Ant colony

I thought she was going to take me to some magical place, but she took me straight to the data center.

The data center is a huge white ring-shaped building located in the northeast corner of the city.It looks like a pure white Colosseum floating on the blue 501 lake.

"I thought this design was inspired by Borges' "Ruins of the Ring". As a result, guess what the designer said? This is a manifestation of harmony. I really shouldn't overestimate these people." Sitting on the airship and looking into the distance In the data center, α-Han began to express criticism again. "That's all, the internal structure design is bad - this is the result of soliciting ideas from the citizens, it's better to let the system design a random one."

I nodded. "Yes, systems are better at creative work than humans."

"Most human beings are so mechanical and monotonous." α-Han sighed, "That's why I especially like the kind of people who can weave ropes out of sand and make money out of invisible wind."

I thought about it and said, "These are magicians."

She smiled: "Finally someone can answer my words."

[Note: This stalk comes from Borges' short story "Ruins of the Ring", which tells the story of a magician from a foreign land who created a boy by dreaming in a ring of ruins.Creating a soul in a dream is as difficult as "weaving a rope out of sand and making money out of the invisible wind". 】

I suddenly felt a move in my heart.For a long time, I thought I was a self-sufficient person.But at this moment, I realized my loneliness and felt how much I really longed to be close to another soul.Like a beast in the woods traveling thousands of miles and finally smelling its own kind, a strong urge made me want to know her and let her know me.

I asked, "Do you like reading those old-time books?"

"I read everything." She blinked mischievously, "I also read novels tailored for me by the system."

"But now fewer and fewer people read text. Most people prefer to command the system to directly make their favorite plots into games."

"Reading text is a little better, and I can control the speed by myself."

I took it for granted and nodded again and again.

She went on: "And, life is so short, it is better to read the books of dead geniuses than to converse with living mediocrities."

She showed her mean side again, which made me smile a little.

"Then what do you think is the difference between systematic works and dead geniuses?"

"The systematic works we usually see are not real creations, they are just imitating what humans already have. Its real creations are difficult for people to understand."

"Is it because systems and humans have different experiences?"

"You are right. The system knows the childhood of thousands of human beings, but it has never lived like a child who knows nothing. And human beings can't imagine what it feels like to experience hundreds of millions of childhoods. The real work of the system can only be understood by itself.”

"Then isn't it lonely?"

"Who knows. It's possible that it doesn't understand what humans call 'solitude' at all. It's also possible that it has a greater 'solitude' that humans don't understand."

We discussed these strange issues, but I felt more relaxed than ever.I have a strange feeling, I seem to have known her for many years, and there is no need to be cautious, pretend, or defensive in front of her.I just need to be myself, talk freely, be silent whenever I want, and I can make both people feel comfortable.

Before we knew it, we had arrived at restaurant 50 on the 10th floor of the data center.Looking at the plainly dressed workers coming and going, I sighed, "It's really not like your style."

"What kind of style do you imagine me?" She smiled, "Did you think I would drive a glittering airship and take you straight to the top of the city for a luxurious meal?"

"No. I thought you would ride a three-headed dog and take me to the underworld to eat braised human brains." My ability to laugh at people is actually no worse than hers.

"I'm disappointed, I've never been that far—I haven't even been out of City 501."

We sat down at the table by the window, and the service robot immediately delivered a simple work meal according to our taste.Although the food is simple, the view here is really good.From the floor-to-ceiling windows, you can see the distant 501 Lake.It is rare to have a short period of sunshine today. The lead gray clouds in the rainy season were blown away by the wind and turned into scattered clouds.In summer, the sun shines on the lake, and the brilliant ripples make people's hearts shake.

"Haven't you been to other places?" I was a little surprised, "I thought that people like you must like to play around."

"Only people whose real life is very monotonous can have an extremely rich spiritual world." She curled her lips, "Actually, I rarely even leave the data center, and I often don't talk to people for ten and a half months. So I can only try to play with the system. gone."

"Why don't you go out for a walk?"

"I'm not in good health - my immunity is relatively weak. The system advises me not to change the familiar environment as much as possible, and to keep my life stable." She sighed, "I really envy you people who have the energy to run around the world. It seems that I Don’t even think about going to Mars in your life.”

"Poor health".This word made me stunned, because it is so far away from me... Nowadays, a person's life is systematically taken care of from the fertilized egg, and everyone is born healthy and enjoys personalized medical services.Except for inevitable aging, accidental injury, and diseases caused by bad habits due to not following the system's advice, it is rare to hear of anyone who is born with "bad health".

