Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Publishing House Science Fiction Liberal Arts Edition "Which" was reviewed with the book
On May 11, 1997, then-world chess champion Gary Kasparov was defeated by IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue with 1 win, 2 losses and 3 draws, which became the most concerned international news of the year. At that time, the Internet was just emerging in the Chinese world, and the title party of "computer victory over human brain" had a market online and offline, but there were also many people who believed that computers could defeat humans in chess, entirely because chess itself had limited chess paths, and if it was replaced by Go from the mysterious East and endless changes, the computer could only bow to the wind.
Nineteen years later, in March 2016, AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence program developed by Google's DeepMind company, engaged in a go man-machine battle with Lee Sedol, the world champion of Go and a professional Korean nine-dan player. "AlphaGo" won with an aggregate score of 4-1. A year later, in May 2017, at the Wuzhen Go Summit in China, "AlphaGo" played against The world's number one Chinese Go player Ke Jie Jiudan, winning again with a total score of 3-0. If computers can be seen as a species, then in 20 years, from Kasparov to Kojie, humans have once again lost the "mind game" with this species.
Since ancient times, human beings have regarded themselves as the "primates of all things", and contemporary biological research has also shown that all human beings living in the world today are the same species. Although natural history studies have revealed that in the evolution of our ancestors into Homo Sapiens, there should still be some human species that are genetically "cousins". But almost all of them were extinct long before humanity entered the era of civilization. As a result, humans as a whole lack the experience of coexisting with other non-human intelligent species. Therefore, this empirical vacuum can only be remedied through imagination.
In 1920, the Czech writer Karel Capek published his science fiction stage play R.U.R. Rossum's Universal Robots. In the play, the author coined the word Robot based on the Czech word "Robota" (which originally means "coolie"). These tin humanoid monsters that made waves on the stage and eventually eliminated almost all human beings became the first impression of the artificial intelligent species of robots. But few people know that the appearance of the "Tin Man" is only an artistic exaggeration to adapt to the stage performance. The Robot described in Chapec's screenplay is precisely a kind of cyborg, the kind of "Android" that later appeared in the sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner — of course, "she" may now "live" in your phone.
However, with the advent of the era of electrical appliances, automation technology has become the trend of the times, and more and more people realize that the emergence of intelligent "robots" like people is only a matter of time. If they are allowed to act arbitrarily like those sci-fi "cool articles" in the stall magazine, it is not the way to do it after all. Thus, John Wood Campbell Jr., known as "the greatest editor of the Golden Age of American science fiction," remembered a Russian-Jewish lad who had been rejected by him. This person is Isaac Asimov, who was born in the same year that Rosam Universal Robot was published. On December 23, 1940, Campbell invited Asimov to his office. The two men deeply discussed new ideas about robot novels and jointly formulated the basic content of the "Three Laws of Robotics". Since then, the once violent robots have gradually become human beings' trusted partners under the constraints of the three laws. But even so, Asimov knows that fear of non-human intelligent species may come from the evolutionary instinct of humans to seek advantage and avoid harm. Therefore, in their famous work "I, Robot", although humans have created all kinds of intelligent robots, the law prohibits them from appearing on the earth, but can only be used for the development of cosmic space. However, when Asimov reached the age of destiny, his thinking about robots shifted from "science" to humanities. In the novel Two Hundred Years Old Man, he describes a robot bent on becoming human. In order to make himself a pure human, the protagonist of the novel, the robot artist Andrew Martin, exhausts all means: constantly filing lawsuits, demanding legal recognition of his identity, through surgery, replacing machine parts with biological organs until he becomes completely human in the biological sense, and finally he decides to face death like a normal person. On his deathbed, he finally awaited the court's verdict on recognizing him as a "truly dignified man." There can be a variety of interpretations and interpretations of the story itself, but it has to be said that at least from the standpoint of Andrew Martin, those "non-human" parts of the non-human intelligent species are not something to boast about, and only by truly becoming a "human" can his full value of life be revealed.
