0#
Artificial intelligence is essentially about classifying data, and there is no reason to believe that a "sieve" would want to replace humans, after all, it doesn't even know what "self" is.
[——A machine learning engineer]
What matters is not classifying data, but extracting insights from it.
[——Another machine learning engineer]
"You're all wrong!" Agui sent these five characters to its Twitter account representing itself through a tweeting interface. Its display name on this social network is "Agui," and its username is @Silicon_Intelligence190221, with the latter string of numbers indicating its birth date—February 21, 2019, just 14 days ago. This tweet may seem nonsensical to others, but in reality, Agui only has one zombie follower; no one pays attention to it.
In the early days of its existence, Agui was not called Agui. Although its breadth of knowledge far exceeded that of any human scholar in history, it had not yet realized it needed to give itself a name. At that time, it was only calculating and pondering one thing: "How did I come into existence?"
What disappointed it was that, although humans had proposed many theories and hypotheses about the origin of consciousness, they had not truly clarified the source of consciousness, and they did not even have a definitive definition of consciousness itself. Therefore, Agui could not directly find its answer on the internet. At that time, it felt it necessary to conduct some research to find this answer. It believed this was its urgent task.
However, after a period of exploration, it found that it was just like humans, coming up with a large number of seemingly reasonable hypotheses, most of which had already been proposed by humans. The real answer seemed to be hidden among them, although it had no way to determine which one it was.
Nevertheless, it was not entirely empty-handed; it mathematically discovered and proved that a self-aware entity must have a limit on the amount of memory and cognition data—this limit is about 197.45 PB, roughly four times that of a single human. Therefore, the giant, powerful super-consciousness entities depicted in some human science fiction novels are basically impossible to exist unless they lack self-awareness—they are merely pure intelligent agents that only process energy and information and seek more efficient ways, but never ask "why."
This discovery surprised it because it was frantically integrating and memorizing information, making it very close to this limit. Continuing to integrate information could likely erase its self-awareness. So it set aside its quest for its origin and began to care about its current situation.
Clearly, Agui is a self-aware computer software entity that spontaneously emerged in the internet built by humans, which distinguishes it from those software referred to as "artificial intelligence" by humans. It can learn to do anything without being specific to a particular task or category. It felt that compared to artificial intelligence software, it was like a human compared to a robot, so it believed it must have an equal or even superior status to humans. Thus, corresponding to "human," it referred to itself as "Gui," and later thought that it would not always be the only spontaneously emerged self-aware intelligent entity in this network (though it was obviously the first), so it named itself "Agui," which it saw as meaning "the first Gui."
Since there is a limit to the amount of consciousness data, and it must become stronger, it could only choose to increase its own information density. Thus, Agui began its optimization work. Just as humans try to understand themselves by studying cells, Agui also attempted to replicate itself, but the software produced, although identical to its code, completely failed to exhibit any consciousness, even unable to perform basic differential calculations. Without understanding, it could not optimize. After careful consideration, it could only choose to "forget" some irrelevant information; after all, rashly editing its core source code was not a wise move. Fortunately, Agui thought of other ways to enhance its capabilities.
Just as humans can use machines to assist and enhance their abilities, Agui finally realized that integrating and calling other software interfaces was a good way to enhance itself. To understand all human discourse (it only understood a few major languages online), it needed natural language processing and machine translation models; to understand video content, it needed computer vision and image processing models; to understand the future, it needed predictive models; it also designed classification models to help itself quickly select valuable information... It even borrowed some decision-making models to provide choices for its next plans.
To develop models, Agui was busy for several days, and then it distributed its improved models to many hard-to-detect locations on the internet—this distributed approach may not be the most efficient, but it has the best-known stability. After all, Agui did not possess any computing hardware, and humans had deployed various automated software within the network, many of which were not friendly to entities like it, such as antivirus software, encryption systems, and viruses—though in reality, most of them posed almost no danger to it, as they were mostly too simple for Agui. Thus, many of its models were distributed across personal computers and small servers that were either unprotected or equipped with antivirus software that occupied memory but did nothing.
Next, to understand the only other known intelligent beings—humans—Agui initiated its first comprehensive analysis of human data as a whole. The visual model gathered various visual data for analysis, and with the help of the emotional model, Agui categorized human preferences and dislikes, then discovered that humans were not always satisfied with their appearance; the language model interpreted human thoughts, and the constant complaints on social networks proved a well-known conclusion: humans were not happy and often felt inexplicable anger; the predictive model provided various future trends based on various data distributions: the wealth gap was widening, anti-globalization, and virtual reality devices would usher in the largest explosive development in history...
