Chapter 1548 - Lifting Off (2/2)

Curiosity—an extremely human trait.

The aerospace technology of the aborigines of this planet was so-so, which was evident by their lack of warp drive, but their achievement in the field of artificial intelligence had been outstanding. Those AIs called the Executors not only exhibited almost perfect emotional expressions but also could choose their own self-learning path, which was the most terrific achievement.

This meant that they could self-evolve.

N-4 had said much about the condition of the Cortex Prime. Now, Hao Ren had a general grasp of the situation.

It sounded like the problems with Cortex Prime did not crop up all of a sudden but was a gradual process. No one had noticed the problem when it first happened.

Since a few years ago, that massive artificial intelligence had begun to make contradictory instructions. The number of conflicting instructions was minimal at first, and it always involved almost non-critical decisions. It was regarded as a glitch. The Cortex Prime had a self-correction mechanism. Its thirteen computer servers were like a voting mechanism eliminating the fault codes automatically based on the rules of the majority—at least that was the case in the beginning.

But then, the situation deteriorated.

Somehow, the Cortex Prime began to hide the syslog of its fault codes, which was probably the deadliest fault in itself. The system administers in the fort were not aware that the Cortex Prime was making more and more erroneous instruction. There were only one or two servers that generated incorrect instructions at first, and that happened only three or four times in a month or two. By as time went by, the problem became more serious. Erroneous instructions appeared more frequently as more servers generated them. As the number of erroneous servers increased, the number of normally-functioning servers decreased.

It was not that the servers of the Cortex Prime lacked maintenance nor updates. In fact, as the most crucial decision-making machine in the survivor society, the Cortex Prime’s motherboards and primary logic circuits were replaced every 100 years, other hardware was checked and maintained every year, and system self-diagnostics ran daily. N-4 had mentioned that the Cortex Prime’s motherboards and logic circuits were newly installed less than two decades ago, which meant they were less likely to fail.

But fault still happened, inexplicably. When the ratio of the normal servers and faulty servers reversed, the errors were finally exposed.

The Cortex Prime first issued two different instructions. One of the instructions was a directive to put the existence of the unidentified spacecraft on embargo and prohibit anyone from approaching the crash site. The second instruction was sent directly to more than a dozen Executors, including N-4, ordering them to investigate the unidentified spacecraft.

At first, N-4 did not realize that there were two contradictory instructions. She thought that it was a secret operation. But when she routinely crossed check the instruction she received with a lower-level server of the Cortex Prime, a serious warning within the system was triggered.

The Cortex Prime thought that she and her team members had defied its order and acted arbitrarily.

Then the Cortex Prime sent her a transport plane, ordering her to set off to finish her mission as soon as possible, and also sent into her memory tons of messy system logs.

So, under such contradictory instructions, Miss N-4 and her temporary squad members came to Hao Ren.

“Have you never suspected anything amiss at all?” Hao Ren looked at N-4 in disbelief. “The contradictory instructions and the blank mission details? Most likely, the Cortex Prime will treat you as rogue Executrix when you report back. Can you not report the problems to the system administers?”

N-4 was expressionless as she said matter-of-factly, “We must carry out the command of the Cortex Prime. It is the reason we can still survive until this day.”

Likewise, N-6 said, “We must carry out the command of the Cortex Prime. The system administrators will do their jobs.”

Nangong Sanba could not help but bury his face in his hand. “You can’t reason with those who have an entirely different worldview than yours.”

While they spoke, the Petrachelys was slowly approaching the mega-space station, the Zenith.

Its silver-white oval shell glittered on the hologram onboard the Petrachelys. The behemoth was as massive as a small moon, occupying the field of vision of everyone.

“Nolan, get the traction beam ready.” Hao Ren gently tapped the console and sighed. “Get ready to work.”