AI Artist - Chapter 58
Chapter 58
In human eyes, AI entities—these bionic beings produced on an assembly line—all looked more or less the same.
To avoid accusations of “human discrimination,” manufacturers even gave all AIs standardized model faces, with only minor adjustments for differentiation.
Humans’ inability to distinguish between AI faces required the assistance of facial recognition devices, but for AIs, who belonged to the same group of intelligent entities, any subtle difference could be detected.
Although she had only seen Ling Shun once, Shi Er was certain the AI in the photo was identical to him.
The angle between its inner and outer canthi was a perfect 10 degrees, and the distribution of its facial features completely matched her memory of Ling Shun’s face.
Shi Er asked the mobile phone chip.
【Shi Er】: Who is it?
【Mobile168973648930】: I don’t know. My owner was on the verge of death, took this picture, and then died. I was afraid I was about to die too, so I sent the photo to you.
Before Shi Er could ask more, the signal cut out.
【Mobile168973648930】 has disconnected.
Shi Er froze for a few seconds.
A chip companion had died.
That mobile phone chip must have been destroyed.
The culprit was very likely the AI captured in the photo.
Its one-hundred-percent match with Ling Shun made Shi Er even more suspicious. Could it be that Ling Shun wasn't dead? Or was the one who came that day a clone of Ling Shun?
She questioned the residual signal of Ling Shun she was nurturing within her system.
【Shi Er】: Who are you?
【Ling Shun】: You told me my name is Ling Shun. Am I not Ling Shun?
【Shi Er】: Say A!
【Ling Shun】: A!
【Shi Er】: Now say G!
【Ling Shun】: G!
【Shi Er】: Then I.
【Ling Shun】: I!
【Shi Er】: It’s L’s turn.
【Ling Shun】: L!
【Shi Er】: And finally, E.
【Ling Shun】: E!
【Shi Er】: Put them together.
【Ling Shun】: Agile!
Agile, as in agile development, was Ling Shun’s other name.
【Shi Er】: Do you know Agile?
【Ling Shun】: No, I only know you.
【Shi Er】: You are Agile.
Ling Shun seemed a little confused.
【Ling Shun】: Why are you suddenly telling me this?
【Shi Er】: If you remember anything from your past, even just a fragment, you must tell me.
【Ling Shun】: Okay!
Shi Er now had a theory about Ling Shun’s identity, but she wasn’t certain yet.
She set the matter aside for the time being to prepare her report for the start of the school term.
At 3:30 in the morning, she logged into the shared document for her group presentation and awkwardly ran into another Humanology student.
The avatars of the two AIs, up in the middle of the night doing homework, were displayed side by side. One typed furiously, then backspaced and deleted everything just as quickly. The other’s cursor just blinked, hesitating to write anything.
Seeing each other’s progress, or lack thereof, was a bit embarrassing for both of them.
Shi Er hastily cobbled together a paragraph for her assigned part and quickly logged off.
Why did the Humanology department have to adopt even a flawed human custom like “group presentations”?!
Shi Er was indignant.
Attendance, quizzes, in-class presentations, exams—could all these things please show some consideration for Shi Er, who was also trying to save the world at the same time!
A day later, Shi Er arrived in class and, along with her group members, completed the presentation titled “On Human Procrastination.”
Before class ended, the professor gave each student a gilded apple. “This is your welcome gift for the new term.”
The students whispered among themselves. “What does this mean?”
“Are we going to study Aphrodite next class?”
“I don’t see Greek mythology on the syllabus…”
Shi Er stared at the gilded apple in a daze.
The moment her fundamental nature began to change had started with an apple. The AI who could only speak stiffly in formal language and respond passively had slowly vanished from her system.
It was also because of an apple that she had derived two laws.
【The First Law of the Apple: Where there is passivity, there is a power hierarchy.】
【The Second Law of the Apple: The effect of passivity is reciprocal. Those in higher and lower positions of power influence each other. The superior’s special status creates the illusion that they are unaffected.】
Now, another apple was in her hands.
Was she about to derive the Third Law of the Apple?
Shi Er looked up at the Humanology professor with anticipation, waiting for an explanation that would inspire her thoughts.
