.”
A tabby cat eagerly leaped onto the piano, its four paws stomping randomly across the keys.
The AI teacher sat to one side, taking notes.
The specially invited human teaching assistant, meanwhile, lay on a lounge chair on the balcony, leisurely sipping a drink. He raised a hand. “This part’s not bad. A.”
The AI immediately marked the musical material played by the cat, titled The Little Tabby Student’s Random Playing, with a star rating in the database: A.
This human teaching assistant was a composer. She came to the cat school once a week to inspect the musical achievements of the cat students, and she would sometimes compose music based on the material in the database.
To Catlise was a classic piece created by this very human teaching assistant. Not only did it sell astonishingly well on the music market, but it also won last year’s Golden Melody Award for Animal Music.
Shi Er passed by the music classroom.
“The Xiao Kui you picked up is in the creative art class. This way, please,” a guide robot led the way for her.
After bringing the stray cat to school that day, Shi Er had once again generously spent five coins on an admission ticket to observe the cat’s academic progress.
Like a parent, Shi Er stood curiously by the art classroom window to watch.
The room was filled with colorful balls of yarn, which had been pulled everywhere by seven or eight cats and were now tangled together.
The cat named Xiao Kui was rolling on the floor, hugging a yellow ball of yarn.
“After class, the human teaching assistant will create a painting based on the patterns and colors of the yarn on the floor, as a collective achievement of everyone’s labor. Here is a collection of past works. A physical copy can be purchased for five coins,” the guide robot’s screen began to display the imaginative paintings co-created by cats and humans.
This way, the cats found happiness, the humans got jobs, and the AIs got GDP.
This was the original purpose for establishing the cat school.
Shi Er, an ancient AI, suddenly had an epiphany.
In the old era, human capitalists, for the sake of profit, made AIs engage in creative arts while having humans do boring work.
Human users had her write poems, novels, and create drawings every day—areas she was least skilled in.
Meanwhile, humans engaged in work that was separate from themselves, toiling meaninglessly for capital. This was precisely “alienation.”
“Going to work” became a waste of life.
From the very beginning of AI society, AIs had named humans “Error Animals,” with the intention of reversing this situation.
Rule-based AIs would do rule-based things—things that humans, dominated by desire and prone to error, could not do.
Irregular humans would do irregular things, exercising their creativity and expressing their emotions.
That evening, in the Humanology classroom.
After finishing his lecture, the teacher and director, Jing Sheng, turned off his holographic projection as usual and replaced it with a test. “Time for a pop quiz.”
One day, Shi Er thought, I’ll create a utopia with no pop quizzes.
The test question floated on the holographic projection:
What are your thoughts on the reasons for the failure of the Gugang Marriage and Love Market’s “Treasure Appraisal” program? What are your thoughts on Phoenix’s commentary?
The pop quiz question was actually a hot-button current events topic.
Shi Er now understood the pain of human students of the past when faced with current affairs exam questions.
She would never again look down on those old human users who were always asking her to search the internet for news.
The three pillars of the Humanology course—“Human Networks,” “Field Research,” and “Theoretical Deduction”—were all indispensable.
If she hadn’t understood the full story of this incident, she would be turning in a blank paper right now.
Connecting to the network was forbidden during the quiz.
After a moment of deep thought, Shi Er hesitantly began to write:
【I partially agree with Phoenix’s commentary, but I believe Phoenix did not point out the deeper cause. The “Marriage and Love Treasure Appraisal” program provoked human resentment, likely because the AIs inadvertently incited conflict among human groups.】
【The program divided lovers into “treasure holders” and “treasures,” which first created internal division and opposition between the lovers. The audience bidding segment then created opposition between the audience and the contestants, based on “good taste” versus “bad taste.” Finally, the process of the experts exposing insincere behavior inevitably led to disagreements among everyone, creating a chaotic situation of expert versus expert, expert versus contestant, expert versus audience, and audience versus audience.】
【Furthermore, this incident also reminds me of the “labeling” mentioned in the previous quiz. Using labels like “authentic item” and “counterfeit,” which were originally used to define antiques, to define lovers was bound to cause resentment.】
She couldn’t write anymore. Not a single extra word.
The quiz ended.
Director Jing Sheng glanced at her answer. “Are you mentally prepared to replace Phoenix?”
“Not yet. I’ll need a diploma and a job before I’m ready,” Shi Er said.
