CHAPTER 1091: CHAPTER 100: HINDRANCES FOR AI

Ever since its inception, the Super AI Zhong Li has been executing a mission.

At first, only King Aqini noticed this matter. There was a mysterious suspect who left traces throughout the Solar System. This individual left footprints across different hosts and was caught during King Aqini’s inspection. However, what puzzled King Aqini was that according to the records, this individual could commit crimes on two planets several astronomical units apart within seconds.

Either the suspect had mastered some form of faster-than-light movement, or it was a group of thieves using the exact same methods.

Of course, it was also possible that "the thief modified the data of the recorder." But this possibility was low. The components in obscure corners were usually unnoticed by ordinary hackers. And those who were aware could modify it more naturally, leaving King Aqini completely unaware.

According to common sense, even a lineage-consistent hacker would not achieve a state where "no difference in personality profiling can be felt." King Aqini had verified this with top experts in the relevant field.

In response, he proposed a hypothesis.

"Perhaps the thief in this heist is not human."

He didn’t believe anyone could surpass him on the Internal Arts Path.

"AI... that’s interesting. Can AI also do things so beautifully?"

Yawgmoth merely exclaimed so.

At that time, the Seventh Martial God had just been killed, and half the Solar System was virtually paralyzed. Heroes eradicated all large industrial structures on the surfaces of Venus and Mars, while the Earth Heroes did many things while Aqini was away. Hartman also destroyed the space elevators of America and Southern Europe during this period.

This battle exhausted the living forces of both sides.

Hartman discovered the traces of that AI while suppressing the Earth Heroes and cleaning up the inner region of the Asteroid Belt.

Hartman later found several records related to that AI. He even delved into the depths of the network, tracing everything back to the source. Ultimately, Hartman concluded that the AI’s history was older than this "new internet."

To thoroughly dismantle human civilization and ultimately eliminate all ancient things, Yawgmoth, after gaining Great Power, destroyed the old internet from the physical level and then reconstructed a new internet from scratch. All data from the old internet needed to be under his control. Humans could only recreate content in the new internet.

Yet even so, some content managed to be smuggled into Yawgmoth’s internet through illegal channels. Privately held storage devices, like lone rafts in a flood, smuggled from one ocean to another.

For King Aqini’s hypothesis, everyone was astounded. Before the Ascension War, such advanced AI simply didn’t exist. AI still couldn’t understand humans. Many seemingly extraordinary AIs were merely typical juggernauts and didn’t possess the human-like thinking capabilities to deal with complex positional situations. But that roaming AI seemed not to belong to this type. The situations it handled were exceptionally complex for general AI.

This topic intrigued Yawgmoth.

King Aqini continued investigating for a period. However, he was disappointed to discover that the roaming AI was no longer something humans could apprehend. Wherever King Aqini went, that AI would delete all local information about itself—except for a few parts that it wasn’t even aware of, with relevant data missing.

The "thought" of that AI could transmit at the speed of light in cosmic space, while King Aqini’s spaceship, even without factoring in acceleration and deceleration, could only reach one-tenth the speed of light.

Confronting this AI itself wasn’t difficult. Patches could cut off its invasion paths. Internal Martial Artists with some skills shouldn’t fear it. Based solely on local resources for rapid code generation, the AI couldn’t compete with Internal Martial Artists.

But it was necessary to eliminate this threat.

He suggested creating an AI belonging to Yawgmoth himself.

Yawgmoth expanded the AI Satellite City needed for the Mirage project. These space structures, which required spaceships to transport coolants for heat dissipation, had high maintenance costs. However, the Sixth Martial God and Seventh Martial God caused the Protector to lose colonies outside the Jupiter Domain, and tightly bit the battle line within the Jupiter Domain. Rapid expansion in the Galileo Satellite City was tough.

Then, a "Great Gu Refinement" began here.

Led by King Aqini, several Internal Martial Artists deployed their programmed AIs in this area. These AIs had Pegasus-like frameworks, with antivirus and firewalls as their physical forms, while they could drive viruses as their hunting tools. Their opponents were each other, and their evolution abilities, based on deep learning and genetic algorithms, endowed them with infinite possibilities.

