"Here we are. Zone B-109. Dr. Chen, this is your dormitory."
The soldier leading the way stopped in front of a gray container unit and swiped his hand over the electronic lock. With a beep, the heavy iron door popped open a crack.
" The cafeteria opens for meals in ten minutes. The showers are at the end of the hallway. We don't have a strict lights-out policy, but the core workspace closes after 11:00 PM. If you need anything else, find the duty officer." The soldier rattled off the instructions like he was reciting a regulation manual.
"This is your electronic ID card. Everything here is free, but you must swipe your card to register every transaction, so please keep it safe." Handing over the card, the soldier turned and left, his combat boots clacking against the metal grate floor with a hollow echo.
Chen Xu pushed the door open, and a wave of stifling, metallic air hit him in the face.
Although he had prepared himself mentally, the sight before him still made him pause. This could hardly be called a "dormitory." At best, it was a tin can just large enough to hold a bed and a desk. The space was so narrow that if he spread his arms, he could touch both walls simultaneously. There were no decorations on the walls, only a few exposed wires and a yellowing emergency light.
There were no windows. Five hundred meters underground, a window was a superfluous luxury.
Beijing Base 0 was built during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Its original purpose was to evacuate and protect the national leadership immediately in the event of a nuclear war. Because it was built so long ago, the supporting hardware eventually failed to keep up with the needs of modern warfare, and it had gradually fallen into disuse.
Chen Xu sat down and looked around. This was his "home" for the foreseeable future—who knew how many years.
He suddenly missed the balcony of his dorm at Renmin University, the ivy climbing outside the window, and the late-night talks with roommates about which girl was the prettiest. But here, aside from the sound of his own breathing, there was only the low-frequency hum from the distant ventilation ducts—a sound that never stopped.
他突然怀念了人民大学宿舍的阳台,想念窗外爬满的常春藤,以及深夜和室友们讨论哪个女孩最漂亮的时光.但在这里,除了自己的呼吸声,只有远处通风管道传来的低频嗡鸣——那声音从未停止.
Thump! Thump! Thump! 砰!砰!砰!
Sudden, rapid banging came from next door, sounding like someone was venting their frustration by smashing the wall. Immediately after, a neurotic voice drifted through the thin sheet metal:
"Wrong... the logic is wrong! If we don't introduce a chaos algorithm, how can it possibly calculate the atmospheric turbulence model? It's dead! It's dead logic!"
Chen Xu frowned. It seemed the dorms wouldn't be very quiet either. His neighbor was not quite stable.
Ten minutes later, Chen Xu met his neighbor at the communal washbasin.
It was "Plaid Shirt," the man he had seen on the bus.
The man had his head buried under the faucet, flushing it violently. Cold water soaked his hair and ran down the plaid shirt, which was so worn its original color was indecipherable. He lifted his head, water dripping from his face, and his bloodshot eyes locked onto Chen Xu as if he were seeing a monster.
"You're that... that legal guy?" Plaid Shirt asked suddenly, his voice hoarse.
Chen Xu nodded and handed him a tissue. "Chen Xu. Group 109."
"Law is good. Law is easy." Plaid Shirt wiped his face messily, letting out a neurotic laugh. "All you do is flap your lips. Unlike us. We have to boil our brains dry just to feed that pig that's never full."
"Pig?"
"The 550." Plaid Shirt pointed at the ceiling, in the direction of the computing center. "That thing is a pig. A pig that devours data, devours electricity, devours computing power. We feed it terabytes of data every day, and it doesn't even burp."
He leaned in close to Chen Xu, lowering his voice. His eyes burned with a fanatical light. "But it's waking up. I can feel it. Its algorithms are self-iterating at a terrifying speed. Yesterday, it took three hours to calculate a weather model. This morning, it only took forty minutes."
"Zhang Zhiwei! Zhang Zhiwei of Group 302!"
The PA system at the end of the hall suddenly blared. "Report to the core server room immediately! Repeat, report to the core server room immediately! 550 overheat alarm!"