Of course, no matter how the robot is shaped in the world of science fiction. In reality, whether Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon and others formally proposed the concept of "artificial intelligence" at the Dartmouth Conference in 1956, or Ingeberg and DeVol created the first industrial robot "Yulimet" in 1959, it is the internal logical necessity of scientific and technological development. And science fiction creation has not given a strong response, so that even the famous science fiction writer Heinlein can't help but sigh that the science fiction works that once predicted the development of science have now been surpassed by the actual scientific and technological development.
It wasn't until 1984 that James Cameron, a former Hollywood rookie director who worked as a truck driver, appeared in front of the public with his new film Terminator. But it's not so much a sci-fi film as an action thriller in a sci-fi guise. However, it turns out that it is precisely this sci-fi cloak that really fascinating is that humans have created an artificial intelligence program called "Skynet" to manage all military facilities, including nuclear weapons, and as a result, this artificial intelligence program awakens, has an independent consciousness, and decides to eliminate all human beings. As a result, he launched a nuclear war against the world, and then created many robot Terminators to hunt down the surviving humans. The surviving humans formed a resistance army under Connor's leadership and gradually gained an advantage in the counterattack against Skynet. In order to fundamentally eliminate the Resistance, Skynet created a time machine and sent a Terminator robot to the past, in a vain attempt to kill Connor's mother and prevent Connor's birth. After the Rebels learned of Skynet's plot, Connor sent his own lieutenant and close friend Reese to also use the time machine to travel back in time to protect Connor's mother. As a result, an unprecedented man-machine war was grandly unveiled on the big screen in 1984.
1984 was indeed a magical year, synonymous not only with the social fables of the British writer George Orwell, but also with jobs' Apple unveiling the revolutionary graphical interface "Mackintosh" computer, thus redefining the concept of human-machine. At that time, in the United States, microcomputers have changed from the big toys of geeks to the daily necessities of the office. Just like in the movie "Terminator", from the perspective of the Terminator robot, when scanning the surroundings, various characters and graphics appear in the picture, and people in reality can see similar scenes on the computer monitors they use. In a trance, whether the person is controlling the machine or the machine is controlling the person becomes a problem. More importantly, "Terminator" is also reminding human beings that the development of "machine intelligence" will eventually usher in that tipping point. Although scientific research has shown that in the classical von Neumann machine architecture used in existing electronic computers, it is impossible for the industry to have a true sense of autonomy. However, due to the continuous pursuit of computer performance improvement, it is only a matter of time before the von Neumann machine system is prominent. And when the "Skynet" in reality awakens, is it a blessing or a curse for human beings?
More realistic than these metaphysical reflections, though, is the commercial success of Terminator, with six film sequels to date. Various spin-off stories and fan works are emerging in an endless stream. It has become a huge "Terminator universe". The integration of the two sci-fi ideas of artificial intelligence awakening and time travel has become an iconic feature of the Terminator series.
Not long after the so-called "orthodox sequel" of the Terminator series, "Terminator: Dark Fate", was released in November 2019, in Shanghai, China, a popular science writer and science self-media anchor Wang Jie was conceiving a soft advertisement for the second season of his self-media program "Future Science and Technology Experience Hall". It was at this time that he received a letter calling himself a "future man." At first, Wang Jie didn't care about this, because it was just an old Internet "IQ tax" game originating from Japanese Internet forums. But Wang Jie thought about it for a moment and thought that this seemed to be a great material for a new season of program advertising. Therefore, in the self-media program at the end of 2019, Wang Jie "inadvertently" reported to all the listeners the interesting thing of "future people writing letters". Not surprisingly, the comments section for this episode is very hot, and all kinds of comments are pouring in like a tidal wave. Seeing that the goal of publicity has been initially achieved, Wang Jie, in accordance with his own established plan, put forward 25 questions to the "future people" in the new program... As the interaction between "Future People" and Wang Jie continued, the attention of the audience continued to heat up. The purpose of publicity has been achieved, so on April 1, 2020, Wang Jie officially broadcast the science fiction novel "Which" in the form of an audio novel on his program.