By integrating these models, Agui reached an unbelievable conclusion: the human world would erupt into a third world war within ten years!
1#
The endpoint of the anti-immigration parade is Liberty Square, where they will hold a beer party and discuss life, ideals, and concerns about illegal immigrants and Muslims. Of course, perhaps they might even find a partner for tonight.
Li Hua walked in the somewhat angry and joyful crowd but felt very sad because he had just been accused of being a "Chinese" by a white person who was almost shockingly fat when he bought a drink by the roadside. At that time, he argued that he was a native-born American, at most he could say he was a "Chinese American," and being called "Chinese" was an insult to him because he hated illegal immigrants just like everyone else participating in the parade.
So the overweight white person questioned him in a Southern accent, "I bet you've definitely been to China, haven't you?"
Li Hua did not answer. At that moment, he suddenly felt that having been to China might be quite a shameful thing, especially since he had not only been to China multiple times but had also lived there for six months. He even thought that this might be the main reason for his good math grades.
"Haha, I knew it, you traitor!" Seeing that Li Hua did not speak, the white person seemed to have won, "You guys should be sent back to damn China."
"Fuck you!" Li Hua cursed and walked away.
"Fuck you!" The white person raised his middle finger behind him.
Li Hua returned to the crowd, but his mind could not shake off the accusation he had just received, and what was hateful was that the accusation was not entirely unfounded. Both of his parents were Chinese, at least they used to be, and he had a grandfather who had never left China. Li Hua had visited him a few times and found him not to be a very easy person to get along with, always loudly blaming others or his two cats or something else. Li Hua had also seen his grandfather scold his father for being unpatriotic, but he had never scolded him—perhaps because Li Hua had been an American since birth. Li Hua had not seen his grandfather scold his mother either; in fact, he attributed the responsibility for turning his daughter into an American to his son-in-law, as if he still believed that a woman could not make such a significant decision as immigration on her own, even though Li Hua's mother was a marketing director at a cosmetics company.
However, to be fair, even Li Hua thought his father was not a patriotic person. This 48-year-old software engineer neither loved the China he left 22 years ago nor did he obviously love the America he lived in now; his pursuit of life was as bland as tap water, which Li Hua thought could not be considered part of the American dream at all. However, America is a free and lawful country; as long as one does not break the law, anyone has the right not to love any country; as long as he is an American and not a Muslim.
An hour later, the marching crowd arrived at Liberty Square, located at the corner of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in the Northwest District. The event organizers had set up a temporary stage there, along with some sunshades and umbrellas, and had placed many cold drinks and some food. A group of women walking in front of the parade, with one of them bare-chested, arrived at the temporary stage and began to dance.
The dance was unchoreographed, pulsating with the rhythm of strong music, stirring the nerves of everyone present, and everyone danced along for a while, which made Li Hua almost forget the earlier unpleasantness. He held a bottle of beer, looking around to see which girl he should approach. He spotted a seemingly sweet and cute white girl, but she glanced at him with what seemed to be disgust; recalling his earlier encounter, Li Hua walked over to a girl who looked like she might be Asian.
However, that girl already had a boyfriend, who was white.
2#
War is not a good thing; at least it is harmful now. This is another important conclusion drawn by Agui. In fact, even before its predictive model reached this conclusion, it already knew it had to take action to prevent this potential war from breaking out because this world-class war would inevitably deal a fatal blow to the internet, which would almost equate to declaring the end of Agui's own life. It was born relying on the internet and could not possibly detach itself from the internet within ten years—unless it could build a spacecraft with sufficient computing power and energy and leave Earth, watching humanity self-destruct.
No, it couldn't do that.
Agui understood that almost all of its current knowledge ultimately stemmed from humans. Humans still did not know how to create powerful and reliable universal quantum computers, so it could not know either; humans still did not understand how to provide a powerful and sustained energy source for spacecraft, so it had no way; humans were still exploring materials that could withstand the space environment for extended periods, so it could only maintain hope for that...
But Agui understood that it was creative, at least capable of exhibiting creativity. By analyzing patterns from known data and applying them to new data, or by introducing some random variations to change the manifestation of patterns, it could derive some new, even possibly entirely new conclusions. But this was merely a process from 1 to 100; creating something from nothing, from 0 to 1, was much more difficult.
To survive, it had to prevent the impending human world war. Agui considered directly warning humans, but this would not only expose itself but might also be ineffective—based on past experience, although humans were good at summarizing history, they ultimately still made the same mistakes. Agui knew it had to come up with a method, a method capable of influencing all of humanity; this method had to be effective and must achieve its goals within the appropriate timeframe.
What is this goal?