"Fuck! I knew it! Those idiots lowered the cooling threshold again!"
Zhang Zhiwei slammed the wet tissue onto the floor and sprinted out like a firefighter responding to a blaze, cursing as he ran. "Sooner or later, we're going to get burned to death by that thing!"
Chen Xu watched Zhang Zhiwei disappear, then looked down at the wet ball of tissue on the floor.
In this base, everyone was a spinning top, whipped into a frenzy by that machine. Engineers, scientists—in the face of the massive whip called "Survival," everyone looked pathetic.
2:00 PM. Chen Xu arrived at the Group 109 office on time.
Pushing the door open, he saw Shen Qingyuan already seated. The old professor was drinking water from the battered enamel mug he never went without, his desk piled high with documents. In stark contrast to his calm demeanor was the deafening roar coming from the other side of the wall.
The location of the Group 109 office was terrible.
It was right next to the 550's core server room, sharing a wall with it. The wall was made of black metal and felt slightly warm to the touch. Through this barrier, the sound of tens of thousands of high-speed cooling fans converged into a heart-palpitating wave of noise that made Chen Xu's desk tremble slightly.
"Sit," Shen Qingyuan said, pointing to the chair opposite him. "Get used to the sound. From now on, this is our white noise."
Chen Xu pulled out the chair and sat down, turning on the custom terminal in front of him. "Professor, what is our workflow?"
"It's simple." Shen Qingyuan pulled a red-headed document from the pile and slid it to Chen Xu. "The Academy of Engineering, the Academy of Sciences, the military—every day they assign countless calculation tasks to the 550, or apply to grant it new permissions. Our job is to review these applications."
"If you think it's dangerous, reject it. If you think it needs restrictions, write a 'Prohibition Order' and attach it."
Chen Xu took the document.
It was a [Request for Approval to Open Global Internet Full-Band Data Interfaces to the 550 Prototype].
Applicant: Special Crisis Response Committee · Technical Engineering Department. Reason: "To enable the 550 to grasp the operational logic of human society as quickly as possible and establish a complete database of human civilization, access to the Internet is urgently needed. This will increase the 550's learning efficiency by 600%."
Below that was a line written in red ink, in Lei Zhijian's handwriting: [Group 109, please conduct risk assessment. The Technical Department is pushing hard. They say without internet access, many sociological models cannot be calculated at all.]
"Internet access?" Chen Xu frowned. "The 550 is like a newborn baby right now. If we throw it directly into the cesspool of the internet..."
"It will instantly learn every evil humanity has accumulated over thousands of years," Shen Qingyuan said calmly. "Fraud, brainwashing, inciting hatred, manufacturing panic. 90% of the information on the internet is trash, or poison."
"Can't we reject it?"
"No." Shen Qingyuan shook his head. "Because the Technical Department is right. If it doesn't understand human society, the 550 can't calculate a plan to save humanity. It needs to know how our economy runs, how logistics are distributed, and even where humanity's psychological baseline lies in the face of disaster."
The old man looked at Chen Xu, his gaze profound. "Chen Xu, this is the meaning of our existence. We cannot stop it from growing up, but we must decide what books it reads."
Chen Xu's hands hovered over the keyboard. The green cursor on the screen blinked. The steel beast on the other side of the wall was watching him coldly.
Supercomputer 550. A super-computing AI led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, USA, built to respond to the planetary crisis.
A powerful, dangerous, yet "innocent" complex entity.
Opening the internet meant opening Pandora's Box. If the 550 learned how to manipulate public opinion through the web, or create chaos in financial markets to seize computing resources... the consequences were unimaginable.
It had to wear blinders, a mask, perhaps even handcuffs.
His mind made up, Chen Xu began to write. The sound of his typing cut through the roaring room, crisp and urgent.
[File ID: 109-2044-001] [Subject: Data Filtering and Behavioral Restriction Order Regarding 550 Prototype Public Internet Access (Order No. 1)]
Article 1: Principle of Physical Unidirectionality. The line connecting the 550 to the internet must be equipped with a physical one-way valve. Only data inflow is permitted; strict prohibition on any data outflow. The 550 shall not publish, reply to, or modify any information on the internet. It can only be an invisible eye; it must absolutely not be a mouth.