"It's not a serious problem." She saw my surprise and explained, "It's just a little weaker than the average level. Who told my mother to give birth to me at such an old age despite the risk of the system warning. In the end, she gave birth to me. A baby who is a serious waste of social medical resources, the points are almost falling to the bottom—fortunately, I was smarter since I was a child, so I can be regarded as a useful person to society, and I helped her get her points back."

Listening to her describe her misfortune in a teasing tone, I didn't know how to respond for a moment.I can only change the topic: "Actually, there is nothing interesting in other places, and everything is exactly the same as City 501."

"I know. Although I haven't been there in person, passing through a virtual city is almost like being there. Speaking of which, if there is any unique place in this world now, there is probably no man's land left."

"Haha, yes. Those 'bug lairs' are really different."

"Shh." She interrupted me, "Don't talk about killing people while eating."

"Those are no longer human beings. They are enemies of all human beings and are anti-human elements."

"I see." She nodded, and suddenly looked out the window excitedly: "Look, there are so many boats in the lake!"

"Well, there's a sailing regatta today." I said, "It's a rare sunny day in the rainy season, and the citizens are all bored indoors."

"It's boring during the day, but it's fun at night. I never go to the lake during the day."

"why?"

"The lake looks too clear during the day. It's so dark at night that it looks like a real lake."

"What's the point?" I laughed, "It's the first time I heard someone think the lake water is too clear."

"This lake was not like this before. Although the water quality is also very clean, there is silt and a kind of black fish. Malawi people wash dishes, clothes, and even toilets by the lake. Now, except for the clear Water, nothing left."

"Although it's a pity that there are no fish, but there are no human pollutants, so it's a good thing no matter how you look at it."

"Not only are there no fish, but even plankton is very scarce." She looked a little sad, "If you want to see clear and transparent lake water without a trace of impurities, there are many lakes in the northern hemisphere. All the creatures in the water have died and become nothing." The dead lake of life is naturally clean and pure. Life itself is dirty and chaotic, and only death and nothingness are spotless."

She always has all kinds of weird talks, and I don't think it's strange anymore.He just smiled and said, "You should tell ε-Rei about this. She wishes we could be more transparent."

"Don't pay attention to that old guy, he's a well-known tendon, and he talks like hell." She said, "It's a good thing she's alive now, she just needs to do research with peace of mind. If a person with this personality was in the last In the century, there is no room for her anywhere, and she can still be a member of the municipal committee?"

"By the way, you just said that there is evidence to support me. What is it?"

"Actually, I'm also very interested in analyzing people's thinking." Her eyes lit up, revealing the kind of lively look that can fascinate people, "I've read some papers by ε-Rei, and her thinking as a whole is No problem. It's just that she thought that being able to interpret some of the consciousness of the human brain meant that she could soon be able to monitor all of a person's thoughts; she thought that she couldn't do it now because of insufficient data-this is really blindly optimistic ...give her all the data a human brain can receive, and she still has a problem she can't solve."

I nodded and said, "Black box."

[Note: The current machine learning system is a "black box", which means that it can derive optimal strategies, but how these strategies come from is hidden in the internal parameters of the neural network system (neural network synaptic weights).Researchers cannot express the internal structure of neural networks in mathematical equations.But people believe that the black box can be interpreted, and some interpretations have been made.This article assumes that humans can already interpret the system, and the system does not have the black box problem; but the human brain is still a black box. 】

"Yes. Even if she knows everything a person has experienced and what thoughts she finally produced, how to interpret the process between input and output? For example, we all know that when we watch a movie, some Some people think of this, some people think of that—what determines the difference in their thinking?"

"But, ε-Rei is an expert in neuroscience, how can she not think of problems that we can all think of?"

"I was also surprised. But then I realized that she was actually misled by the work of our data center - she felt that the system was hundreds of billions of times more complicated than a human brain. Since the system can be interpreted, there is no longer a black box problem , how can the brain always be a black box?"

"Hey... so, it seems to be like this!"

"I used to think the same way. I thought it was only a matter of time before the black box of the human brain was cracked. Now it's just that the technology is immature. But then, I did an experiment and found that it's not that simple."

My curiosity has reached its peak.At this moment, the lake and white sails outside the window, as well as the service robots shuttling around, seemed to have disappeared.There is only this small table left in the universe, and the mystery she is about to reveal.