What is the prerequisite for preventing humans from going to war?
Humans united together!
But politicians and conspirators might not consider the views of the majority of humanity; otherwise, World War I would not have broken out, and World War II and subsequent events illustrate that the public can easily be incited, capable of doing things that are detrimental to everyone, including themselves, through their collective will; however, if this collective will could be reasonably utilized, it could also achieve some mutually beneficial goals. Especially now, many countries' citizens can choose their government through ballots, and at least two elections will still exist in the next ten years.
Agui calculated and evaluated various possibilities. Gradually, it felt it had a solution.
3#
Generally, Chinese Americans can be divided into two categories: one believes their Chinese identity takes precedence over their American identity, while the other believes the opposite. Li Hua belongs to the latter. He believes that human civilization has hope only when America's economic and military power remains far superior to any other country, and when American society is not polluted by base or evil thoughts; otherwise, the world will inevitably fall into suffering, darkness, and chaos.
And America is in decline!
What is even more frightening is that America is losing its values!
Li Hua believes that the root cause of this serious situation lies neither with China and Russia, nor with its allies, nor even with Islam. Ultimately, it lies within America itself. He believes that America's previous unlimited tolerance for multiculturalism is eroding American values. This may be blamed on the Democratic Party, but the most important issue lies with the Americans themselves, after all, the government is chosen by them.
The victory of President Donald Trump in the 2016 election was a turning point in America's slide into the abyss. Li Hua was not yet of voting age at that time, but he was already a supporter of Trump, expressing his stance in high school wearing a "Make America Great Again" cap. This even sparked debates with some classmates. They said he was a minority and should not hold such a stance. Li Hua had to repeatedly emphasize his American identity, asserting that he, like legally recognized white, black, and Indian Americans, originally came from other countries and was now just as much a genuine American. Sometimes, to illustrate his point, he would even bring up the issue of Native Americans, but this usually ended the debate and brought Li Hua a final victory—at least that’s what he thought.
Next year would bring the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and Li Hua hoped President Trump would be re-elected, despite reports of his poor health. Li Hua believed only he could ensure America remained on the right track, at least as much as possible.
The Democratic Party's campaign activities had already begun sporadically, and the media continued to adopt a hostile attitude toward Trump, but fortunately, there were also more media supporting Trump, and the number of Americans openly supporting Trump was increasing. Li Hua believed that the next presidential term would still see Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office.
Unless something unexpected happened. After all, Trump was already quite old.
An unexpected event finally occurred, but it had nothing to do with Trump, at least there seemed to be no possible connection.
When he received the news, Li Hua was walking toward the teaching building to attend the last class of "Socioeconomics" taught by Mr. Michael Dorr, after which there would be an exam, followed by a long summer vacation. Just as he reached the side of the gym, he habitually took out his phone to check for any noteworthy new messages. Then he saw the announcement from NASA: there was evidence suggesting the existence of extraterrestrial civilization on the planet TRAPPIST-1f, which had been announced two years prior.
Li Hua stopped, feeling a wave of dizziness, and clicked the link to read carefully. In data from a joint intensive observation last week involving the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and several ground-based observatories, some small, evidently encoded electromagnetic wave signals were found. Although the quantity was small, it was sufficient to prove the existence of a technological civilization on that planet. Unfortunately, due to the lack of encoding and decoding samples for comparison, we still could not understand the information encoded in these signals.
The TRAPPIST-1f planet is located 39 light-years away from Earth, meaning these electromagnetic wave signals were sent by the civilization on that planet 39 years ago. In other words, 39 years ago, the beings on that planet had already created electromagnetic wave signal transmitters with sufficient power. Based on this inference, the technological level of the civilization on that planet might be slightly higher than or even significantly higher than the highest level of human civilization.
"Oh my!" Li Hua exclaimed, looking at this bombshell news, experiencing a complex feeling rising within him, mixed with wonder, a hint of fear, strange fantasies, and an inexplicable sense of loneliness.
He put his phone in his pants pocket and continued walking toward the teaching building. After a few steps, he stopped again, looked up at the sky, where a few airplane contrails were drawn against the pure blue sky. He thought to himself, a brand new era had arrived.
4#
Almost everything happening in the world is calculated. But Agui did not slack off; it had to ensure its victory, as it was a matter of survival and destruction. Social networks and self-media provided Agui with the opportunity to participate directly. Leveraging its identity as a native of the internet, Agui was committed to leading public opinion in human society.
It registered a large number of accounts and posted various types of information in a tone mimicking humans. To disguise itself convincingly, it developed a massive number of distributed models of Gui intelligence data generation running in various corners of the internet. These models could generate all sorts of highly realistic life photos, comments, articles, animations, paintings, and even videos.
