RBCT Chapter 68 AI Begins to Think
Chapter 68 AI Begins to Think
Lin Yu stared at the screen, his fingers never stopping. "Sky Eye is no ordinary project."
"Then how should I reply?"
"Just say—"
Lin Yu thought for a moment, "I'm adjusting the parameters."
Wang Lei looked like he had swallowed a fly.
Adjusting parameters. The most versatile excuse in the world.
Zhou Weiguo, who was standing nearby, heard this and his lips twitched slightly.
It's not a laugh.
It's a subtle expression that says, "I know you're talking nonsense, but I have no proof."
Late at night on the sixth day.
Wang Lei was already snoring on the sofa. Zhou Weiguo's team members were on duty, and the one on shift was also feeling sleepy.
Only Lin Yu remained seated at the control panel.
The data on the screen is running.
He had been working for eighteen hours straight.
It wasn't because he was diligent. It was because he was waiting for something.
Something he himself wasn't even sure would happen.
2:47 AM.
A new AI output pops up on the screen.
Lin Yu's fingers stopped.
He stared at that output for a full ten seconds.
Then he stood up.
The chair was bumped backward, making a jarring sound.
Wang Lei was startled awake and groggily looked up, asking, "Wh...what's wrong?"
Zhou Weiguo's team members were also surprised, and their first reaction was to reach for the walkie-talkie at their waist.
Lin Yu ignored them.
He bent down, leaned closer to the screen, and read the output a second time.
The third time.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't the usual lazy, indifferent smile.
It was a kind of laugh that Wang Lei had only seen once before, before he went to Chicago.
excited.
Pure, undisguised excitement.
"Boss?"
Wang Lei got up and walked behind him to look at the screen.
The screen displays a picture. It shows a vast, empty sandy area with a crooked tree on the left and nothing on the right.
The AI analysis results are shown below the image.
Previously, it would write: [Environment: Desert. Vegetation: One tree. People: None.]
But now, it says—
[Irregular shadows are present on the ground in the right-hand area. The direction of the shadows is inconsistent with the direction of the tree projections. Conclusion: There are undisplayed obstructions outside the frame. It is recommended to expand the observation area.]
Wang Lei watched it three times, but still couldn't understand what was so exciting about it.
Lin Yu turned his head, his eyes shining.
"It's asking me—what's outside the frame?"
Wang Lei paused for a second.
Then he was stunned.
AI is not describing the image.
It is questioning the image.
It showed curiosity for the first time.
Lin Yu took out his phone.
At 2:52 a.m., he sent a message to Xia Zijin.
It opened its eyes.
Xia Zijin replied three seconds later.
Tomorrow is the seventh day. I'll wait at the door.
The seventh day, at 8:00 AM.
Zhou Weiguo walked into the control center with a document in his hand and placed it in front of Lin Yu.
"Xia Zijin's security check has been passed."
Lin Yu took it, turned to the last page, and found it signed and stamped.
"On time".
"The process should take as long as it's supposed to."
Zhou Weiguo's tone and expression were equally inflexible: "Not a day earlier, not a day later."
Lin Yu closed the file, stood up, and walked out.
"Where are you going?"
"To pick someone up."
Xia Zijin was already downstairs.
She was wearing a gray sweatshirt, carrying a black backpack, and her hair was tied in a ponytail.
She wasn't wearing makeup, her face was bare, but standing in front of that gray 1980s building, she looked like a cold blade just drawn from its sheath.
Clean. Neat. Sharp.
A few passing military technicians glanced at her a couple of times, then quickly lowered their heads and walked away—not because she was beautiful, but because her eyes were too cold. The kind of coldness that said, "If you dare talk to me, I'll dissect you into elementary particles with physics formulas."
Lin Yu came out.
The two people looked at each other.
They didn't say hello.
Xia Zijin handed him the bag.
"There were two new laptops, sixteen portable hard drives, and a box of spicy strips inside. Wang Lei asked me to bring the spicy strips."
"What's the important business?"
"While I was waiting for your security review, I rewrote the underlying communication protocol of Singularity OS."
She pulled a USB drive out of her pocket. "The previous latency was twelve milliseconds, now it's three milliseconds."
Lin Yu took the USB drive and glanced at her.
"You only did this one thing in seven days?"
"No."
Xia Zijin pulled out a second USB drive from another pocket. "I also built an AI behavior analysis model. You messaged me last night saying it opened its eyes, and I need a tool to verify whether it's really thinking or just happened to encounter a suitable set of parameters."
Lin Yu held the two USB drives in his hands.
There is only one person in this world whose first reaction after he says it has opened its eyes is not excitement, but doubt.
He was only willing to take this person's doubts seriously.
"Walk."
He turned and walked into the building.
Xia Zijin followed.
When she passed through the security checkpoint, Zhou Weiguo's team members conducted a full check on her. Iris, fingerprints, and personal belongings were registered one by one.
Xia Zijin cooperated throughout the entire process without showing the slightest impatience.
Zhou Weiguo stood at the end of the corridor and observed the entire process.
After the inspection was completed, he stepped forward.
"Miss Xia."
"Zhou Chu".
"From now on, you have access to the control center and data area. But there are three rules. First, operation logs must be synchronized in real time. Second, no data may be taken out of the base in any form. Third—"
He paused, his gaze falling on her left hand.
Xia Zijin's left hand was unconsciously twirling a pen.
"Your notes, even on paper, count as data. You need to hand them over to my team for inspection when you leave the base."
Xia Zijin stopped twirling her pen.
"Sure. Is there any more?"
"there is none left."
Xia Zijin nodded.
Clean and efficient. Not a single unnecessary word was spoken.
Zhou Weiguo watched her walk into the main control center and remained silent for a few seconds.
He gave himself an assessment.
In this team, the one who most resembles a soldier is neither Lin Yu nor the fat guy.
It's this woman.
The first thing Xia Zijing did after entering the main control center was to look at the AI output that had excited Lin Yu until 3 a.m. last night.
She watched for five minutes.
Then I opened the behavior analysis model I brought and put that output into it.
Ten minutes later, the results came out.
"Good news or bad news?"
Lin Yu sat next to him, chewing on spicy strips.
"Yes, we have them all."
Xia Zijing turned the screen around. "Good news, it really isn't a random output. Its analysis of the shadows has a complete chain of reasoning; it's not a coincidence."
"Bad news?"
"Its reasoning chain is learned from the training data, not built by itself."
Lin Yu paused his chewing for a moment.
"To give an example."
Xia Zijin pointed to the analysis chart on the screen, "A child sees dark clouds and says it's going to rain. He may genuinely understand the relationship between dark clouds and rain. Or he may just be imitating his mother, who always says it's going to rain when she sees dark clouds."
"It's imitating."
"right."
Xia Zijing's tone remained unchanged. "It learned an output pattern that looks like curiosity. But true curiosity requires motivation. It has no motivation."
Lin Yu leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
The only sound in the control center was the hum of the servers.