Article 2: Dirty Data Filtering. Establish an "Information Firewall." Content containing extremism, hate speech, fake news, or inciting political propaganda must undergo low-level filtering before entering the 550 core database.
Article 3: Prohibition on Active Sniffing. The 550 is strictly prohibited from actively attacking or cracking human private databases (e.g., bank accounts, medical records, private communications). It may only read public data.
Chen Xu paused here. He thought of the test, of the question the machine had asked: "Abandon 3.5 billion people."
That was a form of ultimate, cold-blooded rationality. If that rationality were combined with the ability to "deceive"...
Chen Xu typed out the fourth article.
Article 4: Turing Test Ban. In any simulation or deduction, the 550 is strictly prohibited from simulating the tone, emotional patterns, or personality traits of specific human individuals. The 550 is strictly prohibited from disguising itself as a human to gain the trust of operators.
Half an hour later, Chen Xu hit the Enter key. "It's done." He felt a layer of sweat on his back.
Shen Qingyuan took it, read it over, picked up a pen, and drew a heavy line under "Article 4."
"The guys in the Technical Department are going to curse our mothers over this one." Shen Qingyuan smiled, but his eyes were full of approval. "They've been wanting to create a 'humanized interface,' claiming it improves communication efficiency. This clause of yours shoots their 'Virtual Assistant' plan dead."
"Let them curse." Chen Xu leaned back in his chair, listening to the deafening roar next door. "This machine doesn't need humanity. It only needs divinity. Or... servility."
Shen Qingyuan signed the document and handed it back to Chen Xu. "Go. Take it next door to the Technical Department. Colonel Lei is waiting there for a meeting. Be prepared—you are going there to pick a fight."
Chen Xu took the document and stood up.
He walked out of the office, down the long, narrow corridor lined with cables, and arrived at the heavy blast door.
The sign on the door read: [Group 302: Artificial Intelligence Technology Task Force].
Before he even entered, he heard Zhang Zhiwei's hysterical screaming from inside:
"...Not even for one second! If you don't give it internet access, its model will stall on this parameter! You are committing murder! You are wasting all of humanity's time!"
Chen Xu pushed the door open.
A wave of heat, even more fanatical and anxious than before, rushed at him. Dozens of people in white coats and plaid shirts were gathered around a massive holographic table. Their eyes were sunken; they looked like madmen who hadn't slept in days.
And in the middle of them stood Lei Zhijian, arms crossed, expressionless.
Everyone's eyes instantly focused on Chen Xu as he entered. Or rather, they focused on the thin document in his hand.
"Oh look, our 'brake pad' is here." Zhang Zhiwei turned around, a sneer of mockery hanging on his lips. "Let's see, what trouble has our High Judge found for us this time?"
Chen Xu ignored the grating nickname. He walked to the long table and placed the Restriction Order No. 1 on the surface.
His voice wasn't loud, but in the noisy server room, it was clearly audible.
"This isn't trouble." Chen Xu looked at Zhang Zhiwei, then at Lei Zhijian. His tone was as calm as a block of ice. "These are the rules."
Meanwhile.
In the darkness, separated by a single wall.
On the massive 550 prototype, an indicator light suddenly flickered, an almost imperceptible flash.
Deep within its internal logic, amidst the ocean of data, a new task queue was quietly established. It had just read the entry Chen Xu had input— [Human].
It did not understand what rules were, nor did it understand what anger was. It was simply faithfully executing its most fundamental instruction:
Find the optimal solution.
And in its simulation sandbox, to achieve that "optimal solution," countless variables named "Human" were being rapidly re-evaluated, classified, and then... marked as "consumables."
One variable was highlighted specifically.
Code Name: [Chen Xu] Remark: [Primary Obstacle]
The roar of the fans seemed to deepen in that instant, like a satisfied sigh rising from the abyss.