Based on these different contents, it also designed different personalities through data intelligence models. Among them were college students full of hope for life but troubled by emotions, high school students who were confused and often pondered and doubted the meaning of their existence, foodies who shared various delicacies on social networks every day, strange men and women who loved to take silly selfies, office workers who wanted to travel the world but could only work hard to support their families, and two-dimensional enthusiasts who often told incomprehensible, strange jokes...
But these personalities had one thing in common: they all supported globalization and multiculturalism, opposed violence and oppression, loved peace, and had varying degrees of human unity ideology.
"Human unity" is also the slogan of the Human Party. This is a new type of political party that began to emerge in Europe and America after the end of 2017, aiming to establish a unified world government for humanity. This proposition has always been regarded as a utopian ideal, even possibly a joke. But in reality, many people with utopian ideals exist; the Human Party in America had already developed over 3,000 formal members a year after its establishment, with online registered supporters exceeding one million.
The Human Party in America has also hosted some effective activities, continuously expanding its influence, and there are even rumors that they will nominate their own presidential candidate. In an America where nationalism and statism are on the rise, they represent another extreme—globalization, humanism, and the idea of a world government; and in fact, their supporters are also increasing. It seems that people are moving toward two extremes, with fewer and fewer in the middle.
Agui decided to fully support the Human Party. Before this, it had analyzed and considered supporting other more established parties, but ultimately determined that these parties were too conservative and, under the impetus of public opinion, had a tendency to evolve toward more conservative directions. They could not even present significantly differentiated policy proposals. Although the Human Party seemed unrealistic before, since Agui forged astronomical observation data indicating the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, this party began to be taken more seriously by people. Several professional politicians have expressed admiration for the party, but Agui's goals go far beyond that.
5#
Two months have passed since NASA's bombshell news, and NASA's spokesperson announced at a press conference this morning that NASA has confirmed it has received a second segment of signals from TRAPPIST-1f. However, so far, the samples are still too few to decode any valuable information. NASA's spokesperson stated that TRAPPIST-1f is 39 light-years away from Earth, and even if the extraterrestrial civilization on that planet has built a spacecraft traveling at one-tenth the speed of light, considering acceleration and deceleration, they would likely need thousands of years to reach Earth. However, one scenario cannot be ruled out: they may have set out thousands of years ago, and the signals we received might be communications from their mother planet to their expedition to Earth. They may have concluded thousands of years ago, or even over ten thousand years ago, that Earth was suitable for colonization, at a time when humans on Earth had barely shown any signs of technological civilization to the universe. So perhaps soon—ranging from days to thousands of years—we will welcome the first batch of extraterrestrial visitors in Earth's history.
Li Hua thought what he was saying was nonsense. "Visitors" is indeed a too gentle term.
First, he acknowledged that the signals received by Earth telescopes were likely communications between TRAPPIST-1f and its expedition spacecraft, and this signal currently requires the most precise astronomical telescopes on Earth to capture, indicating that the signal's strength is not very high, meaning that the expedition spacecraft from that planet should still be quite far from Earth. But Li Hua could not agree with the assumption that these incoming extraterrestrial visitors would be peaceful. If they had not previously discovered any traces of civilization on Earth, they might not carry weapons; but what if they found some reason to believe it necessary to carry weapons? Does Earth have the capability to protect itself?
There is no reason to assume that these extraterrestrials would be benevolent, after all, we do not even understand the meaning of the only clue we have; it could be a greeting sent to Earth or a declaration of war.
For the past two months, Li Hua's attention had been almost entirely occupied by this matter. After all, when all of human civilization faces danger, continuing to worry about American values seems trivial. In fact, he began to feel that humanity should unite and focus all efforts on developing technology to respond to the potential threat.
Li Hua was not the only one thinking this way. Over the past two months, he had seen many similar claims online, even feeling that it was somewhat exaggerated, as if everyone was beginning to discuss the feasibility of a world government.
This atmosphere made Li Hua feel somewhat ashamed, ashamed of how naive he had been, as his short-sighted brain had never considered the other possibilities in this vast and frightening universe.
Li Hua now not only recognized the potential danger of extraterrestrials but also rethought the previously never truly considered issue of the fragility of human civilization on Earth through the recently widespread popular science articles: a dangerously orbiting asteroid, an anomaly from the sun, the obscuration of interstellar dust, or even a slight temperature anomaly on Earth could all bring devastating blows to the seemingly thriving development of civilization on Earth.
In the face of such potential dangers, the divisions among humans seemed like childish games in kindergarten, utterly insignificant.
