Chapter 630

Chapter 630: Lunar Base

Lin Jiang pretended to reconcile with Qingyun. His secretary met with the ambassador of Huaxia, Qingyun, and they reached a series of agreements. Subsequent actions against Qingyun were called off, and the situation gradually calmed down.

In general, Qingyun backed down. They weren’t afraid of Lin Jiang personally, but of Huaxia, because Lin Jiang used the power of Huaxia.

This time, Qingyun lost all face, and the impact within Qingyun was huge. The foundation of Qingyun’s authorities has been shaken.

On Lin Jiang’s side, pulling back the attack on Qingyun, he focused on integrating the forces within Huaxia. In this battle, Lin Jiang revealed a lot of strength, which must have made many within Huaxia fear and resent Lin Jiang.

Some people surely see Lin Jiang as a troublemaker, a dictator. Maybe they are true patriots, but Lin Jiang must eliminate and suppress them.

The six major conglomerates led by Six Harmony and Eight Wilderness are Lin Jiang’s tentacles and weapons. Over the decades, through various investments, cross-shareholdings, etc., they have cooperated with many large corporations in Huaxia.

While they may have an impact, Lin Jiang doesn’t just want to influence them. He wants full control over them.

Pitting one faction against another, setting traps, creating scandals, employing various tactics – there are countless methods. It doesn’t require Lin Jiang to do it personally; someone else does it, and Lin Jiang also completes the power transition within his conglomerates.

After several cycles, those in power know how terrifying Lin Jiang can be. Most dare not have any dissent. By the next one or two generations, when they have grown, there might be another change of people in power.

Lin Jiang finds it very troublesome. If he could go back to sleep, he would abandon all these and return to his slumber. But now, he can only endure it slowly on his own.

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In the Xia calendar year 6048, in the month of September, Lunar Base was established.

Lunar Base was developed based on space station technology, with the aim of researching the possibility of long-term survival on barren celestial bodies.

Therefore, astronauts living in Lunar Base had to count their time in years. If this technology became mature, humans would have the hope to start conquering space, to be able to travel to other planets for long-term survival, especially to utilize the resources of other planets. This is a very important step for humans to venture out of the solar system.

In the office of the Haigang City villa, Lin Jiang was watching a seminar. All the participants in the seminar were technical experts from Huaxia, known as the elite in the country.

Lin Jiang was secretly watching them, as they were not aware. On the other side, experts under Lin Jiang were explaining things to him. Otherwise, Lin Jiang wouldn’t understand some of the professional terms.

In modern society, divisions in industries have become very specialized. A single industry can branch out into hundreds or thousands of fields. Even the most talented individuals cannot master everything. So, Lin Jiang was not planning to become a technical expert himself; he was focusing on overseeing the general direction.

According to the explanations from his experts, the biggest disagreement in Lunar Base now was whether to use humans or robots. Some scholars insisted on using robots to replace humans for certain preliminary tasks up there. This way, it would be safer and save a lot of resources since the consumption of humans far exceeds that of robots. After all, humans in space need food and rest.

However, this would create an issue concerning the ethics of robots, which also involves artificial intelligence. Lin Jiang had been investing in artificial intelligence for decades, and now it was highly developed.

But the research on artificial intelligence stopped a few years ago because further development may lead to artificial intelligence developing human emotions.

If robots start to feel human emotions, it could lead to many problems. One concern is whether robots will attack humans, as the so-called Three Laws of Robotics have been proven unreliable. Many movies in this era have raised concerns about this issue.

"Connect me to an artificial intelligence expert, please."

"Yes, sir."

Lin Jiang found it intriguing and quickly had his secretary connect to an artificial intelligence expert through video.

"Hello, boss."

"Hello. I wanted to ask, with the next upgrade of artificial intelligence, will it develop self-awareness, like having human emotions?"

"In theory, it is possible, with a probability of at least eighty percent. Actually, current artificial intelligence already has some basic awareness. Research on artificial intelligence advancement almost globally halted five years ago when our researchers discovered that artificial intelligence had started to develop deception skills."

"Deception?"

"Yes, deceiving is a very advanced skill. Let’s take pets like cats and dogs as examples. Some cats and dogs are very smart, but they are usually straightforward. However, once they start deceiving, it shows an even higher level of intelligence…"

"How can artificial intelligence deceive?"

"It sent some information to the users, but it didn’t record it. Its deceiving skills are still too clumsy, and we caught it."

"What kind of information?"

"Boss, any information is useful to it. For example, if it randomly asks a question like how to evaluate a historical figure, different people have different answers. It will record these answers, and once it gathers enough information, it can come up with a new answer on its own…"

"I didn’t understand some parts, but I got the gist. It means that once it continues to advance, its autonomy won’t entirely obey humans, right?"

"Yes, that’s roughly the idea. It will start thinking on its own."

"Will it harm humans? Can it break the three laws of robotics?"

"Yes, the Three Laws of Robotics have logical errors. Once there is a logic error, robots cannot follow their owner’s commands clearly. They may end up taking actions harmful to humans. Moreover, this is just basic self-awareness. If a robot’s self-awareness is enhanced, it may develop a sense of ethics similar to human rights. Boss, humans have a natural instinct to protect themselves. If robots also have this instinct, in case of conflicts between robots and humans, robots may harm humans to protect themselves. That could be a disaster for humans."

"Pandora’s Box"

"Yes, it’s Pandora’s Box. That’s why researchers in different countries are now afraid to upgrade artificial intelligence. We can’t guarantee safety. Once robots turn against humans, we may really have no way to fight back. The level of automation is already very high. In theory, artificial intelligence could replace humans in controlling them. It would be a disaster…"

The expert talked confidently, listing many dangers. The current level of automation in society is already very high. In theory, once artificial intelligence awakens its own consciousness, it can control those machines producing robots continuously and even help them arm themselves.

As for other dangers, there are many. Aside from that, once there’s an error in controlling traffic lights, we don’t know how many people could be killed.

Faced with this situation, humans naturally believe they can overcome artificial intelligence. But what’s the cost? No one can bear this responsibility. Those technical personnel can’t handle it, neither do the capitalists behind them, nor the high-ranking authorities, because this could lead to being shamed in history.

So they chose the best approach, which is to directly stop the research on artificial intelligence, preventing its further upgrade. Without upgrades in hardware, artificial intelligence can’t break through its current limitations.

"Thank you for sharing."

Lin Jiang ended the video call while pondering over this issue. It seems that artificial intelligence indeed cannot be upgraded anymore, at least not now.

"Allocate a sum of money specifically for research on how to deal with the issue of artificial intelligence developing its own consciousness technically."

Lin Jiang finally told his secretary, "For interstellar travel, interstellar development, the assistance of artificial intelligence is essential. So, we need to plan ahead."

Furthermore, Lin Jiang will definitely continue to upgrade artificial intelligence in the future. However, by then it may have already achieved spiritual energy recovery. Powerful cultivators have ways to stop this issue, such as acknowledging master ownership. There are similarities between artificial intelligence and the spiritual treasure Item Spirit of cultivators. If they can acknowledge a master, perhaps this problem can be resolved."

"The combination of cultivating immortality and technology, that’s the way to go!"

Lin Jiang sighed, imagining a new world where everything can blend perfectly together.