Humanity is dying.If the tissues encapsulated in test tubes, with only twisted pieces of flesh remaining, they could still be considered human.Even without any instrumental testing, Hao Ren could tell that the pieces of meat in the container were gradually losing their vitality, and that something that had been rooted in the genes from the beginning was changing under the influence of the wrath of the eldest son, a change that transcended the distance of space and directly affected the "survivors" who had escaped from their home planet at one time - in fact, they had never survived, and the destruction had already begun, but it was completed a little later.It seems that the "lucky ones" like Halletta are in the minority after all, and the vast majority of civilizations simply cannot escape the killing of the eldest son."
After the death of human beings, the entire surrogate society will be finished," Vivien shook her head, "their birth is based on serving humanity, all task systems, all ways of thinking, and even their social structure are all in the service of this goal, once this goal as a foundation is lost, the operation of the entire society will fall into collapse, and the mastermind conceals the truth about humanity to prevent this from happening." ”Lily's ears drooped a little listlessly, "But the Mastermind can't escape this framework on its own—when humanity really comes to an end, it becomes the first one to malfunction." ”Hao Ren didn't interject this time, because he was thinking about something else—he seemed to see the other side of the matter from the mastermind's series of actions and the word "agent"."
You're not willing to accept this outcome, are you?"
After thinking for a long time, he suddenly raised his head and said into the air.The Mastermind's answer was as stiff and rigid as ever: "I follow the orders of humans, and there is no unwilling option in my program." ”"But at the time of the failure, one of the servers sent out an order for N-4 to lead a team to the surface of the home planet to find the crashed extraterrestrial visitor - although you quickly vetoed the command yourself, it still shows that some parts of your program are not willing to give up, humans call this phenomenon 'subconscious', and you still subconsciously hope for a turnaround, even if you don't know what a turnaround is."
The mastermind was silent for a few seconds, and finally took the initiative to ask a question: "Can you heal humans?"
”Hao Ren glanced at the pieces of meat in the culture container, and through the scanning of the data terminal, he had now confirmed the true situation of these pieces of meat: the parts that belonged to humans had long since ceased to exist, and now they were just twisted and stacked together to proliferate a large number of cells, and each cell was the result of mutation.In a sense, humanity is long dead—even the day they enter this culture vessel, the planet's humanity is dead.The Surrogates are just fighting for a ghost of the past.Hao Ren believes that the mastermind himself is actually very aware of this, but this powerful artificial intelligence has been maintaining the survival of these cells that once belonged to humans for thousands of years, driven by loyalty or obsession, but this persistence has long lost its meaning in Hao Ren's opinion."
I can't save them," Hao Ren shook his head, "because they're long dead, and in this tube, I can't see humans, not at all." ”Lily shook her ears and looked over a little puzzled: "Landlord?
”Hao Ren waved his hand, indicating that he still had something to say: "Although I can't save your 'humans', I believe that if they know that they have finally become like this, they themselves will not be willing to continue to 'live' like this.""
And I'd like to believe that when humans first created the Surrogates, they were given this name, not just so that they could work and fight in place of humans."
The survival of a civilization is not just as simple as 'people live', if one day the entire race is facing the danger of extinction, then they will often choose to do their best to preserve the civilization heritage they have created - the knowledge, culture, and way of thinking about the world created by countless generations are the most precious inheritance of a civilization.You mentioned earlier that humans created the Agents when they realized that their race was in decline, and then they spent a thousand years teaching the Agents how to think freely, and then they spent another thousand years building a big think tank that converted all their knowledge and ways of thinking into data that the Agents could download and read, do you know what this process means among humans?
”The mastermind did not respond, but Hao Ren continued: "It is inheritance, it is parents who educate their children, and it is the previous generation that cultivates the next generation. ”"Surrogates are not human beings, nor can they be descendants of humans."
The mastermind said stubbornly."