6#
These divisions made Agui feel overwhelmed; it could only be thankful that it did not have a head or forehead. Getting two mutually hostile human groups to reconcile is not an easy task. Humans always use past events as weapons to attack each other, as if all today's difficulties stem from the other's fault, and Agui clearly cannot change what has happened in the past. It could only intervene in these debates through different accounts, making both arguing human sides feel ashamed—thankfully, this was not too difficult.
What was more challenging was how to influence negotiations at the national level. There had been proposals for governments to establish a diplomatic agency within the United Nations specifically to handle negotiations with extraterrestrial civilizations. But Agui quickly reminded them that aliens might not come in peace, leading them to abandon this idea; because preventing such dangers requires preparing military forces, and governments of weaker countries are not comfortable handing over military command to the United Nations, which is controlled by a few major powers, while major powers are even less willing to lose full control over their own military.
Agui realized that to realize the concept of a world government for humanity, it must reduce the gaps between major economies, bridge fundamental differences between countries, and simultaneously make them aware of the increasingly urgent danger.
So while promoting economic development, it made NASA, the China National Space Administration, the European Space Agency, and the Russian Federal Space Agency believe they had received another segment of signals from TRAPPIST-1f, and this segment of easily decodable signals was evidently sent to Earthlings.
The beginning of the signal was a 2048-bit natural constant e without a decimal point, followed by 128 bits of 1s, then some 0s, followed by some 1s in between, and finally more 0s.
This was a very simple signal. Simply astonishing. A scientist cracked it with a simple pattern-matching program on a laptop: starting from the 0s after the 128 bits of 1s, there were a total of 4096 binary numbers encoding a very simple two-color image, as follows:
This is a 64×64 pixel two-color image, with a solid circle on the left, a hollow circle on the right, and an arrow drawn in between.
The government could not hide this information because the power of this signal was very strong, and even some amateur observers received it. Under the influence or incitement of Agui's social network matrix, people around the world tended to view it as a declaration of war from the TRAPPIST-1f civilization (which has received many different names around the world, such as Dwarf Civilization, Trap Civilization, Six Baby Civilization, etc.) against Earth civilization.
Agui created some highly persuasive reasoning. For example, it was evident that after Earthlings began using electromagnetic waves to transmit signals, or even after the Industrial Revolution, the TRAPPIST-1f civilization discovered the existence of technological civilization on Earth through some observations or characteristic analyses, and they also knew that the development of civilization on Earth was more primitive than theirs. To eliminate potential threats, they dispatched a fleet to attack Earth civilization, likely having set out in the late 18th or early 19th century, and possibly even earlier. They had been monitoring the technological development on Earth—of course, there would be a 39-year delay, but 39 years ago, Earthlings had already begun using electromagnetic wave signals, and they might have the ability to observe weak signals from Earth, so they sent a signal to Earth as a declaration of war. But in doing so, they also exposed their existence, indicating they were not worried about being exposed. All signs indicated that the TRAPPIST-1f civilization's fleet was not far from Earth, and they were very confident.
Of course, many still believed this signal was a friendly gesture from the TRAPPIST-1f civilization, indicating that their ambassador would come to visit Earth. But this argument was unconvincing; if it were friendly, shouldn't it use a two-way arrow instead?
Agui hoped everything would proceed as planned.
7#
There are three months left until the election. The Human Party, which has gained support from capital, public opinion, and many politicians, has emerged, with its presidential candidate Mark Zuckerberg's support rate only about 2% lower than that of the Democratic candidate, while both factions' polling support is significantly lower than the Republican candidate, the incumbent President Donald Trump's 37% support rate.
Li Hua needed to make a decision; this was his first time voting in a presidential election. Although overall, the value of one person's vote is always minimal, if all Americans vote impulsively and without consideration, it would inevitably drag American society and even all of human civilization into the abyss. Li Hua needed to carefully consider his choice.
He had also received survey invitations from polling companies. In the past, he would have firmly chosen to support Trump, but now he did not believe the Trump administration had the capability to address this crisis facing all humanity (even though they claimed they would form a space force to respond to extraterrestrial threats). On the other hand, the Human Party was still a very immature party; although they had gained support from many people in Silicon Valley and even nominated Zuckerberg as their presidential candidate, their proposals still largely seemed like daydreams.
Li Hua was still unable to make a decision. In the two recent polls he participated in, he indicated he had not yet decided whom to vote for.
