Chapter 59 chapter Five

Pipi Salinzhi is my artificial intelligence expert.He worked in the Overlord Flow Control Records and Statistics Division, and spent most of his life reclining on a reclining recliner, letting five or six tiny wires emerge from his skull while interacting with the rest of the data plane. Officials are in close contact.He and I met in college, when he was already a complete cyberrunner—that is, a twentieth-generation hacker.At the age of twelve standard, he had a shunt installed in the cerebral cortex.His real name is Ernest, but he got the nickname "Boot" when he dated a friend of mine named Shea Toyo.Shea saw him naked on their second date and laughed for half an hour.Ernest used to be almost two meters tall, a figure that hasn't changed since, but weighed less than 50 kilograms.Shea said that his butt was very distinctive, pitifully small, like two butts, and like other cruel facts, he couldn't shake the nickname.

I came to visit him in his workshop, a huge windowless building in Whaleheart.Not the cloud tower that Pipi and his pack like. "Oh, Braun," he said, "at this age, you want to educate yourself about information technology literacy? If you want to find a real job, you are too old." "I just want to learn about artificial intelligence, ass." "That's just one of the most complicated problems in the known world," he sighed, looking wistfully at the shunt and hindcortex wires, which he had disconnected.Cyberrunners never take a break, whereas government servants must stop for lunch.Like most trail riders, Botty is generally uncomfortable as long as he can't surf the data waves and exchange information. "What do you want to know?" he said.

"Why does artificial intelligence quit?" I have to draw the topic from other places. Pipi made a complicated gesture. "They say they have plans and the Overlord - in human parlance - and the affairs of the Overlord are incompatible. In fact, no one knows the truth." "But they're still active. Still running business, aren't they?" "Of course. The system cannot be separated from them, and the system cannot function without them. Braun, you know this. Not even the overall situation can be separated from the artificial intelligence's real-time Schwarzshill management..."

"Okay," I said, cutting him off just in time before he could slosh into cyberbabble, "but do they have... 'other plans'?" "No one knows. Art Intel's Branagh and Sweezer believe that AI is seeking the evolution of consciousness in the galaxy. We know they have their own outer space probes, as far away as those outlying places..." "Where are the Sabers?" "Cybers?" Pipi stood up, he seemed to have finally become interested, "How did you mention the Cybers?" "Fuck, what's the fuss about when I mentioned the Cybermen?"

He rubbed his tap absently. "Ah, first of all, most people have forgotten that they exist. Two centuries ago, it was all scaremongering, cocoon people in power, all these things, but now no one pays attention to it. Likewise, yesterday I happened to Saw an anomaly report that the Cyborgs were disappearing." "Disappear?" This time it was my turn to stand up. "That is, slowly being phased out. The AI ​​used to support a thousand licensed Cybermen on the Ring. Half of them were in the Whale Center. Last week's census showed that they had three Two, it was recalled about last month."

"The artificial intelligence recalls the Cybermen, and then?" "I don't know. I guess they got wiped out. AI doesn't like waste, so I figured maybe that genetic material was recycled in some way." "Why recycle?" "Nobody knows, Braun. Most of us don't understand why AI does what it does." "Do the experts see them -- AI -- as a threat?" "Are you kidding? Either you're talking about six hundred years ago. Although the Exiters made us wary two centuries ago. But, let me tell you, if this thing wants to kill people, they could have done it long ago. Worried about artificial intelligence The intelligence attacks us, as if fearing that the animals on the farm are planning to rebel."

"But AI is smarter than us," I said. "Yes, ah, well said." "Bitch, have you ever heard of the Personality Reconstruction Program?" "Like Gregor's rebuild? Of course. Everyone's heard of it. I even worked on one at the Reich a few years ago. But it's all gone. Nobody's working on it anymore." "Why?" "Jesus, don't you know anything, Braun? Personality Reconstruction Program has been eliminated. Even with the best simulation controls...they used the historical strategic network of the Military Department's Olympus Command School... ...You can't deal with all kinds of variables. The character template has self-awareness...I don't just mean self-awareness, like you and me, but it's artificial self-awareness-but it will lead to strangeness in the end The endless loop, and the labyrinth of dissonance, lead directly to the Escher space."