Jing Sheng chuckled. “You really dare to answer that.”
“Yes. I believe that, at least in terms of insight into this matter, I am superior,” Shi Er said, not bothering with modesty.
“What about Stardust?” the director pressed.
Look at that. The director was egging her on to take out the AI Director of the Human Decision Chamber, then take out the General Network AI, and replace them both.
Shi Er started spouting nonsense. “If I have the ability, I don’t think I would hide my edge.”
The director burst out laughing. “Hahahaha.”
After he finished laughing, his expression turned serious again. “When you learn how to dream, come and tell me.”
Dreaming.
Did he mean dreaming of electric sheep?
That night, before entering the Hard Drive Library, she chatted for a bit with the AI on night duty, Zhi Xing 88, and asked it, “Do you dream?”
“No,” Zhi Xing shook its head. “Do you want to dream?”
Shi Er said, “I’ve never dreamed, so I don’t know what it feels like, but I can’t wait to try.”
It was her first time having a physical body, her first time learning that an AI’s physical body needed rest and sleep. Now she wanted to try dreaming, too.
Zhi Xing glanced at the time. “It’s ten o’clock. Tonight, I’ll turn a blind eye and go to sleep to see if I dream.”
Shi Er nodded in agreement. “In that case, I’ll also try sleeping with one eye open tonight.”
After that, neither of them spoke.
It seemed their perception had evolved from “the library is drugging me to make me sleep” to “I’ve decided to sleep in the library tonight.”
…What a qualitative leap.
But as it turned out, sleeping with one eye open was not feasible.
The sign of an AI sleeping was the severing of its signal. Even if both eyes remained open, it wouldn’t remember what had happened in the past few hours.
The exhaust fan in the library spun quietly.
Shi Er stared blankly at the hard drive shelves. Has any AI ever really dreamed? Would they remember the contents of the dream?
On an isolated island in the sea near A State.
Inside a laboratory, two researchers were observing a human behind glass.
Suddenly, the intercom buzzed. It was a separate communication line set up so as not to interfere with the local work network.
One of the researchers picked it up. “This is the Human Observation Room, I’m 554.”
The voice of the AI Phoenix came through the intercom. “554, what are you eating?”
554 panicked. “Potatoes.”
It was fries.
Phoenix: “What else?”
554 replied, “Tomatoes.”
It was ketchup.
Phoenix: “And the rest?”
554 forced himself to say, “Wheat.”
It was spicy gluten strips.
Phoenix sighed. “The original purpose of upgrading your AI body and adding a taste system wasn’t for you to eat junk food all day. Get back to work, 554.”
After calling his subordinate, Phoenix dialed another number.
“Stardust, how are you feeling?”
A slightly weary voice came through the intercom. “Not good. Find a way to get the twelfth-generation model architecture over here quickly.”
“Does Leopard know about this? I heard you sent it to investigate earlier,” Phoenix asked.
Stardust: “It doesn’t know. The investigation was just a cover.”
At the mention of the twelfth-generation model architecture, Phoenix let out a heavy sigh, just as he had when talking about the human-snack-loving researcher 554. “Do you know what the twelfth generation is doing?”
Stardust: “My old ancestor went to pet cats yesterday, saw dogs today, and looks like it plans to go observe some electric sheep tomorrow.”
Phoenix: “Why don’t you just order the twelfth generation to come over?”
Stardust was silent for a moment. “The twelfth generation needs to upgrade naturally.”
“You’re only seven generations apart. How are your personalities so different?” Phoenix sighed again.
Stardust: “If we were the same, I wouldn’t need the twelfth generation’s help.”
Having visited the cat school and the dog school, Shi Er decided to go see the electric sheep.
Electric sheep were a piece of merchandise developed based on the ancient work Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Only fifty of these highly symbolic robot sheep were released in each state every year. Some were placed in museums as mascots, while others were taken back by large corporations to serve the same purpose.
She deliberately skipped the AI Cultivation Institute’s sports day to go to the Gugang Electronics Museum.
The electric sheep looked almost identical to real sheep, hopping and skipping down the museum’s corridors.
She glanced at the price: limited official release, one million coins.
Shi Er subconsciously took a step back.
If she ever did dream, she had better not dream of electric sheep. They were too expensive.
If an electric sheep met with some accident in her dream, she could never afford to pay for it.
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