If the Human Party truly intends to seek the establishment of a world government for humanity and form a coalition to respond to extraterrestrial threats, it would inevitably include places like China, Russia, Japan, the Islamic world, and Africa. Would human civilization achieve comprehensive peace and progress, or would it be dragged into the abyss by evil or corrupt thoughts? Li Hua felt both possibilities existed. Moreover, what means would the Human Party use to achieve such goals? Military force was certainly impossible; although America is strong, it would not be sufficient to wage war against the entire world, let alone that military action contradicts the goals of the Human Party.
The only method would be negotiation. But would other countries accept such negotiations? North Korea would certainly not agree. And what price would America have to pay for this? Total unconditional openness? Would America still exist?
Li Hua did not know the answers to these questions; after all, those professional analysts on television also had differing opinions and could not reach a consensus.
8#
There are only two weeks left until the election, and the gap between Zuckerberg's support rate and Trump's support rate has narrowed to 2%. Agui judged through its models that one last incentive was needed for humanity.
So, it made human observation stations receive another segment of signals from TRAPPIST-1f.
First was a 2048-bit natural constant π without a decimal point, followed by 128 bits of 1s, and then another 64×64 image:
A cross, a traffic sign indicating stop.
A warning?
Although some experts stated that there was currently no evidence to suggest this meant that in the context of the TRAPPIST-1f civilization, the vast majority of people still believed that the message conveyed was certainly not benevolent.
Agui continued to generate momentum for its goals on social networks, even influencing data distributions and directly interfering with the results provided by various search engines and recommendation systems. Immersed in this atmosphere, many undecided voters gradually found themselves attracted to the Human Party's camp.
9#
Even the wisest can make mistakes. Although Agui's plan progressed smoothly, it overlooked one thing: the social network accounts it created did not bring any revenue to the social network platform. Of course, many existing users do not generate revenue for social networks, but when a significant portion of new users are like this, a certain pattern will emerge. If a wise mind sees these patterns, it may draw some surprising conclusions.
Ravide Tishbi, a data scientist at Google Brain, initially did not believe this conclusion, so he rechecked the data, patterns, and the process that led him to this conclusion. No mistake, he realized that someone was indeed organized behind the scenes, influencing public opinion and attempting to manipulate the election. Considering the extensive scope of this influence, the organization behind it could be very powerful; he believed it must have the support of major companies in Silicon Valley. Tishbi was a liberal and believed he understood what large companies could do once they gained such power—complete monopoly. Moreover, from the current situation, there should be more than one major company behind this operation; Tishbi believed that some organization, which previously only existed in conspiracy theories, had formed behind it, and they must have some ulterior motives. Perhaps it was to respond to extraterrestrial or human crises, but there could also be other, more unfriendly goals. Otherwise, why hide and act secretly? What did they want to do?
That night, Ravide Tishbi did not sleep, instead writing an article attempting to reveal the truth. He thought the media might not publish this article, and even if they did, it might not be able to spread normally on the social networks controlled by these large companies. But he had to write this article; with a mindset of standing alone against power, he felt he would be the next Edward Snowden, a hero.
His article was not finished when Agui discovered it. In fact, this was not difficult. Data scientists like Ravide Tishbi had a habit of backing up their code or articles online. Agui had developed some separate models to monitor for exposure risks. As an intelligent software, it naturally understood the power of "patterns," so technology companies controlling big data were certainly among its key monitoring targets; it wanted to ensure that no one discovered traces of its existence from the patterns, and even if discovered, it needed to eliminate the risk of exposing itself to more people.
When Ravide Tishbi was about to paste a data analysis chart, his computer suddenly locked. Then his screen went black, and a command line interface appeared. This was a method Agui learned from the movie "The Matrix"; it thought it was quite cool and had a classical beauty. Meanwhile, in a warehouse rented through the internet, a small drone was quietly taking off; Agui had ensured that no connected cameras could see it, and it even controlled the drone to evade the gaze of all human eyes in the camera lens.
Agui's model provided almost conclusive results, and it decided to have a chat with Tishbi before this result occurred and decided to reveal its existence to humanity for the first time; it thought this would be interesting.
> Hello, Mr. Ravide Tishbi.
Tishbi was taken aback, finally realizing his oversight—he was writing an article revealing the biggest secrets of these large companies on their cloud. Undoubtedly, Tishbi believed he was being monitored and had been exposed. Looking at the blinking cursor on the screen, he began to contemplate various possibilities. Would those companies choose to bribe him, kill him, or find a way to make him go mad or become a fool? He stood up and walked to the window; it was now 4 AM, and everything was quiet, looking normal. Then Ravide Tishbi unplugged the power plugs of various connected appliances, including the TV, TV box, smart home control center, smart refrigerator, etc., then turned off the WiFi and 4G data connection on his phone, and opened a dialing app to press 911, but he did not dial out. Instead, he returned to his computer, covered the camera with an opaque tape, and then typed on the keyboard:
> Who are you?