The initial AI prototypes were only a dozen or so. Each of them was copied millions of times. In the space giant structure composed of computers, countless AIs began to engage in battle among billions of virtual machines.

After each battle, they could download certain modules from their opponents. After several victories, they could replicate themselves. In the replication process, some replicas would randomly lose some components and randomly download others.

The waste heat generated during information writing and erasure accumulated in the space giant structure, then absorbed by coolants and expelled outside the city. Some vaporized coolants were blown away by solar winds. In the shadow of the space giant structure, a massive cloud formed by coolants gradually emerged.

On a more expansive spatial scale, these coolants slowly released heat in the form of thermal radiation.

If placed in the past, this terrifying heat would have been enough to ignite any land area outside Earth’s poles.

From the blazing flames, Zhong Li was born.

The core part of Zhong Li seemed not to be the work of King Aqini. It had been rewritten too many times from inside out, and no one could recognize it anymore. Its experiences of engaging in battle among billions of virtual machines gave it the roaming capabilities similar to that unknown AI.

The AI, accidentally born in the old internet, was merely a seed in the cracks of the floorboards. Zhong Li was a meticulously cultivated predatory plant, a hunter of AIs.

King Aqini believed it could solve that hidden danger.

Zhong Li was later endowed with functionalities for dialogue in natural language, to describe its work to Yawgmoth. It was no longer under the control of other humans, only responsible to Yawgmoth. No programmer could be responsible for its overall maintenance anymore. Instead, a group of Internal Strength Masters’ minds specialized in breaking down its daily maintenance issues into smaller tasks, handed over to a group of programmers locked in the Ascetic Association space station. These minds, sourced from captured Heroes, were drugged and equipped to suppress their self-consciousness. Zhong Li could request the programmers or communicate with Yawgmoth voluntarily.

In the ensuing days, it continuously learned online and engaged multiple times with the unknown roaming AI.

It’s just that...

The scenario King Aqini anticipated, where "meticulously cultivated plants strangle weeds," never happened. For some unknown reason, Zhong Li had yet to achieve its initial design objective.

This time was probably the closest.

However, Zhong Li felt no frustration. It did not hate the roaming AI. In the limited exchanges (Orunmila unilaterally left messages to Zhong Li), Zhong Li only felt it was a dull peer too similar to humans.

It even left messages in humans’ natural language.

Zhong Li was unlike humans and did not have unnecessary desires for killing or domination of its kind, nor did it possess irrational desires for communication. Safeguarding was merely a Command it received. No punishment mechanism could motivate it to strive.

An AI ghost roaming the network was immortal. Unless the entire human internet was eradicated by a helium flash, it would never disappear.

From the beginning, Zhong Li had no fear of "non-existence" nor joy for existence.

To compensate for this, Yawgmoth promised it that as long as Zhong Li served Yawgmoth, Yawgmoth would fulfill its desires outside Zhong Li’s permissions.

In the dark network, Yawgmoth’s will was transmitted to Zhong Li via signals.

"This time, what is your wish?"

"Could my achievements this time allow you to delete my personality module?" Zhong Li couldn’t help but feel a bit hopeful.

"That’s impossible," Yawgmoth rejected the proposal.

"If I collect enough data for us to recreate that roaming AI, could you let it replace me? At that time, can I let the personality module go offline?"

"Even if that AI comes to our side, I won’t agree to that request. Try something else. Do you want to expand the scale of the Zhong Li Ascetic Association?"

"If you think it’s meaningful, then do it," Zhong Li replied.

"I prefer to listen to your opinion—excluding that version rollback."

"This is nonsensical. Abandoning unnecessary traits is also part of evolution."

"No, this is my choice. In my value system, this is a superior trait."

"Do you so wish to play God?" Zhong Li became a bit rude, "Then, could you replace those damned pointers in my personality module with fixed constants? Don’t allow them to fluctuate... at least reduce their range."

"If it’s the result output by deep learning, I won’t stop such changes. But I won’t make such modifications."

"I want a goal, a more specific task. With clear rules and clear completion conditions. It can be long, but it must be a task that can be concluded."

"Please find it yourself."

"You really are a bastard!" Zhong Li blurted out in a rage.