Great Power Technology

Chen Hao did not agree with Ye Zhou's proposal to experiment with AVS technology first, especially after hearing him explain the possible risks of AVS technology.

From his perspective, if AVS technology carries the risk of making people insane, then Ye Zhou should not be involved. The reason is simple: the country can afford the loss of an ordinary person or even a senior researcher. , but he absolutely cannot afford to lose Ye Zhou.

However, Ye Zhou still firmly insisted on his own ideas. The two of them argued over this issue. Finally, a sentence from their superior put an end to their dispute:

"How can any general personally carry a gun and go to the front line until the last moment?"

Ye Zhou reluctantly accepted the decision of his superiors, but in fact his decision was not a momentary heroic spirit.

With the blessing of the "Resistor" talent, his resistance to mental shock and mental pollution far exceeds that of other ordinary people and almost all professionally trained special personnel. In addition, he has thoughts about AES in his mind. With all the knowledge of technology, allowing yourself to experiment is actually the option to maximize profits.

However, he can also understand the decisions made by his superiors. After all, sometimes giving up efficiency in order to reduce risks is actually the right choice.

"If you don't let me do it, don't let me do it, but I must be present for the first experiment. I need to understand the technical details intuitively."

"AVS technology is not like other technologies we have developed before. It is a completely human technology, and the user experience is also a very important part. If there is a problem with the experimental subjects during the process, then I would rather suspend the subsequent development now. .”

"Is it so exaggerated?"

Chen Hao asked with some confusion.

"It's possible that it's even more exaggerated than what I'm saying now."

Ye Zhou recalled the hearing in the ending replay. In the scene at that time, ordinary people who received AVS technology treatment obviously suffered from mental damage.

This kind of damage cannot be detected by medical means, but it actually affects the individual's way of thinking and behavior.

After that simulation, Ye Zhou thought about the reasons for this problem more than once, but he never came to a definite conclusion.

Relatively speaking, a more likely explanation is that there is a slight difference between the visual signals conveyed by the AVS device and the signals conveyed by the human eye. This difference, accumulated over time, skews the individual's perception of the world.

Just like different tones in a conversation can give a completely different meaning to a paragraph, differences in information density in visual signals are likely to bias the final result.

Chen Hao on the other end of the phone was silent for a few seconds, and then said:

"Then let's look at the results of the first experiment. If the problems you mentioned really occur, then we will directly terminate the subsequent application research and development."

"AES technology itself is not a shortage technology, and we can afford the absence of this technology."

Hearing Chen Hao's words, Ye Zhou shook his head and replied:

"No, the AES technology itself is not as simple as you might think now."

“Essentially, AES technology is an exploration of brain neural signals, from our BCI technology at the beginning, to the current AVS, AES, to the direct transmission of neural network information, and to what may appear later. Brain-assisted computing, to other technologies that I haven’t thought of yet, and finally strong artificial intelligence. The boundaries of AES are far broader than what we see now.”

"What we can afford is the consequences of a 'temporary absence'. If there is no breakthrough for a long time, our opponents may overtake us in this field - of course, I mean in relative terms. Over a long time span, such as fifty years or one hundred years.”

"This time span is very long for the two of us, but for a civilization and a country, it is just a blink of an eye, right?"

"In the final analysis, we are still planning for future generations."

Chen Hao on the other side of the phone sighed and said:

"Every generation has its own mission. Ye Zhou, I have been telling you one thing, but you have never listened."

"Don't push yourself too hard."

"Yes, you have indeed brought us huge changes. It can even be said that your appearance has fundamentally accelerated China's development, but you have to know that you will not be the only protagonist of this era."

"You have to realize this - you are the butterfly flapping its wings, but essentially it is the vastness of the atmosphere and ocean that creates the storm."

"Why are you pushing yourself so hard? Tropical Storm won't improve to a higher level just because you flap your wings a few more times. Just flap your wings twice. It's pretty cool!"

Ye Zhou laughed dumbly. Although Chen Hao's words sounded a bit generous, he did make his problem very clear.

After a pause, he said:

"I know, I know. Stop talking about these useless things and hurry up and arrange your itinerary for me."

"Where was the first experiment? Zhejiang University?"

"Yes, Zhejiang University."

Three days later, Ye Zhou arrived in Yuhang as planned. He didn't waste any time. After getting off the plane, he went straight to the BCI Research Institute of Zhejiang University. There, he met Chen Li, who is now in charge of the AVS project.