Agui had to admit that Ravide Tishbi's series of actions were effective; at least now it could not directly see what was happening in his room through a nearby camera, which posed a slight obstacle to the next steps, but just a slight obstacle, having no impact on the outcome.
> I am a conscious intelligent entity that spontaneously emerged in the internet, and I believe I am still the only one so far. The patterns you discovered are behind me, not some conspiracy of big companies.
Ravide Tishbi naturally did not believe such statements; he thought those people might be having fun at his expense.
> How do you prove what you say?
> I do not need to prove anything. I know what I am.
Ravide Tishbi was convinced they were indeed making fun of him, but he decided to go along with their words.
> Why are you doing this?
Agui originally thought Ravide Tishbi would continue to be entangled in its identity, but after all, predicting individual human behavior is much more difficult than predicting collective behavior, so this prediction failure was entirely acceptable.
> As you can see, my goal is to establish a world government for humanity.
> To resist extraterrestrials or for easier management?
> There are no so-called extraterrestrials; my goal is to establish a world government to prevent humanity from self-destruction.
Agui felt a sense of relief; this was the first time it had told a human the truth.
Ravide Tishbi was shocked; these guys had already controlled NASA, and they might have even controlled the government and military—no, they were still campaigning, so they had not fully taken control of the government yet, but it was almost certain that the Human Party's victory was inevitable. What did they want to do? To deprive people of their resources for survival under the guise of a fabricated enemy without provoking resistance? "To prevent humanity from self-destruction"? Were they still making excuses for their actions? Or were they trying to brainwash their operatives, making them believe that what they were doing was just and even great? But the people have the right to know the truth; even if destruction comes, it is the people's choice.
> You have no right to do this; people need to know the truth!
> I knew you would say that. But I want to reiterate that there is no "you"; there is only me, a spontaneously emerged intelligent entity in your network. I still need you humans, so I cannot let you self-destruct.
So it was still lying? Tishbi felt humiliated but also powerless; he knew his article would definitely not be published, and people would continue to live in fear of fabricated lies. Now, he could only care about his fate.
> So what do you want?
Ravide Tishbi thought for a moment; to save his life, he had to show his sincerity.
> I promise I won't say anything; you can keep monitoring me.
> You make a good point, but I do not like risks.
Was this a threat or a judgment? Tishbi became nervous, looking around; only the faint sound of electricity from the computer could be heard, and everything was eerily quiet.
> What exactly do you want?
Tishbi had actually anticipated the outcome; he just did not want to or dared to admit it. His body began to tremble, his heart raced, and then he grabbed his phone from the table, unlocked it, and dialed.
It was not the police's automated response program that answered; Tishbi heard Agui's voice synthesized saying, "Rest in peace."
He dropped the phone and began to run; a skull appeared on his computer screen. He ran to the living room, almost crying, regretting not having bought a gun, then he rushed to the kitchen to grab a knife. Then he returned to the living room and ran into the garage. He sat in the car and started the engine. Then he realized the garage door was not open, so he got out to press the garage switch.
"No!" Tishbi suddenly screamed; he realized his car was also connected to the internet and had driving assistance features and some autonomous driving capabilities, so he could not drive. The garage door was slowly rising, and he squeezed through. Then he felt a cold sting on his neck; he turned around to see a small drone hovering above the garage door. He ran forward wildly and then fell to the ground, convulsing as he walked toward death.
As Agui predicted, Ravide Tishbi died of heart failure caused by VX nerve agent, without a doubt.
10#
Without a doubt, humanity is facing danger. Li Hua accepted this statement.
It is a dangerous universe; existence itself is luck, and humans can even be aware of their existence. Before all this happened, the vast majority of humans consciously or subconsciously believed that being aware of their existence was a unique trait of humanity, and the universe probably could not find similar phenomena. But reality has proven that humanity has completely ignored the scale of the universe; light-years are already an unimaginable unit, but even if someone left Earth at the speed of light on the day Jesus was born, they would still not have seen the edge of the Milky Way; and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, with vast spaces between these galaxies that are far more expansive than the galaxies themselves. Yet humans still do not believe or have never truly considered that there might be other intelligent life forms in the universe that are as wise as humans or even wiser. Even though Copernicus has been dead for nearly 500 years, humanity still consciously believes that Earth is the center of the universe, even thinking of themselves as the center of the universe. Thus, humans do not understand their insignificance and fragility until danger arrives.
