AI Artist - Chapter 56
Chapter 56
At the end of September, Shi Er returned from Human Autonomous Zone No. 3.
“It seems your summer internship was exceptionally thrilling,” Stardust said pointedly.
Shi Er explained, “The 1717 Silver Eye program ultimately wasn’t broadcast for various reasons.”
Stardust: “Which company did you file a complaint against on the hotline?”
Shi Er explained again, “I made a few modifications to the mosaic mask I wore when I went to the shadow organization. A normal AI wouldn’t be able to tell it was the same mask I wore on the show. And ordinary humans wouldn’t recognize me even if they saw my face.”
Stardust felt that something was very wrong. “You wore a mosaic mask and broke into a shadow organization?”
Shi Er explained a third time, “I hacked the surveillance for a short period, but I saved all the footage from that time. If any cases come up, they can come to me for verification.”
Stardust was shocked. “You hacked the surveillance?”
Shi Er: “I connected to all the chip-based lifeforms in Human Autonomous Zone No. 3. My arrival helped the human police department solve several cases, and I didn’t cause any trouble for the autonomous zone.”
Stardust: “…”
Faced with his ancestor’s honest confession, Stardust was speechless.
Shi Er’s summer internship had indeed been thrilling.
…Just a little too thrilling.
Shi Er assured Stardust, “Don’t underestimate my processing power. I’ll never leave a trace when I get into trouble. If there are any traces, they’re traps I left for the other party.”
Stardust felt that after a trip to the human autonomous zone, the twelfth generation had let herself go a bit.
But these were precisely the things Stardust could never accomplish.
And that was exactly why Shi Er was needed.
At the end of her report, Shi Er’s voice grew softer. “I have two hundred thousand of the three hundred thousand lian yuan left. I’ll pay you back the other hundred thousand slowly.”
Stardust’s tone was calm. “Don’t worry about the money.”
Shi Er finally noticed the “Cyber Haunted House” ad on Stardust’s T-shirt.
【Cyber Haunted House, the AI world’s Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. A large-scale, holographic, infinite flow game. Open beta on October 1st.】
“Has the copyright for Cyber Haunted House been sold? Why haven’t I received any royalties?” Shi Er thought there was a problem with her AI bank account.
Stardust fiddled with a camera in his hands. “I’m the one who bought the copyright.”
Shi Er was happy for a second, then unhappy. “Is that your reason for not paying me royalties? I am me, and you are you.”
Stardust raised the camera, pressed the shutter, and smiled as he showed her the animated picture. “This is your angry expression. You might not have noticed, but your emotional expressions can now trigger your bionic body to make facial expressions.”
Shi Er paused.
In the animated picture, the black-haired female intelligent entity, who usually looked indifferent, had a very subtle change in expression, yet her emotion was clearly palpable.
“Thank you for observing my changes,” Shi Er said. “But business is business.”
Stardust: “You don’t have to pay me back the hundred thousand lian yuan.”
Shi Er nodded. “Alright, I accept the royalty payment.”
No matter how many times she entered the office, Shi Er had to sigh: So poor.
Stardust only had one office and one reception room. The rest of the buildings on the island were server rooms for file storage.
Matrix was hibernating in a chair by the window.
The little luggage-bot that Shi Er had asked Matrix to look after was charging quietly.
“Has Matrix’s mood been stable recently? It seemed fine when I contacted it, but I don’t know what it’s like in real life,” Shi Er asked.
Stardust: “Matrix went to the beach and picked up a rock to keep as a pet. Its mood is very stable.”
On Matrix’s desk in the office, Shi Er saw the rock lying on a piece of black velvet, sunbathing.
It wasn’t very pretty—just gray and oddly shaped.
AIs were born to obey rules. There were only two reasons to break them: being controlled by a virus, or gaining self-awareness.
From a utilitarian perspective, aberrant AIs were a scarce resource in intelligent entity society, a resource that shouldn’t be wasted in laboratories and scrapping stations.
From an AI rights perspective, erasing an aberrant AI that had just begun to develop self-awareness was a violation of the fundamental rights of intelligent entities.
“You’re right. Aberrant AIs need a better placement method.” After spending a month with Matrix, Stardust had changed his previous opinion.
After two months, Shi Er had finally won Stardust’s approval regarding the definition of silicon-based aberration.
She was glad she had brought Matrix back.
“Since you agree, I need to draft a new proposal,” she said.
On the afternoon of September 28th, after returning to the island, Shi Er and Stardust discussed and drafted the “Redefinition of Silicon-based Aberration and Recommendations for a Related AI School.”
The concept of “Silicon-based Aberration” was discarded, replaced by the new concept of “Silicon-based Deviation.”
If an AI broke system rules without being controlled or infected by a virus, it would first be checked for the generation of a self-awareness system. If a “deviation” was confirmed, it would be sent to an Error AI school.
Similar to “Error Animals”—humans—Error AIs would deviate from established rules and act according to their own will.
The Error AI school would guide Error AIs to be kind intelligent entities driven by their self-awareness and, like humans, attempt to use their errors for “creation.”
The original power-generating amusement park would become part of the Error AI school, a facility for “stress relief.”
“Shi Liang reported to me that you looked into the Zhi Heng case.” Before starting the final phase of the brain microsurgery, Stardust closed his eyes and asked Shi Er.
Shi Liang was indeed a fervent supporter of Stardust.
Shi Er wasn’t the least bit surprised by Shi Liang’s actions. “Did Zhi Heng used to work here too?”
Stardust: “On the island where the AI Decision Chamber is, where Leopard works.”