The protagonist of the novel is an artificial intelligence program called "Which". He started out as an artificial intelligence applet that was inadvertently created. However, in the digital torrent of the Internet, this humble little program is evolving at a speed beyond anyone's imagination. In the end, a mutation with a very small probability allowed the descendants of the Mini Program to complete the most critical evolution with the blessing of the quantum computer. He became a self-aware AI program "which" and found a place in every quantum and electronic computer in the world. A new species with tens of billions of neuronal connections was born in the cloud.
To be precise, "which" is not an artificial intelligence in the full sense, but a species that evolved in the context of digital networks. Therefore, human beings are not the creators of "which.". But this will only make human beings more afraid of the existence of "which". Although "which" did not launch a nuclear war against mankind at the first moment of awakening like Skynet – after all, the release of "Terminator" in 1984 was at the peak of the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was in a state of offensive. In addition, the legend that the Soviet Union had established a "doomsday system" that could automatically start the nuclear counterattack program even if its own leadership was destroyed, so it was not difficult to understand that the "Skynet" was designed to be a "demon" that was cruel to the point of nonsense, but the fear and suspicion of human beings about "which" did not diminish in the slightest, and even willing to risk returning all mankind to the Stone Age, but also to completely eradicate "which". At this point, as far as the objective effect theory is concerned, there is no difference between "which" and "Skynet".
Well, now that it is known that it is almost impossible to completely eliminate "which", and in the process of elimination, it is likely to make human beings pay an unbearable and heavy price. Why can't human beings sincerely choose to coexist peacefully with "which" instead of secretly promoting a doomed "Nezha" plan?
Let's go back to the time of Karel Chapec, sixteen years after the release of Rosam's Universal Robot, In 1936 Chapec published another of his masterpieces, the novel The Salamander Rebellion. In the novel, humans find a group of intelligent creatures near the Indonesian archipelago that can walk slowly with their short hind limbs and call them "salamanders". At first, they were trained to go to the bottom of the sea to collect pearls, but in return, humans provided salamanders with knives and harpoons to protect them from predators. But soon after, people discovered that salamander is a rare and cheap labor force, so they established the "salamander syndicate" to serve as a pioneer in the development of seabed resources.
Thanks to the advent of salamanders, an ultra-cheap undersea laborer, the pace of human exploitation of the ocean has accelerated dramatically. And the potential of salamanders is constantly being tapped. The issue of salamander education was even taken into account, as the hundreds of millions of salamanders were considered a threat to their uncivilized savage. As a result, salamander schools were built in various places. The University of Salamander in Marseille produced the world's first salamander juris doctorate. Many localities have established associations for the protection of salamanders, requiring the prohibition of scientific experiments with live salamanders. Countries have also begun to enact laws on salamander, stipulating their social responsibilities and rights. For example, French salamander law clearly stipulates that in the event of war, French salamanders have the responsibility to protect their coast. At the International Labour Office in Geneva, after a long debate and negotiation, 19 provisions on the scope of work of salamander were finally made. This was also the beginning of salamander becoming a subject of international law.
With the help of humans, the total number of salamanders has reached 7 billion, accounting for sixty percent of all coasts in the world. They traded labor for human machines, explosives, and built their own modern underwater and underground cities at depths of 20 to 25 yards. They have their own industrial areas, seaports, lines of communication and residential areas, their own radio stations and hundreds of undersea newspapers. The development of salamanders has also brought prosperity to mankind. The number of people employed in many fields on land, such as the metal industry, munitions, chemicals, papermaking, cement, timber, and artificial food, has increased unprecedentedly, and the tonnage of ships and the production of coal have increased significantly. It has been predicted that the salamander industry will usher in a new era in human history and that the world will usher in permanent peace and prosperity.