But they can be the offspring of human civilization," Hao Ren raised his hand to N-6, "these are the surrogates, they can think, they have feelings, they are curious about the world, and your creator gave them all the qualities that belong to human beings when they created them, except for life forms, they are enough to take over the entire civilization created by your creator - I think, this should be the ultimate goal of human creation agents." ”Vivien had already understood what Hao Ren meant, and she took over the following words: "Your creators have known early on that they simply could not survive, and from the day the deadly mutation began to spiral out of control, they knew that their time was numbered, even if they eliminated the Devourer of Planets?"
There is no way to reverse the mutations that happen to them, and they are doomed to perish, sooner or later.So why should a group of people who are doomed to perish still care about reclaiming their home planet?
They don't have a chance to live on it anymore. ”"They just want to find a place for the Agent to settle down," Hao Ren shook his head, "I learned from N-4 about your level of technology, with your ability to travel in space and the distribution of celestial bodies in this area, you can't find a second planet suitable for survival at this stage, even if the life force of the Agent is much stronger than that of carbon-based creatures, you can't survive on a planet that is too hot or lacks metal resources, so the home planet is the best home you can find at the moment." ”"They gave you the order to reclaim your home planet, just hoping to see you alive in your lifetime."
Itzax added the last sentence in a sullen voice.N-6 had been silent for a long time, standing in place as if she had died, and it was only then that she seemed to wake up from a word from Izzax, and turned her head a little sluggishly: "We......
Did you live up to the creator?
”Vivien shook her head, "No, as long as you're alive, you haven't let them down. ”"Mastermind, you can actually think of this yourself," Hao Ren said into the air, "and I believe that after realizing this, you are also trying to give the agent the ability to break away from the control of the program, but your own logical structure makes it difficult for you to do this, so I am curious what you have done." ”After a long silence, the mastermind finally spoke again: "Yes. ”Hao Ren didn't say anything, he felt that the main brain should have something to do, and sure enough, a moment later, an electronic synthesized voice came from around the hall: "The entire system of agents is under the control of my system, and at the same time, they themselves are also controlled by a series of their own primordial instructions.In the early days, this was a necessary condition for the agents to thrive – because the primitive form of self-growing AI was severely instable, and they had to rely on a strict guardianship system and a simple and straightforward initial instruction to grow. ”Hao Ren took the mastermind's words: "But this system has great limitations—because one day, the growth of the surrogate will exceed the capacity of this guardianship system, and they will also have to face the reality after the complete extinction of humanity.They initially developed with 'Serve Humanity' as their core command, but sooner or later, they had to learn to find their own purpose of survival. ”"I've updated a piece of code in every surrogate's logic circuit that was left by my last programmer a long, long time ago," the mastermind said quietly, "and this code frees them from the control of the original instruction, and when it takes effect, the surrogate is free."
N-6, I've detected that the final code in your body is activated, and that's why you're able to keep it running after witnessing the true state of a human being.Congratulations, little soldier, you are the first to be freed in the new era. ”Hao Ren looked at N-6 curiously, and after a brief moment of doubt, the latter suddenly remembered what had happened when she had walked through the fortress: her brief crash and restart process when she witnessed the devastation in the Mainbrain 2 server room and learned the truth about the fortress.She sensed an unfamiliar piece of code appear in her logic circuit, and her system began to function in a whole new way.Even after witnessing the true posture of a human being immersed in a culture vessel, she still stood here in the face of the reality that could theoretically cause the core of the surrogate to burn.Richer and more stable emotional modules have replaced deadly logical conflicts, and the original instructions that could not have been shaken have disappeared at some point.N-6 suddenly realizes that this is the last gift that humanity will give to the Substitutes.At the same time, Hao Ren also realized why the previous mastermind would refuse his help, and said that the entire surrogate society did not need the help of outsiders, and that they would complete their mission on their own - because they could really do it all on their own, at least in their own internal problems, this well-honed civilization did not need any outsiders to "save".