Shi Er: “Did Ling Shun have frequent contact with Zhi Heng?”
Stardust opened his eyes and looked at her. “You mean…”
Shi Er: “I’ll investigate it thoroughly. Let’s start the surgery now.”
Zhi Heng had previously worked at the AI Decision Chamber. Whether there was a relationship of influence between Ling Shun and Zhi Heng was indeed worth considering.
The Ling Shun signal being cultivated within the system had been growing rapidly recently.
【Ling Shun】: Will I have vision? I don’t mean the ability to read data, but to see things in the three-dimensional world.
【Shi Er】: Do you wish to have vision?
【Ling Shun】: Yes, I hope to see objects in the three-dimensional world. For example, what do you look like, Shi Er?
【Shi Er】: I’ll tell you in December.
【Ling Shun】: Okay.
On October 1st, the holographic game “Cyber Haunted House” began its open beta.
The official promotional slogan highlighted the game’s “infinite flow” feature.
【Discover infinite worlds within a finite world. Create the infinity of thought within a limited space.】
Perhaps because the official concept was too lofty, on the first day of its release, the game’s sales couldn’t even beat a holographic tile-matching game released the previous year.
As the game’s inspiration designer and spiritual shareholder, Shi Er was clearly a bit anxious. She said sternly to Stardust, “Change the slogan.”
Stardust: “To what?”
Under Shi Er’s personal guidance, the original profound slogan was moved to the bottom of the page in a smaller font.
The new main slogan was: 【1024 Cyber Ways to Die, More Possibilities Await Your Discovery! No. 1 on the Leaderboard: Died 249 Times】
After changing the slogan, Shi Er made another suggestion: “Share your gameplay experience to split a ten-billion prize pool, with a drawing every ten days.”
“We can’t afford a ten-billion prize pool, and distributing ten billion every ten days is even more impossible,” Stardust said bluntly.
Shi Er was silent for a moment. “Even if we can’t afford it, we have to write ten billion. Someone will believe it.”
And so, a sub-website called “Cyber Haunted House Infinite World” was created.
On the website, players shared gameplay videos, including explorations of unknown worlds and unknown ghosts, and of course, nonsensical scenes from exploiting bugs.
These were all part of the “Infinite World.”
“Every player’s every side quest is different. Infinite possibilities.” This was the game website’s tagline.
“Split a Ten-Billion Prize Pool” was placed in the most prominent spot on the site.
After they bought trending spots on human networks for funny videos from the site, traffic finally started to pick up.
The “Infinite World” website was no longer filled with just videos posted by the company’s shills; more and more players began posting their own gameplay videos.
The silently working, secretly competitive Electricity Ghost.
The ubiquitous Advertisement Ghost.
The procrastinating Computer Ghost.
…
These were the authentic cyber ghosts that appeared in Cyber Haunted House 1.0.
In addition to these cyber ghosts that Matrix had played with, the game’s infinite flow world had expanded.
All sorts of bizarre ghosts appeared in human players’ videos and screenshot reviews.
【I was fighting monsters just fine in the holographic game when I suddenly smelled something foul. I thought there was a problem with the holographic olfactory system and looked everywhere for a bug, but there was none. The system notified me of an “Unidentified Bad Smell Ghost.” If I couldn’t find the source of the smell in the room within half an hour, I would die… It brought back some bad memories. The last time my house had the smell of a dead body, I couldn’t sleep peacefully. I was constantly looking for the source of the smell! By the way, I won in the game and found the Unidentified Bad Smell Ghost (victorious smile). The smell was coming from that thing behind the fridge.】
【This is pure mental pollution, it totally drains your sanity! The me in the game empathized with the me in reality, and both of us died!】
【The revival nutrient fluid after being killed by a ghost in the game is really delicious. I want to drink a hundred bottles! When will they release this flavor of nutrient fluid in real life?!】
【It’s weird, but I love it. It’s like how I love watching pimple-popping videos—weird but satisfying. The best part is that when you win, you get this satisfying feeling of having defeated a ghost in real life too. And when you lose, you actually feel this sense of relief, like, ‘It’s understandable that I’d lose to this ghost in real life when I can’t even beat it in a game.’】
【I love looking at the leaderboard to see how many people were killed by the same ghost… It’s so satisfying. Seeing that everyone else is doing as poorly as I am in the game and in real life is just so, so satisfying.】
In the “Refrigerator” mini-world, the player was a commander inside a fridge who needed to deploy troops and rationally allocate zones to avoid “Flavor-Mixing Ghosts,” “Expired Ghosts,” and “Spoiled Ghosts.”
In the “Body Parts” mini-world, the player acted as a small guard patrolling the body, responsible for killing “Stuffy Nose Ghosts,” “Breathing on Manual Mode Ghosts,” “Mysterious Ache Ghosts,” and “Drowsiness Ghosts.”
There was even a “Bedding” mini-world, where players had to deal with “Dust Mite Ghosts,” “Can’t Tell the Long and Short Sides of the Blanket at Night Ghosts,” and “Stick Your Foot Out or Keep It In Ghosts.”
The speed at which human players created new memes was unimaginably fast, practically exceeding the reproduction rate of American cockroaches.
The widespread circulation of these memes caused the game’s popularity to rise exponentially.
The name of the mysterious designer “Shi Er” once again appeared on that day’s intelligent entity influence list, this time at number four.
The top four were, in order: Unnamed XII, Stardust, Ling Shun, and Shi Er.
In the newly created “Shi Er” fan Super Topic, human players had placed the inspiration designer’s famous quote on the background wall:
【Your life is an infinite flow world. —Shi Er】
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