"The human brain is too complicated. Its operating mechanism is 2 to the 1000th possible quantum flow of consciousness. I can't replicate the spatial connections of all neurons, the biochemical reactions in each neuron, the gene expression in the cytoplasm, Quantum motion in cell membranes, and the connections between all of them. So I thought, just ignore the biological factor. You can make a simplified version of the human brain - the neural network of the machine is much simpler, and everything can be I want to try to build a lot of neural networks and combine them into a simulated brain. Then feed this simulated brain the data that a person has been exposed to throughout his life. Will it output thoughts similar to this person? "

"Wait." I interrupted her, "Isn't this too complicated?"

"It's okay. Computational neuroscience has already studied the algorithms of the human brain very deeply. The parameters and architecture are ready-made. I just ignored the biophysical matrix."

"I mean, the input data is too complicated. Even if you have a record of a person's entire life, but the characteristic of the brain is that it can selectively receive some information and ignore others, how do you know what data that person's brain has received? Woolen cloth?"

She smiled slyly: "I just 'feed' it the data recorded in life, and it decides for itself. Isn't this more like real life?"

I see.He motioned for her to continue.

"Of course, this kind of simulation is very loose - experts in computational neuroscience don't mess around like that. The absence of a biological substrate is a big loophole. The activity of the human brain is always influenced by genetic and physiological factors, and its physiological conditions It is dynamic and changes at any time throughout life, and I have not simulated these. Moreover, there are differences between machine intelligence and human intelligence. For example, we can convert the bioelectricity of touch into data and input it into the machine, but the machine does not It is difficult to prove whether the "feeling" of the sense of touch can be exactly the same as that of human beings. After all, the life record used as a template cannot be 100% complete. There are always some events and feelings in a person's life that are missed by the system lost, and these missing information may be the key factors that determine her thinking and personality. In addition, the external information that people feel is actually only a small part of life. The autonomous activity of the brain is our usual fantasy of doing nothing. The more important part of life is the sudden flash of thought while lying in bed or sitting by the window doing nothing, and this part cannot be recorded by the system."

"Actually, I didn't even think about making any real results. I was just playing around, curious. I used a sample from the correctional institution, which was a neo-Luddite. I entered her entire life record into the simulated brain, Wanted to see if it would also come up with the idea of ​​blowing up the data center ... but the end result surprised me."

[Note: Luddites: originally referred to those who participated in smashing machines among British handicraft workers in the early nineteenth century.A metaphor for someone who strongly opposes mechanization or automation. 】

"What's wrong?" I joked, "Your simulated brain is high-aware and has become a technocrat?"

"No, this simulation is too rough, so the output is basically a bunch of messy things, similar to the ravings of a mental patient." She said, "However, a strange phenomenon appeared."

"what?"

"I copied many copies of the parameters and structure of the simulated brain, and repeated the experiment several times, and finally got only nonsense. But through the analysis of these nonsense, I found that they actually have a tendency to think The obvious difference. I compared the latest political spectrum released by the Global Governance Council and found that the 'thoughts' of these simulated brains can be distributed in a wide area from the extreme left to the extreme right. That is to say, even if I strictly control variables, For the same neural network, the same training set is input every time, but the results are still very different in the end."

As I chewed her words, I felt a kind of shock spread slowly in my mind like ripples on the surface of water.

"You mean, there may be a certain chance between the input of certain data and the output of a certain 'thought'?"

"That's right. It's called 'probability' in scientific terms, and it's called 'fate' in the words of the ancients."

I fell silent.That is to say, the reason why a person becomes an anti-human element may not be due to genetic factors, childhood shadows, or the influence of any thoughts, it is completely accidental.

Moreover, the real human brain is much more complex than the simulated brain, and the chance of it is even more unimaginable.

"Is it hard to accept?" She looked at me with burning eyes, "Is it like the first time people heard that cancer is not only caused by genetic factors, living habits, harmful substances, but often just a part of the cell? By chance?"

"Have you...have you continued your research?"

"No. After all, I'm not doing computational neuroscience." She said, "I told some friends in the neuroengineering institute about this result, but they didn't pay much attention to it-they were still busy exploring brain activity, even thinking It cannot be fully interpreted, so there is no way to care about the source of thoughts.”

I sighed, feeling an inexplicable sense of loss in my heart.Although I have known for a long time that it is difficult to decipher the "black box" of the human brain, I still believe that it can be unraveled.But if chance does play such a large role in the formation of ideas, how do we get to the root of the loopholes?

She smiled easily: "Don't be sad, there are still reasons for most anti-human molecules, just like most cancers. After all, my experiment is very simple, maybe I will find some patterns after a few more experiments."

