Chapter 116: A Small Problem
Chapter 116: A Small Problem
Although that year saw an exaggerated figure of over five million children born just on the Lunar Surface,
compared to the entire Human Civilization’s population increase that year, this number of five million was insignificant.
According to the plan proposed by the Social Philosophy Department of the Negentropy Research Institute,
the total birth population of Human Civilization that year reached 220 million.
Compared to that, five million really wasn’t much.
…
Year 18 HUE. By this year, the total population of Human Civilization had reached 5.1 billion.
Over one billion of them were born after Year 1 HUE.
More than half were born after the Asteroid 2801 Impact Crisis.
Given the current life expectancy of Human Civilization and the average age within the HCC,
Human Civilization was unprecedentedly young.
By this year,
the Negentropy Research Institute was also greatly affected by the wave of significant population increase after the Doomsday Crisis.
Even though the conditions for recruitment into the Negentropy Research Institute were truly strict,
it was almost clear that for any genius with enough talent and research ability,
the Negentropy Research Institute, Research Institute 011, Materials Research Institute, Energy and Power Research Institute, Weapons Research Institute, and others, still had a combined researcher count exceeding two million.
Considering the role the Negentropy Research Institute played in Human Civilization at the time, this was not strange.
But looking back through Human Civilization’s history, probably no place called a ‘research institute’ had ever expanded to such a scale.
It was, one could say, unprecedented and unlikely to be surpassed.
At this level,
one of Qin Yu’s original wishes when founding the Negentropy Research Institute could be considered achieved ahead of schedule.
In this era, the existence of the Negentropy Research Institute was almost bound together with Human Civilization itself.
Even if Qin Yu was no longer part of the Negentropy Research Institute later, there was no worry about whether it could continue.
Because at this stage, the Negentropy Research Institute was really just another name for the most capable, most talented group of researchers within Human Civilization,
the very pinnacle of the super research institute social structure Human Civilization had formed in this Intelligent Era.
No matter how Human Civilization evolved, no matter how the personnel within the Negentropy Research Institute changed,
at every point in time, as long as it existed, there would always be a group of the most talented researchers within Human Civilization.
This had nothing to do with whatever name the Negentropy Research Institute carried.
…
The same year.
Surface Cities and Lunar Surface cities continued operating normally.
After Human Civilization had fully integrated under the HCC and with so many years having passed,
it could be said there was much peace within Human Civilization.
With the Intelligent Era having arrived for many years,
the crime rate across all of Human Civilization had fallen to a frighteningly low level.
First, with enough resources and production capacity for everyone,
serious conflicts of interest between people were rare, and interactions were naturally harmonious.
Second, because the whole society was run by Strong Artificial Intelligence,
any planned crime was hard to pull off under its watch.
Occasional spontaneous conflicts flared up between people due to emotional reasons,
but with the intervention of the Urban Intelligent System, the people involved were swiftly brought under control.
It was no exaggeration to say
that in this era, since people didn’t work in production,
even con artists had little space to survive.
Paper money had completely disappeared; the money each person had was directly linked to them.
Before the Intelligent Programs running in the city’s Computing Power Towers, the amount each person could spend was a clear number.
If someone, somehow, actually convinced another person to transfer money to them,
they couldn’t spend that money in this Intelligent Era. They’d just get sentenced extremely quickly and thrown in jail.
For the individuals within this civilization,
this era could be called very good.
Everyone’s life was rich and simple.
Rich because the prosperity of the whole world, the whole society,
wasn’t just produced by the Negentropy Research Institute. Products from research institutes and academies in every field appeared almost constantly, overwhelmingly many.
Simple because everyone could live very purely,
never needing to worry about survival, able to focus solely on doing just one thing their whole life.
Even though the world was noisy and busy, basically nothing could disturb you.
Most of the time, people’s hearts were peaceful and calm.
This reflected how, in the Intelligent Era, with productivity liberated, people were freed from heavy, repetitive labor.
However,
looking at the big picture of all Human Civilization,
this still-flourishing civilization seemed to reveal some faint problems.
Just, during this thriving time, everything wasn’t so obvious yet.
…
Year 19 HUE.
Development and construction on Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt were progressing.
Before, when Human Civilization returned from the Underground Refuge Cities to the surface, building the Surface Cities only took two or three years.
When developing the Lunar Surface, the difficulty was higher, and taking the first steps took a bit more time.
