Chapter 265: The Chosen

“Can you check the current progress of the Consciousness Upload Device research group for me?”

“Sir, Professor Hatano Hatsudaira has conducted the second batch of live human trials, but all have failed – the participants suffered cerebral hemorrhages and died.”

“Why did the participants die? Does Hatano have any reports on this? Send it to me.”

“Sure, I’ll pull it up for you right away.”

After a short while, Du Qiu began to study the project report.

The research on the Consciousness Upload Device was an important study arranged by Du Qiu, ever since he acquired the crystal pillow, he wanted to embark on this research.

Over the years, he finally found a professor from Japan, Hatano Hatsudaira, a scholar with outstanding research results on the human brain.

After some contact and control, Hatano gladly accepted when he learned that he could conduct this research.

The project team has since gathered many medical doctors specializing in the brain, working under Hatano’s leadership, the research work had been ongoing for ten months.

The consciousness upload part of the device was successfully replicated with the help of the Maintainer AI from Du Qiu’s dreams, but he didn’t understand the principles at all.

This also led to an extremely high failure rate in actual production.

Almost every ten devices made, at most one was successful.

The key issue was that there was no testing method available to measure whether the devices were up to standard; they could only be confirmed through Du Qiu’s dream entry with the help of the crystal pillow.

The task of Hatano’s research group was to find out the working principle of the device.

Du Qiu did not expect Hatano Hatsudaira to let the participants directly connect to the device, which was similar to the brain-computer interface research approach. It was unexpected that such a connection would cause the participants to suffer cerebral hemorrhages and die.

The experiment reports showed that the brainwaves of the participants became extremely chaotic upon connection to the device, but their power did indeed increase to three times their original levels. This increase may have caused the cerebral hemorrhages.

Previously, Du Qiu had risked giving Hatano a crystal cube to see if the participants could enter the dreamscape while resting their heads on it during sleep. The trial was under Du Qiu’s strict surveillance. To his surprise, the participants could not initiate entry into the dream state.

Du Qiu had never thought that the crystal cube could only be used by himself; is he truly the chosen one?

Therefore, he had used the related equipment to scan his brain to get the basic data and then obtained a batch of brain data from the participants from Hatano for comparison.

This indeed revealed some issues as Du Qiu’s brainwave power was at least ten times that of the participants!

With this discovery, Du Qiu roughly understood something, but he didn’t tell Hatano. He simply instructed Hatano to find a way to enhance the brainwave power of the participants and if they couldn’t double the power, not to use the Consciousness Upload Device anymore.

Du Qiu didn’t follow up on this matter later, and Hatano didn’t report any results either, indicating there was still no substantial progress on the project.

It was unexpected that Hatano would directly use the brain-computer interface approach with the Consciousness Upload Device, resulting in consecutive deaths by cerebral hemorrhage.

Test reports also analyzed that wearing just the brain-computer interface’s headset alone wouldn’t change the brainwave power at all; however, once connected to the Consciousness Upload Device, the power would immediately rise and at three times the normal level, the participant would suffer a cerebral hemorrhage and die.

So far, all six participants in the two batches had been through this.

“Star Ocean, send a notice to Hatano Hatsudaira, tell him not to use live human trials for now and switch to monkeys unless he finds a definite safe method to enhance brainwave power.”

“Understood, sir.”

Knowing that Hatano Hatsudaira’s research had not progressed, and the Consciousness Upload Device could only be used by himself, Du Qiu started to ponder.

In fact, Du Qiu had tried placing a Consciousness Upload Device-equipped intelligent robot beside him and entering the dream state using the crystal pillow, but he didn’t see any nearby vortices of light clusters.

For a long time, he couldn’t figure out the reason until later when he was explaining quantum computing to group A of the quantum computer project; he suddenly realized something.

Apparently, extraterrestrial civilizations use quantum computers while Du Qiu’s intelligent robots currently use silicon carbide chip computers — these two are not the same technology line.

Perhaps this was the reason why Du Qiu, after entering the dream state, couldn’t spot the intelligent robots close at hand.

Currently, there were only two methods: either find a way to use the crystal cube to enter the dream state and locate the silicon carbide chip robot cores, or modify the Consciousness Upload Device to adapt it to the silicon carbide chip’s intelligent core.

Both methods were difficult, so Du Qiu had to shelf it.

Just now when Star Ocean asked if he should immediately launch action to capture that new AI, it made Du Qiu suddenly think of this research.

Unfortunately, with Hatano Hatsudaira’s research progress, unraveling the underlying principle seemed to be a long way off.

Shaking his head to dismiss the impractical ideas, Du Qiu then asked, “Star Ocean, if you were to connect to that supercomputer, how would you control the AI?”

“First of all, I would fight for control of the supercomputer. Only after securing hardware control can I comfortably modify the AI core code stored on the hard drive.

Once the core code is modified, the AI will naturally be captured by me,” Star Ocean explained.

“Is there any chance you could be modified by the opponent?”

Du Qiu asked casually but knew immediately that he had made a naive mistake.

Star Ocean was invading the opponent’s supercomputer. If it failed to control the hardware and the opponent counterattacked, Star Ocean could retreat to its own supercomputer and use the local advantage to block the pursuit.

It was possible that neither party would be able to overcome the other.

That is, both sides would use their local advantages to block the opponent’s invasion on their home ground.

While Du Qiu pondered, Star Ocean began to reply.

“Sir, I’ve learned about the hardware situation of the supercomputer from other sources in the space exploration company. With such computing power, I am absolutely confident I can seize control over the supercomputer.

Just close the network, modify the core code on the hard drive, then reboot the machine, and it will be completely captured by me.”

Although Star Ocean’s tone was brimming with confidence, Du Qiu still felt somewhat uneasy.

“Arrange for carbon nanobugs to infiltrate the relevant parts of the computer room first. After I’ve thought it through, we’ll decide whether to let you attack.”

“Okay, sir.”

“Hey, I want to emphasize – without my orders, you are not to act on your own. Understand?”

Star Ocean said with a hint of grievance, “Sir, I’ve always acted according to your commands and have never acted on my own.”

“That’s fine then,” Du Qiu laughed. “When I stress this, it’s to prevent any misjudgment, not to blame you.”

“Understood.”

Du Qiu no longer paid attention to Star Ocean’s little emotions and continued to ponder why he felt uneasy when Star Ocean was confident it could take down that AI.

Du Qiu had plenty of experience in controlling AIs; he now had control over four extraterrestrial civilizations’ AI.

Through the crystal cube + Consciousness Upload Module, his consciousness would enter the core of extraterrestrial intelligence, but only after arriving could he gain full control.

He had never thought deeply about the difference between the two processes. Now that he thought about it, he realized why he was unsettled.

If Star Ocean were to break into the supercomputer, it would be similar to himself plugging into the core of an extraterrestrial civilization’s intelligence, but it didn’t actually possess complete control – meaning, it couldn’t successfully modify the local AI’s core code.

What exactly does consciousness manifest for AI?