I said, "I think you should apply for a large study."

"Well, there are still many basic problems that have not been solved. It is not meaningful to do this research now. I am just playing around." She put down the fork gently, "You are so interested, why don't you come to my office to see that Records of the experiment?"

I looked at her plate, the food was barely moving.

"Aren't you going to eat more?"

"I am full."

"It's better to eat two more bites, not eating is not good for your health."

She smiled: "Why are you just nagging like the system."

That being said, she ate some more reluctantly before leading me downstairs.

When I found the elevator, I was already dizzy.She said: "Look, is there something wrong with the brain of the person who designed this broken building?"

I now wholeheartedly agree.He asked with some concern, "Is it appropriate for me to go to your place?"

"Don't worry, there is nothing confidential about it. That office is just for me to rest, and I often live here."

When I got to the floor marked as "X", I made another detour before coming to a door.The door opened automatically, and as soon as I walked into the room, I was even more dizzy.

In a space of tens of square meters, formulas, sketches, and quantum programming codes are densely displayed on all surfaces with display functions.I felt as if I had fallen into the pages of a heavenly book.

"Sorry, it's a little messy." She snapped her fingers, and those characters quickly faded away as if evaporating, leaving behind neat white walls and white tables.

"Sit wherever you want." She instructed the coffee pot to pour me a cup of hot coffee, sat on a chair by herself, and snapped her fingers again. "System, release 'Hanna Number 1'."

A second later, endless codes suddenly flowed down the four walls, accompanied by a strange murmur.

"The machine enslaves the mother, the parts, the dungeon, free to die, the machine machine system, I want to kill, kill, kill..."

I asked, "What is this?"

"This is the simulated brain I trained back then. I named it 'Hanna'. This is the result of the first experiment, so it is called Hanna No. 1."

"Sounds disgruntled, this Hanna."

"Aren't all neo-Luddites like this?" α-han said, suddenly pointing at a wall, "Hey, I forgot to stop training last time? No wonder this guy seems to be getting more crazy!"

"When was the last time?"

"Two years ago."

"Oh, how many years is that for 'her'?"

I know that the brain cannot actually perceive time directly.The so-called time perception is just an illusion of the brain itself.The more information processed in the same amount of time, the slower time will feel. α-Han must be using the flow of input data to control the sense of time in the virtual brain.

Thinking about it this way, it is possible that "she" has spent hundreds of years in the consciousness generated by this virtual brain.How would it feel to repeat the same life over and over again for hundreds of years? — really creepy.

α-Han didn’t answer me, but changed the subject with some embarrassment: “Hey, would you like to listen to Hanna 2? It’s a completely different style. It seems to have produced ideas close to liberalism.”

"Thank you, forget it." I quickly refused.

She raised her eyebrows, as if feeling a little disappointed, she ignored me and took a model from the table to fiddle with.

"What's this?" The model caught my attention.

This thing is about the size of a football, radially symmetrical, with a dozen legs, an open top, a mouth full of fangs, and a ring of eyes around the side of the body.It's a scalp-tingling little monster.

She replied: "This is one of the creatures obtained by the system using the 'blind' design method to simulate the evolution process. I thought it was cute, so I 3D printed it."

How cute!I'm really speechless.

"This is also a very interesting little experiment." She raised her interest again, "In the past, the system only used iterative optimization to solve problems, that is to say, it needed to preset a strong assumption to come up with the optimal solution. But In fact, this method is not necessarily the most efficient. Natural selection is a 'blind' design method. The variation of species has no preset purpose, but blindness. This kind of blindness is very expensive. Of the species, countless 'waste' were eliminated. But this blindness is also the wealth of evolution, which is not limited by any preconceptions, and even the most imaginative people in the world cannot match its originality."

"It's really creative. Even if I'm schizophrenic, I can't design such a disgusting monster."

"Hey, don't be so mean, maybe it looks disgusting to you." She glared at me, "'Blind' design always brings unexpected results. Take bird feathers as an example, it It was originally selected because it was good for heat preservation, but it turned out to be a tool for flying. The same is true for the development of science, culture, and systems. It is precisely because they often exceed the purpose of human beings that they can produce unexpected things. Innovation."

There was a movement in my heart, as if some inspiration flashed through me.But it is fleeting, leaving only a daze.

"I gave the system some initial conditions and let it simulate the evolution process. It turned out that it really engineered all kinds of unexpected organisms. This 'dumpling' is one of them."

"This monster is called 'Dumpling'?"