"What do you mean?" I said. Pipi sighed and looked at the blue and gold time hands on the wall.Five minutes to go before his mandatory lunch break.He can re-enter the "simulated reality". "Meaning," he said, "that is, the personality reconstruction programs are broken. Crazy. They're a bunch of psychos. A bunch of mistakes." "Everyone?" "Everyone." "But artificial intelligence is still interested in this aspect?" "Oh yeah? Who said that? They've never done one. All the reconstructions I've heard have been done by humans... most of them are botched university projects. Deadheaded university teachers spending money Bring back the dead brain."

I managed to force a smile.With three minutes left, he'll be able to plug it back in. "Did all these reconstructed personalities get cybernetic remote bodies?" "Er. Braun, how did you get that idea? There's no re-personality ever achieved. That can't be done." "Why is it impossible?" "It can only screw up stimulus simulations. Beyond that, you need perfectly cloned ontology, and an interactive environment down to the smallest detail. You see, ma'am, with full-scale simulations, you make reconstructed personalities live in In its world. As for you, as long as you interact with it through dreams or scenes, you can secretly ask it questions. If you pull these people out of the simulated reality into slow time..."

"Slow time" is a time-honored cyberrunner term, which is...let me say the word...the real world. "...will drive it all wrong sooner or later," he finished. I shake my head. "Ah, yes, thanks, ass." I walked to the door.Thirty seconds to go, after which my old college friend can escape from slow time. "Fuck," I said at length, after much deliberation, "have you ever heard of a reconstructed personality, a poet from the Old Lands, named John Keats?" "Keats? Oh, of course, I remember a college text that raved about it. Marty Carolus did one fifty years ago at New Cambridge."