Now, the development and construction on Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt,
the distances involved were over a hundred times greater than just Earth-Moon.
While the difficulty didn’t increase a hundredfold, the time needed inevitably took more.
However,
by this year,
with more Electric Propulsion Spaceships equipped with the model DT03-2 Electric Propulsion System joining the routes between Earth-Mars, Earth-Venus, and Earth-Asteroid Belt.
The development and construction on Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt gradually yielded more results.
These gains were naturally primarily in terms of resources.
Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt – no matter how you looked at it, that amounted to resources exceeding the scale of two planets.
Incorporating these three regions into the territory of Human Civilization,
and once the resources from these areas began to flow continuously back to Earth and the Moon,
it meant, at the very least, that the total amount of resources owned by Human Civilization had suddenly increased by more than threefold.
And after these resources were transported back to the Earth-Moon system,
similarly,
the scale of the Smart Industrial Clusters within the cities on Earth, as well as on the Lunar Surface, underwent another period of rapid expansion.
By this year,
driven by both the increase in total resources and the internal demands of Human Civilization,
the number of giant cities like Lingchuan City built by Human Civilization on Earth, starting from three hundred, continued to grow.
By this time,
the giant cities of the HCC had already spread across suitable land areas from the Europa Continent to the Nine Provinces, and onwards to the Afrika Continent and Amerika.
Due to the needs of smart industrial collaboration within the cities,
the Superconducting Maglev Trains connecting these giant cities also traveled back and forth more frequently.
Some Researchers from the Negentropy Research Institute proposed building ‘Vacuum Superconducting Maglev Trains’ to further increase the speed of travel between the giant cities.
These train routes, at present,
for Human Civilization as a whole, acted like conveyor belts within this super smart industrial complex managed by Strong Artificial Intelligences,
serving as connections between certain production stages.
Meanwhile, on the Lunar Surface,
over these two years, the number of permanent residents, being the most obvious numerical indicator reflecting the entire expansion of Lunar Surface development and construction, had changed dramatically.
According to statistics from the Strong Artificial Intelligences, the permanent population on the Lunar Surface rapidly grew to over thirty million people.
Some came from Earth immigrants, while others were from the new additions to the population managed by the Social Upbringing Bureaus within the Lunar Surface cities.
Human Civilization, through the Negentropy Research Institute, was currently undertaking the development and construction processes for Mars, Venus, the Asteroid Belt, and other regions,
which was fundamentally similar to the initial development process of the Lunar Surface – a process resembling a snowball effect.
Influenced by the resources returned from Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt, the scale of the Smart Industrial Clusters on Earth and the Lunar Surface expanded further.
Once this scale expanded, more productive capacity became available for the development and construction of Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt.
Consequently, the development scale of Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt could continue to increase.
Within each unit of time, the amount of resources that could be extracted from the areas of Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt and transported back to Earth and the Lunar Surface also continued to grow.
This was a virtuous cycle process.
…
Still within this same year.
The development and construction level on Mars had reached the point where preliminary Smart Industrial Clusters had been completed.
Although it couldn’t yet achieve self-sustaining cycles like the Lunar Surface,
the Smart Industrial Clusters on Mars were already capable of processing the extracted material resources to a certain degree, able to produce some components for the Intelligent Machinery used in Mars’ own development and construction.
On the surface of Mars, within a predetermined area,
Human Civilization had also constructed over ten large Helium-3 Fusion Reactors, along with several Computing Power Towers,
providing power and computational support for the Intelligent Machinery and Smart Industrial Clusters operating and functioning on the Martian surface.
The situations on Venus and within the Asteroid Belt were largely similar.
In the synchronous orbit of Venus, transforming from its former barren desolation, it was now clearly visible that industrial constructions belonging to Human Civilization existed.
Human Civilization was altering the original appearance of Venus’s synchronous orbit, and also transforming parts of the Venusian surface itself.
Within the Asteroid Belt, besides the Intelligent Machinery mining resources, Human Civilization had placed several Intelligent Research Stations in specific areas.
These normally operated according to plan via Intelligent Programs, but could be remotely taken over by relevant Researchers and scholars when needed.
Within Human Civilization, journals in fields like astronomy and geology saw a significant increase in related research papers published over these two years.
…
This year,
besides following the collective development plans for Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt carried out by the Negentropy Research Institute,
Qin Yu was still conducting research on the ‘Project to Enhance Human Intelligence’.