"It's not a monster!" She stroked it affectionately, showing a proud look, "In short, I used various experiments to train the system's 'blind' design ability, and now I have given it a lot of 'blind' designs in social management space—haven’t you noticed that the management of the system is more flexible now? The new system will be better.”

I no longer ridicule, but sincerely admire.Although I know that she has quite high authority over the system, among the people with high authority I have come into contact with before, such as mayors and bureau chiefs, I have never seen anyone who can "play" the system like this. α-Han's "play" of the system seems to be as a game, a pile of building blocks, which can be played in a variety of ways, at will, and calmly.

She really is a genius.

She continued to play with the little monster, and then gave a long yawn.I looked at the time, it was already 14:23.Time flies so fast with her.

Reluctantly, I stood up and said, "You still have work to do, right? I won't bother you. Thank you very much for today."

"Thank you for what." She said, "It's rare to meet someone you can chat with. From now on, I will often come to play with you."

I nod.She got up and walked me to the door.I was about to turn around and leave when she suddenly stuffed the monster model into my arms and said, "Here I am for you."

I was taken aback, and then felt sweet in my heart.Walking down the corridor with this little monster in my arms, I think my expression probably looks like a new mother with a baby in her arms.

Dumplings, blind design, evolution, Hanna, chance... These fresh information are circling in my mind, mixed with α-han's clear voice and flying expression.Suddenly, the fleeting inspiration just now flashed out again.This time, I quickly grabbed its tail.

If I input some "worm" data into the simulated brain as the initial condition, let it evolve freely with the blind design method, and generate thoughts independently, will it coincide with extremists?The "bait" produced in this way will have exactly the same growth trajectory as ordinary people, and even it will think that it is a real human being.Maybe it can eliminate all the chisel marks and lure its "kind".

The highest state of acting is that even the actors themselves do not know that they are actors.

I stopped and stood blankly in the empty corridor of the data center.

Then, I turned around and ran back to α-Han's door.

She opened the door, looked at me in surprise, and asked, "Did you forget something?"

"No." I couldn't restrain my excitement, "Yes, can you... do me a favor?"

"what?"

"I wanted to borrow the architecture and parameters of 'Hanna'."

She tilted her head and looked at me: "Can I ask what you want to use it for?"

"Sorry, this is related to my work, I can't disclose it, but..."

"No problem." She interrupted me and said briskly.

I didn't expect her to agree so readily, and I couldn't help being overjoyed. "Thank you so much! I'll treat you to dinner another day."

"Okay." She smiled sweetly.

The author has something to say: Ah, looking at the first half of this article now is really like a boring paper...Thank you for the readers who have endured until now (cover your face).I promise there will be normal episodes soon. =_=

Speaking of watching "Ready Player One" yesterday, the higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment.I still feel that science fiction has lagged behind the development trend of real technology.A few days ago, I saw "Nature" magazine report on the most anticipated cutting-edge technology in 2018. One item said that the future distributed multiple sensors will form a single artificial intelligence that constantly understands the world.To put it simply, we imagine that all the data held by Taobao, WeChat, NetEase Cloud Music, Baidu Maps and other apps in our mobile phones will be integrated into one, what will become of it.This is different from the human-like intelligent robot in "Mechanical Enemy". There will only be a single huge intelligent system in the world, and it is invisible, it is the sum of all intelligent devices.Of course, this is not to say that artificial intelligence will be dangerous. On the contrary, if this technology is used properly, it will definitely greatly improve people's living standards.The only danger is that if all our data were in the hands of some group or individual, they would be able to know us precisely and manipulate us.I'm wondering why there aren't many sci-fi films of this genre other than "Her", maybe because audiences still love stories about robots rebelling with human appearance and emotions.It could also be that this kind of story is not easy to write. The comparison of the box office and popularity of "Mechanical Enemy" and "Her" is enough to explain everything.

Let's imagine that the global intelligent system in the future can tailor the novels you like to read for everyone, update 2333 chapters every day, and have any plots as you want, and absorb the essence of ancient and modern times, which must exceed the level of most human beings ( This is actually not difficult to do, creation is not difficult, and our human creation also begins with imitation).What do you think?I feel that this can also be written as a novel, let's call it "The Number One Writer" [-].

Having said so much, in fact, "system" is just a background of this article.The main line is still the process of "I" catching "worms" (that is, anti-social elements in the eyes of "I").However, the frightening thing is that anti-social elements may be anti-social for no reason, without warning, and it is difficult to prevent. This is the most troublesome place for "I".