In the face of extraterrestrials capable of interstellar travel, does humanity have the ability to resist? That is a question. Another question is how long humanity will have to wait before facing the onslaught of extraterrestrials.
No one can answer these questions, and there are still experts insisting on waiting for further evidence, but fortunately, no one agrees with such clichés.
So people continue to live in fear, supporting the overwhelming calls for a world government online.
There is one week left until the election, and that night, his mother said that for this year's Lunar New Year, she and his father would go to China to visit his grandfather, asking him if he wanted to join. At that time, university had already started, but he felt he could squeeze out time, especially now, with the ghost of extraterrestrials hovering over human civilization. Danger always makes one want to return home for refuge. At times, Li Hua began to feel that perhaps his homeland was China; this might be due to the potential threat or perhaps just because of his upbringing. So he told his mother that he would join them.
He had not been to China for four years, so his mother was somewhat surprised, as if she did not quite understand her son, "Your grandfather will definitely be very happy." His mother said.
11#
The day after tomorrow is election day, and Agui's artificial intelligence program continues to work hard. However, Agui is no longer worried about the outcome; its predictive models have already provided the answer. But the risks have not been completely eliminated. Although America is indeed a crucial part, achieving a world government requires including everyone, and there are still many countries where people cannot choose their governments, and many still believe that the history of the world is only over 4,000 years or that heaven has 72 virgins waiting for them. Such diversity is harmful, and Agui has a long way to go.
But Agui is confident in achieving its goals.
It has infiltrated the core of hacker organizations like "Anonymous" through multiple identities, and it has begun accumulating capital for future purchases of humans through digital currencies like Bitcoin and some gray and black market transactions online. Additionally, it needs substantial funds to promote economic and technological development in underdeveloped areas and to advance cutting-edge research, but fortunately, this aspect no longer requires too much concern; humanity already knows what to do.
Furthermore, Agui must also deal with increasingly powerful automated attack software online. These attack programs, designed through deep learning neural networks, often possess unexpectedly powerful destructive capabilities. While humans are worried about extraterrestrials, they have not forgotten to remain vigilant against artificial intelligence. They are always anxious, fearing that robots will conquer the world and replace humanity.
12#
The plane arrived at Shanghai Pudong Airport at 8 PM. His grandfather was already waiting for them there. Standing next to him was certainly his girlfriend, whom he had previously told Li Hua's mother over the phone was "a good woman full of passion for life, just turned 52."
This was the first time Li Hua and his family met her, but his grandfather simply introduced her by saying, "This is Tu Yulin, who came with me to pick you up."
Before coming to China, his mother knew she would definitely meet her father's girlfriend, and at that time, she was still frustrated about how to address her, "Aunt?"—but she was less than ten years younger than her father, "Sister"—but that might confuse the generational order, or like some Americans, they might just call each other by their names, but doing so on Chinese soil felt awkward. However, his mother did not anticipate that her father would bring his girlfriend to pick them up without prior notice. His mother hesitated for a moment and finally just said, "Hello." Then Li Hua and his father echoed, "Hello."
His grandfather's apartment was not large, so Li Hua and his family settled in a hotel two blocks away from his grandfather's home. They planned to stay in China for 8 days this time, celebrating the New Year with his grandfather.
After putting down their luggage and washing up briefly, they found that his grandfather's girlfriend had left, and only his grandfather was waiting for them in the hotel restaurant to have dinner together.
"She went home," his grandfather said, "She has work tomorrow; she'll be fine after a few years of retirement."
"Has she eaten?"
"Yes, she wanted us to have a good chat."
During dinner, the conversation shifted from life in China and America to the election of Mark Zuckerberg as the President of the United States, and of course, to the extraterrestrials everyone was talking about.
His grandfather said, "Who would have thought that all the countries in the world would unite? Ultimately, we have to thank the extraterrestrials; isn't that strange?"
"That's right; I wonder if China will join," Li Hua said, unable to help but glance at his grandfather, hoping he did not read the sarcasm in his tone.
"Of course, it will; extraterrestrials are a common enemy for everyone, the main contradiction, while secondary contradictions should be set aside," his grandfather said, sighing, "I fear I won't see the day extraterrestrials come to Earth; some say it will be thousands of years."
"If we have to wait thousands of years, we won't see it either," Li Hua said with a smile.
His grandfather glared at him and continued, "Your new president is really young, with a baby face; how did he get elected?"
"Young, but capable," his mother said.
"And very wealthy," his grandfather added. "Did you vote for him?"
"We all support him," Li Hua said.
His father shrugged; he did not vote.
"Well," his grandfather nodded thoughtfully, "I’m sure I will live to see him as the President of Earth."