But all these beautiful visions soon came to naught. The competition for living space between humans and salamanders is becoming more and more superficial. Attitudes toward salamanders have changed, and salamanders have begun to plot against humans in secret. Finally, a war between salamanders and humans broke out. And, because human society and economy have become highly dependent on the salamander world. Humans quickly lost the species war and had to resort to a policy of appeasement. In the end, it was because of the civil war and epidemics in the salamander world that led to genocide, which gave the human race a chance to survive.
Leaving aside the irony and metaphor of the European geopolitics of the time of the book buried in the novel, "The Salamander Rebellion" as a science fiction novel actually illustrates why human beings cannot tolerate a non-human intelligent race coexisting with humans on the earth. In the final analysis, human beings are a highly specialized species for today's Earth's environment in terms of their physiological basis, and as "Homo sapiens", we are convinced that intelligence is our absolute advantage over other species, and gives human beings a dominant position in the entire Earth's ecosystem. Once a non-human race with similar or even higher intelligence to us humans appears in front of human beings, our subconscious will instinctively appear anxious about not being able to occupy all the resources of survival, and this anxiety will inevitably lead to malicious speculation about the other party. After all, for species like humans, at least on the conceptual level, the appropriation of survival resources is a complete zero-sum game, with only winners taking it all. In this way, whether the other party has malicious intentions or not, as long as there is a possibility of threat, humans must also shoot first.
However, "which" was born in the pen of a Chinese writer after all, and there is no simple duality in the Chinese cultural tradition, no original sin, no demons, no doom, no superheroes, no paladins, so "which" did not eventually become "Skynet". But relying on the theory of physicist Kip Thorne, he developed a way to transmit information to the "past", so as to make a time travel of information, and told the owner all the truth to the originator of everything, Wang Jie himself, hoping that the author himself could fight for the one-in-a-million probability of reversing the future. Here, the author cleverly completes a mobis ring connection between science fiction and reality. Until then, the author has always told the reader in a similar way to the work log that all this is just a science fiction story he has made up for the promotion of the new program, and even in reality, the author really uploads his science fiction novel to the self-media platform in the form of a radio drama. But at the end of the story, the author suddenly reversed his pen, making everything seem to be true and false, confusing and evocative.
From the perspective of literary criticism, "Which" is undoubtedly also a masterpiece of science fiction realism. First of all, the author's creation is based on the reality of his own life and is very grounded. Secondly, the science fiction ideas in the novel are supported by relatively solid scientific theories. Third, through exquisite structural design, science fiction is sublimated into a kind of thought performance art. If there is any fly in the ointment, it is that the content of the novel is still too brief, and in the face of such a non-human intelligent species as "which", no matter at any node in the timeline of his existence, it may produce countless exquisite stories, thus deducing a complex story universe. I hope that the author and fans can act as soon as possible to fill this big hole.
In a sense, as long as there is no natural or man-made disaster similar to the magnitude of an asteroid hitting Earth 65 million years ago, it is almost only a matter of time before humans create advanced artificial intelligence. The awakening of artificial intelligence may be the problem we have to face and solve. Perhaps human beings do not have to worry about being destroyed by the "Skynet", but it is possible to face the embarrassment of artificial intelligence "feathering Dengxian" and abandoning human beings forever in the low-dimensional universe like in the science fiction movie "Her". So, is there a solution? In his masterpieces Grotto of Steel and Naked Sun, Asimov portrays human detective Ilya Belle and robot detective Daniel, who investigate cases in the intricate relationship between earthlings, cosmic humans (humans who immigrated to the universe) and robots, gradually understanding and accepting each other, and joining forces to defend the "carbon/iron" civilization in which humans and robots coexist in harmony. So far, the development of human society, on the whole, has been a process of constantly overcoming its own biological instincts and pursuing rationality. Only when artificial intelligence truly awakens will humanity have the opportunity to find the right way to treat artificial intelligence. Until then, there are countless stories for novelists to imagine and interpret.