Just as Qin Yu remained in the impression of the Researchers at the Priory and the vast majority of the general public,
it seemed no problem could endlessly trouble Qin Yu.
Not even this most difficult research project Qin Yu had undertaken since gaining the ‘Super Brain’
could stop Qin Yu’s desire to explore.
Regarding this research, Qin Yu had already gained some clues.
In a Laboratory at the Negentropy Research Institute.
Qin Yu seemed somewhat distracted while looking at a sample of the Diephagia Virus.
He wasn’t actually pondering the virus itself,
but was tracing back the initial sparks of inspiration it had provided,
its special mechanism of action on the human body, for this project on improving human intelligence.
He was reviewing the research journey and thought processes undergone over the past few years on this very project.
During this time,
no one disturbed Qin Yu.
He sat in this Laboratory from noon until the afternoon.
Regarding the research goal of enhancing human intelligence,
Qin Yu temporarily abandoned overly abstract aspects like logical thinking ability or imagination.
He ultimately chose to start from the arguably most concrete field in Life Science research: ‘human memory capacity’.
He wanted to try improving human memory power first, thereby indirectly raising average human intelligence levels.
It might not be as direct for boosting average IQ as other approaches,
but under the current technological level of Human Civilization, it was probably the only tangible possibility.
Moreover, enhancing human memory would undoubtedly have a beneficial impact on overall human intelligence.
At the very least, learning and absorbing existing knowledge would become much easier for people.
In the afternoon,
Qin Yu, sitting in the Laboratory, seemed to come back to himself and glanced at the time.
Dinnertime had arrived. While he didn’t strictly need to eat,
at the very least, the time spent organizing his thoughts hadn’t forced him to miss the meal.
Qin Yu smiled.
For the research direction of enhancing human memory capacity, Qin Yu already had a relatively clear idea in his mind.
This wasn’t a sudden burst of inspiration.
Or to insist on calling it inspiration: compared to other Researchers, Qin Yu’s mind was constantly experiencing huge bursts of inspiration.
Right now, it was more like the culmination of years of continuous research on the problem – everything emerging naturally as the path became clear.
Once all the fog dissipated, a clear path pointing directly to the answer naturally presented itself.
Qin Yu felt,
this new research approach was likely viable,
but whether it would succeed specifically still required further research and experiments to verify.
“Mind Core, arrange some experiments for me…”
Qin Yu began directly outlining experimental plans to the air in front of him.
Naturally, the Laboratory contained smart equipment to respond to Qin Yu’s words.
If the materials required for the experiments weren’t available in the current Laboratory, the Strong Artificial Intelligence from the Brain Intelligence Project would coordinate for Qin Yu.
If specific experimental apparatus wasn’t present here, the experimental plan would be executed in other Laboratories within the Negentropy Research Institute, with the data then provided to Qin Yu.
…
By the following year, Year 20 of the Human United Era (HUE).
This year, something interesting happened.
Several research teams collaborating under the Negentropy Research Institute – one from the Information Denoising Institute and others from Research Institute 011 –
produced something.
A “Virtual Reality Device”.
Different from all previous virtual reality devices, or VR headsets.
This time, the virtual reality technology implemented and the device developed jointly by the Information Denoising Institute and Research Institute 011
had a key distinction: it acted directly on the optic nerve, and featured a more precise brain-machine control system.
In the past, VR devices always needed a screen; even as holographic technology developed, it was essentially not that different from screen displays.
While VR device effectiveness improved alongside display quality,
what the Information Denoising Institute and Research Institute 011 presented now was clearly something entirely different.
Bypassing the eyes and interacting directly with the visual nervous system, this Virtual Reality Device could offer users a far greater sense of immersion.
The precise brain-machine control system also significantly enhanced the user experience.
These two technological advancements
were originally developed for different reasons:
Research Institute 011 aimed to solve blindness in visually impaired patients,
while the Information Denoising Institute sought to revolutionize communication terminals and technology.
But after achieving their respective results and combining them,
they found the technologies were also highly valuable when applied to virtual reality devices.
Thus, this Virtual Reality Device was born.
In this era,
the advent of this Virtual Reality Device was hard to flatly declare as entirely good or entirely bad.
Only, the course of history sometimes simply cannot be controlled by human will.
Once certain technologies are born, inevitably, one day, they will be applied within their relevant domains.