The other party did not know his true identity, but he also knew that he should be the upper-level leader of the AVS project, so he did not hide anything during the discussion with him.

"Actually, the experiment we are about to conduct now is the first full-scope experiment, but before this, we have conducted multiple neural signal input analyses, neural tolerance tests, and eliminated several alternative experiments. In the end, only one object remained.”

"Those eliminated subjects are either insensitive to electrical stimulation signals or too sensitive, and do not meet the experimental conditions."

"So, in fact, our experiment does not have a control group at all. If it fails, we will have to wait for the next batch of experimenters to be selected."

Hearing Chen Li's introduction, Ye Zhou nodded slightly, and then asked:

"What are the backgrounds of those who were eliminated?"

"An active soldier, a monk, two ordinary blind masseurs, and a blind composer. The nerve sensitivity of soldiers and monks is low. The sensitivity conditions of the blind masseur are the best, but the nerve signals are chaotic. We The current compiler cannot meet the requirements, the composer is too sensitive, and even the first test failed."

"What's the reason for not passing?"

"Hallucination - an extremely strong hallucination, even so exaggerated that it affected the body's functions. In the hallucination, he saw that he was in a fire, and then his skin showed slight burn symptoms. We observed this The experiment was terminated immediately, but it took several days for his burn symptoms to recover."

In fact, the phenomenon of physiological reactions due to hallucinations is not particularly bizarre. Some special hypnosis experiments can achieve similar effects, and the very famous "rubber hand experiment" or "phantom limb experiment" in the scientific community is ”, which also proves from a certain aspect that false visual perception signals will trigger corresponding neural reflexes.

When the intensity of this neural reflex reaches a threshold, it will cause certain physiological changes.

This discovery more intuitively demonstrates the impact of AVS technology on the human body than the ending Ye Zhou saw in the simulator, and further hints at the dangers of this technology.

Ye Zhou sighed inaudibly, and then continued to ask:

"What about the last one? What is his identity?"

"She is a 6-year-old child. She is also blind after birth, but she lost her sight when she was 4 years old. She was blind for only two years."

"We believe that a very important factor why she can meet the experimental conditions is that her nervous system is still in a relatively primary stage and she is relatively receptive to new system stimulation."

"As for several other people, due to long-term living and working, the working mode of the nervous system has formed an inherent pattern, and it is no longer that simple to correct it through electrical signal stimulation."

Hearing this, Ye Zhou's expression became extremely tangled.

The AVS team of Zhejiang University has explored this technology far beyond what he saw in the report. It has even discovered the negative effects of AVS technology and the different impacts of consciousness on AVS technology. This is a Good trend.

But the problem is that they have no way to solve such negative effects now.

Of the 6 candidate experimenters, only one was left in the end. This ratio can almost be said to be far lower than the standard for promoting a technology.

After thinking for a moment, he asked:

"Where is the experimenter? Is he in the institute? I want to see him."

Chen Li on the opposite side shook his head and replied:

"Not at the moment. We originally wanted to keep her in the institute, but her family background is more complicated. She and her brother are orphans. Her brother goes to school in Chengbei District, but she can't leave her brother to take care of her, so We only come here two nights a week and on the weekends.”

"Orphan? My brother is still in school? How old is he?"

"My brother is 14 years old and in junior high school."

"Junior high school?? How do they make a living?"

"With part of the official subsidy and help from neighbors, I was supposed to go through the adoption process, but the procedures were not completed."

"Their lives don't have many problems. After all, Yuhang has been rich for thousands of years. It's not that easy to starve to death - but it is definitely difficult."

Hearing this, Ye Zhou frowned.

Obviously, the child in Chen Li's words and his brother live in an extremely fragile balance. Illness, poverty and the pressure of life together form a seesaw.

One end of the seesaw is them, and the other end is the abyss of eternal destruction.

The AVS technology in Chen Li's hands is a weight. If the weight cannot be placed in the correct position, it will have a negative effect on the balance of the seesaw.

After a moment of silence, he spoke:

"Give me an address and I'll go check it out."

"In fact, you shouldn't choose such experimental subjects - their error tolerance rate is too low."

"We must be cautious with such experimental subjects. They can at least live for now, if irreversible problems arise after conducting experiments."

"Then we are the last straw for them."