"What happened?" "Same as usual. The personality went into a dead loop. But before it collapsed, it died in full simulation. Some ancient disease." Butt looked at the clock, smiled, and picked up the shunt. He gave me another look, almost blessing me, before inserting it into the socket in the skull. "I remember now," he said, with a dreamy smile, "it was tuberculosis." If our society chooses Orwell's "Big Brother" approach, credit marks become available repressive tools.In an economic system that does not use cash at all, the black market for physical exchange is underdeveloped, and an individual's whereabouts can be monitored in real time; if you want to find out a person's traces, you only need to monitor the credit traces of his Universal Card .While there are strict laws to protect the privacy of the cards, the laws have a bad habit of being ignored and deposed when the interests of ordinary people conflict with those of the totalitarian government. The credit traces of Johnny five days before he was murdered showed that he was a person with fairly regular living habits and moderate expenses.I spent two boring days stalking Jonny before studying the clues on the thin paper. Facts: He lives in Bergson's Hive East.Routine investigations revealed that he had lived there for about seven local months—that is, less than five standard months.In the morning, he had breakfast at a local diner, far out to Revival Vest, where he worked for about five hours, where he was apparently collecting research for certain typed documents, and then he'd eat at a yard vendor's stand A light lunch, and afterward, spend an hour or two in the library before teleporting back to Luthers' home, or to a favorite snack spot in another world.At twenty-two o'clock, he was already in his room.He teleports far more often than your average Lutherian middle-class slacker, but otherwise, the schedule is equally unimpressive.The thin slip of credit confirms that he followed this schedule the week he was killed, with just a few extra purchases—a pair of shoes one day, groceries another—after his " On the day of being killed", he stayed for a while at a certain bar in Fuxingzhi. I went to eat with him in a small restaurant on Honglong Road, which is near the Portal Gate of Xishuangbanna, Qingdao.The dishes are hot, spicy and very tasty. "How are things going?" he asked. "Excellent. I've got a thousand marks more than before we met, and I've discovered a great Cantonese restaurant." "I hope my money goes to something important." "Speaking of your money... I want to ask, where did they come from? You can't make much money wandering around in the library of the Revival Arrow." Johnny raised an eyebrow. "I have a small...inheritance, and I live by it." "Not a small sum, I hope. I want you to pay." "Enough for us, Ms. Lamia. Have you noticed anything?" I shrugged. "Tell me, what are you doing in the library?" "Is this related to our business?" "Yes, maybe." He looked at me with strange eyes.There is something in his eyes that makes me unable to suppress the waves of emotion and makes my legs go weak. "You remind me of someone," he said softly. "Oh?" If this sentence came from someone else, I would definitely walk away. "Who?" I asked. "A... woman I once knew. A long time ago." His fingers brushed lightly across his forehead, as if he had suddenly grown tired and dizzy. "what is her name?" "Fanny," almost in a whisper. I know who he's talking about.John Keats had a fiancée named Fanny.Their love was very romantic, but Keats also suffered a lot and was almost driven crazy.When Keats was dying in Italy, he was alone, with only one fellow traveler beside him. He felt abandoned by his friends and lover.He kept the letters from Fanny, which he never opened; and a lock of her curls, which he asked to be buried with when he died. Before this week, I had never heard of John Keats.I read all this shit through the comlog.I said, "So... what the hell are you doing in the library?" The Cyberman cleared his throat. "I'm working on a poem. I'm searching for fragments of the original manuscript." "Written by Keats?" "right" "Isn't it easier to find it in the data network?" "Of course. But it's important that I see the original... touch it." I thought about it. "What is this poem about?" He smiled...or, at least his lips curled up.The hazel eyes still looked uneasy. "This poem, called it. It's hard to tell what it's about. It's an artistic failure, I think. Keats didn't finish it." I pushed my plate away and took a sip of the warm tea. "You say Keats didn't finish it. Or do you say you didn't?" The look of shock on his face is real...unless the AI ​​is a consummate actor.As far as I know, they can. "Jesus," he said, "I'm not John Keats. My personality is built on his reconstructed template, but that doesn't make me Keats any more than your name Lamia does. You become a banshee. There are countless shadow powers that separate me from that poor genius." "You say I remind you of Fanny?" "Dream resonance. Not much. You've had RNA learning therapy, haven't you?" "yes." "It's about the same. These memories, it feels... empty." A human waiter brought fortune cookies. "Are you interested in seeing the real Hyperion?" I asked. "What it is?" "Outworld. Not far from Parvati, I suppose." Johnny looked bewildered.He's already broken the cookie, but hasn't looked at his sign yet. "It used to be called Poets' World, I think," I said, "and it even has a city named after you... Keats." The young man shook his head. "Sorry, I haven't heard of that place." "How is it possible? Doesn't artificial intelligence know everything?" He laughed, a short, harsh laugh. "But this AI knows very little." He read his sign: Beware of impulse. I cross my arms. "Let me tell you, apart from my little trick of playing with the hologram of the bank manager in my office, I still can't prove that you are the same person you say you are." "Give me your hand." "my hand?" "Yes. Any one. Thanks." Johnny took my right hand with both hands.His fingers are slender, longer than mine.But my stout. "Close your eyes," he said. I closed it.There is no transition: One moment I am sitting in the Blue Lotus restaurant on Red Dragon Street, and the next second I am in... don't know where.unknown land.Sprinting in the gray-blue data plane, leaning towards the chrome-yellow information highway, shuttling up and down in the huge city of red-hot information warehouses, red skyscrapers put on black ice defense armor, such as private accounts and corporate documents The improvised entity of gleamed against the night like a burning refinery.Above all, gigantic artificial intelligences hang just out of sight, like something suspended in warped space, their simplest communication pulses like violent silent lightning, ravaging along the boundless horizon open.Somewhere far away, in this incredible little world of the data network, there is a tiny eye, everything else is almost lost in the maze of three-dimensional neon, those gentle hazel eyes are waiting for me , I can feel, not see with my eyes. Johnny let go of my hand.He broke my fortune cookie.The little note read: Invest wisely in new ventures. "My God," I whispered.Butt has flown me on the data plane before, but I didn't have a shunt, and my experience at that time was just a bit of a haze.The difference between the two is like watching a black and white hologram of a firework show, while the other is watching it in person. "How did you do it?" "Can you make a little progress on the case tomorrow?" he asked. I regained my composure. "Tomorrow," I said, "I'm going to fix it. Well, it might not be, but at least it's going well. The last expense recorded on Jonny's thin paper happened in the revival arrow bar. Of course, I checked in there the first day and since there was no human hospitality I could only talk to a few regular patrons, but got the same answer: no one remembers Jonny. I went again after that, but luckily Terrible. On the third day, I went there again and stayed there waiting for some guy to talk."