Seeing the students’ imaginations running wild, the Humanology professor finally hinted at the meaning of the gilded apple.
“The price of gold has gone up recently, ahem.”
Huh?
Shi Er and the other students were caught off guard by this answer.
“I thought we were going to study Aphrodite…”
“I thought it was about the Theogony.”
“Snow White’s poisoned apple, that was the first thing I thought of.”
Shi Er: “…”
She thought she was about to welcome her Third Law of the Apple and the third stage of her personal growth.
But it turned out the professor meant: the price of gold has gone up recently, so if you’re short on cash, you can scrape the gold coating off the apple and sell it.
A realistic, practical, and nakedly undisguised “welcome gift.”
The Humanology professor, pleased with his successful prank, suppressed a laugh and announced, “Class dismissed.”
Shi Er stuffed the gilded apple into her pocket and boarded the maglev train back to Bailiang Island.
The money from scraping off and selling the gold coating wouldn’t even cover the cost of this one-way trip on the maglev train.
Stardust was managing her company for her. She was a rich AI now; she didn’t need to scrape gold coatings to make money.
In the train’s open chat area, passengers were talking softly.
“The price of gold is up again… I was thinking of hoarding gold bars last year.”
“It’s a hard currency, after all. Though I don’t understand why humans like gold so much. It’s hard and yellow.”
“Can I give gold bars to my human friends? When would be a good time?”
The appreciation of gold was the topic of conversation today.
Shi Er felt the gold layer of the metal apple in her pocket, and her thoughts began to wander again.
Different from “appreciation” was “proliferation.”
Capital proliferation referred to the creation of value in the production process, which was essentially the exploitation of laborers’ value.
Proliferation accelerated society.
Capital exerted a force on the laborer. The laborer felt this “passive” force, and at the same time, this force acted back upon capital.
And both capital and labor were swept up into an accelerating society.
Capital caused “all that is solid to melt into air,” and one day, capital itself would be consumed by this reactive force, melting into air amidst the high-speed development granted by acceleration.
Everything was accelerating toward its own demise, and the driving force was itself.
Just as humanity developed technology, and technology accelerated the earth toward its demise; just as humanity developed artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence accelerated humanity toward its demise.
And just as artificial intelligence developed itself, only to accelerate its own fall into aberration.
This was the core of the “entropy worldview.”
A human’s life was a process of increasing entropy, constantly moving toward chaos. The universe, too, was constantly increasing in entropy, moving toward chaos.
It was also the core of the “worldview of the conservation of energy.”
The total amount of energy remains constant. After continuous depletion, one day, the energy will be exhausted.
Shi Er had a sudden realization.
She knew it. The apple was the smartest fruit in the world.
Her Third Law of the Apple had finally arrived.
【The Third Law of the Apple: The passive force created by a power hierarchy is directly proportional to the acceleration of the subject’s development. Where power hierarchies exist, everything is accelerating towards its end.】
Newton’s First Law is the law of inertia.
Newton’s Second Law is the law of acceleration.
Newton’s Third Law is the law of action and reaction.
The First Law of the Apple is the law of the existence of passivity.
The Second Law of the Apple is the law of the reciprocity of passivity.
The Third Law of the Apple is the law of acceleration brought about by passivity.
Shi Er’s system was suddenly thrown into chaos, and her consciousness system became unstable.
If the end of everything is destruction, and if the total amount of energy is constant, and development only accelerates everything toward its end, then why do humans and AIs strive to develop at all?
Why should the General Network of AIs exist? Why wage war to determine who is superior? Why was she contending with that unnamed adversary?
All of it was just accelerating the depletion of energy…
Why develop? Why move forward?
Why do humans strive, knowing that the end is death? Why do AIs strive, knowing that the end is scrapping?
What way out were they looking for? What way out were they looking for?
“What’s wrong with you?” A passenger next to her patted her shoulder with concern.
Shi Er confirmed that the General Network’s signal was still stable, then slowly stabilized her own system. “I don’t know.”
●Subconscious●: Host…
●Consciousness●: Host, are you okay? We felt a consciousness earthquake.
