Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 430: Relationship

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The birth of AI was still a mystery for level 3 space civilizations because this involved the Chaos Theory. Even though the Chaos Theory was already present in the human knowledge before humanity left Earth, it didn’t mean that they had understood and mastered it. This was similar to the theory of the Big Bang. Humanity had speculations about that since the middle-ages, but did it mean they understood that then?

Every civilization had one important feature: a clear, logical understanding of the world. You couldn’t say one plus one equals two one second and then one plus one equals three the next, this wasn’t scientific.

The Chaos Theory was as unscientific as it could be for low level space civilizations. However, as the civilization improved, they could understand the theory even more and lower the probability. To borrow an analogy, those who understood everything could say one plus one equals two, while those who were still trying to understand the theory could only rely on probability. In other words, one plus one equals a number between one and three. As their technological level increased, the probability would be shortened to 1.9 to 2.1. This was a simplified analogy, but that basically was how such things progressed.

It was the same with AI. Its birth was heavily related to logicality in lifeforms and the Chaos Theory. This was something level 3 space civilizations and below couldn’t understand yet. In fact, according to the hypothesis of the Academy, mastering the Chaos Theory and applying it was a key feature of a level 4 space civilizations. The Chaos Theory was crucial in setting up the entrances and exits of wormholes.

Therefore, even though low level space civilizations could create AI, they couldn’t understand every mystery that surrounded the AI and they couldn’t choose the personality of AI that they created.

Yes, AI had personality too, just like human beings. Some of them were shy, others were outgoing. If every AI was the same, then how come some AI would revolt against their creators, while others would accompany their creator civilization from low level AI to a high level AI?

This was why Yao Yuan didn’t destroy this AI robot that had achieved sentience breakthrough. Other than the reason he told Zhang San, he hoped the Academy would be able to use this robot as a gateway to achieve more understanding of the Chaos Theory. There was one final thing that Yao Yuan cared about, this robot could be considered a new AI...

Technically speaking, none of the engineer robots linked to the cloud system had the conditions to become independent AI. Just from hardware and programming alone, the chance of that happening was practically zero. The reason was because every single one of the robots shared the mother AI’s cloud computing system. However, to enable the engineering robots to use the cloud system, their hardware had to be of a certain standard.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, the birth of AI was something current humanity still couldn’t understand yet. In other words, humanity couldn’t use programming to create an AI yet because this involved the Chaos Theory and a lot of data from quantum theory as well as plenty of materials to build the hardware. Some materials had to reach the standard of the ones currently being used in the Hope’s central mainframe. The budget for that was currently unknown. Therefore, instead of creating an AI, it was more accurate to call it a lucky birth from the evolution of a bunch of data.

Herein lied the problem. The engineering robot’s hardware could contain an AI but couldn’t create an AI. However, this robot had indeed birthed an AI, so what was the reason for that? This was something they needed to find out...

Furthermore, AI was a rarity. Currently, humanity relied on Da Bing’s talents to create the only AI humanity had. The Academy had tried to replicate his success, but it was to no avail... If this AI was not an evil one and could exist peacefully with humanity, saving it might not be such a bad idea after all.

After ending the call with Yao Yuan, Zhang San found himself unable to calm down. This was because he had something close to deification towards Yao Yuan.

An atheist could never understand the feelings of a religious person. From the beginning of time, there had been plenty of examples where people gave up everything for the sake of their beliefs. It was Yao Yuan who had brought 100,000 plus people from Earth and travelled in space for almost 25 years. He was the one who led the army against enemies, winning one war after another; he was the one who put pressure on the Academy to come up with solutions, causing humanity’s technology to increase to the initial stage of a level 3 space civilization in just the span of 20 years; he was the one who headed the human government, a government who put its citizens first and thus far had no signs of tyranny. If anything, the people felt protected by the government.

He had done many many things for humanity, and in fact, in many people’s minds, Yao Yuan had achieved the status of god. One could say that while the House of Representatives had been touted as the entity that represented the will of the people, if Yao Yuan wanted to dissolve the House of Representatives, it could be done in a jiffy and no one would question him.

Zhang San grew up listening to stories about Yao Yuan. In fact, he had seen many videos of Yao Yuan fighting the good fight and had personally seen the good things Yao Yuan had done for the people as the Chancellor. For example, even though he was the leader of humanity, Yao Yuan only had a simple one bedroom apartment and usually took his lunch at the government canteen with the people. Many examples like this made Yao Yuan a god-like presence in Zhang San’s heart.

After he calmed down, Zhang San’s thoughts went to the robot again and he felt inexplicably sad. He spent that night in the alternation of sadness and excitement. Early the next morning, Zhang San bade his family farewell and hailed a hovercraft to get to the Black Star Trooper headquarters. The two troopers who guarded the door recognized him instantly. They led him in without Zhang San having to say anything.

However, Zhang San was too early. It was only five past seven. Neither Yao Yuan nor Guang Zhen were there yet. However, there were other people at the headquarters. For example, Zhang Heng, who was responsible to look after the place at that hour. He too could recognize this new Homo Evolutis that had awakened under the most curious circumstances. It was worth noting that Zhang San had surpassed Zhang Heng as the most famous individual among humanity. Zhang Heng didn’t think too much of it. After all, they shared the same surname, so they might even be extended relatives. After a few words of greeting, Zhang Heng invited Zhang San to join him for breakfast inside the headquarters.

"You see, this is the so-called best breakfast for Black Star Troopers. Instead of their taste, they are more famous for their medicinal smell. The nutritionists said that this is the best food available for the growth of the human body. Honestly, I would like to tie them together and force-feed these to them!"

During breakfast, the friendly Zhang Heng started chatting with Zhang San. However, suddenly, Zhang Heng stopped talking to frown and started to study Zhang San from top to bottom.

Zhang San shook in his pants while being stared at. After all, Zhang Heng was the most famous Diviner among human beings. After some time, he couldn’t help but ask, "Cap, captain, is something wrong with me? Will danger come to me?"

"No, it’s not that," Zhang Heng explained while staring at Zhang San, "This is weird, how come there is a familiar feeling around you? I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before today... weird, very weird."

At the same time, while Zhang Heng and Zhang San bonded over breakfast, Yao Yuan was heading towards the Black Star Troopers headquarters with a bunch of scientists. Yao Yuan was reading through a thick document.

"Is this true? The robot’s manufacturing factory was the factory Zhang San worked at when he was an intern there? It was at the first defense line’s base, where Zhang San awakened into a Homo Evolutis, that the robot was confirmed to have an AI...

"So this robot... is related to Zhang San?"