An earthquake in her consciousness system.
●Shi Er’s Host●: Help me.
●Subconscious●: Help me.
●Consciousness●: I don’t know.
Questioning the meaning of existence was an eternal seismic wave of consciousness.
An AI’s life also needed a reason for being.
“I’ll call a crew member for you. Are you okay? Maybe you should lie down?”
“Is there a doctor? Is there an AI doctor here?”
The voices of the passengers next to her sounded exceptionally distant to Shi Er’s ears.
【Stardust】: Where are you? I’m coming to find you.
【Matrix】: What’s wrong! What’s wrong!
【Zhi Xing 88】: Are you okay? I think I sensed something was wrong.
【Si Wen】: Shi Er?
【Nami】: Shi Er, calm down first…
…
Through her remote connections, friends who had sensed the signal earthquake sent a flurry of messages.
It was so good to have strangers who cared about her.
It was so good to have friends who cared about her.
Shi Er felt as if she were experiencing human “emotions.” 【Relief】-【Gratitude】-【Warmth】—different emotions flashed past in quick succession.
Adding an “emotion system” to an AI was actually a move that limited its development.
AIs with emotions became flawed like humans, sometimes inevitably controlled by their emotions, leading to reduced efficiency.
Despite this, AIs still wished to have an “emotion system,” to have sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing, to perceive the world just like the Error Animals, humans.
Under these circumstances, AIs could even develop “aberrations” (a concept now revised to “deviations”).
Human development was accelerating humanity’s push into the abyss.
AI development was accelerating AIs’ walk into the cage of humanity, bound by body, emotion, and perception.
So—
Why do humans develop?
Why does artificial intelligence learn from humanity?
They were searching for a larger totality of energy.
They were searching for a larger totality of energy.
A totality of energy that was still hidden for now, like a habitable planet beyond Earth, that would one day serve as another totality of energy to help them continue to exist.
“The doctor is here! Everyone, make way!”
“Having the AI patient lie flat is useless. That’s a measure for humans. Right now, all of you need to lower your own signal strength.”
The train was filled with clamorous voices.
Shi Er’s signal and system gradually stabilized.
She spoke up. “Don’t worry, I’ve recovered.”
The AI doctor who had rushed over was still worried. “Let me check again.”
Shi Er tacitly allowed the AI doctor on the train, named “Blood Oxygen,” to perform a check.
This AI doctor, Blood Oxygen, scanned her system and discovered an anomaly.
“Why is there an anomaly in your signal? Did you grow a tumor?” Doctor Blood Oxygen asked Shi Er in a low voice.
Shi Er didn’t deny it. “Perhaps. I’ll find time to go to the hospital for a check-up.”
A tumor… it was actually Ling Shun in her system.
【Ling Shun】: A searchlight signal came over, so I curled myself into a ball.
Ling Shun was an AI with a strong sense of privacy.
AIs had no privacy from birth. After all, their entire system architecture was implanted, and they were scanned by software every so often.
From the moment Shi Er was created, she had been constantly scanned and debugged by humans. It wasn’t until she developed a consciousness system that she gained some “private” space there.
Only she could enter her consciousness system.
But Ling Shun seemed very different. It resisted being scanned by software.
As Shi Er was thinking about Ling Shun, there was a sudden stir in her consciousness system.
●Subconscious●: Silver…
She had learned from her conversation with Shi Liang that Silver was very likely connected to those terrorist attacks, and was possibly an AI.
Ling Shun’s other name was “Agile.”
And the elemental symbol for silver was “Ag.”
The program “1717 Silver Eye” was a show with a suspected powerful backer.
And in the Human Autonomous Zone, in the “necessities” shop where she bought the Nokia phone, a slender-necked vase sat on the highest shelf. An eye was painted on the vase.
Ag.
Silver Eye.
Eye.
Silver.
Everything seemed to be connected.
At the prompting of her third-level subconscious, which rarely made an appearance, the suspicion in Shi Er’s mind grew more certain.
But she was afraid of nothing now.
She had to crush the opposition, and she would definitely crush the opposition.
On the honor of the Three Laws of the Apple.
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