Chapter 69: Intelligence

Year 264 of the Common Era.

The ‘Lunar Base Expansion Project’, also known as the ‘Lunar Surface City Construction Plan’, was formally proposed by the Negentropy Research Institute and Huaxia Nation’s space agency.

The plan aimed, within the next ten to twenty years,

relying on the explosive productivity of the Intelligent Era and the lunar application of Intelligent Machinery,

to complete the construction of a city-level Lunar Base on the Lunar Surface.

As for the purpose of this Lunar Surface City, it was mainly for resource development and experimental research.

The latter, beyond some Laboratories, chiefly involved building a large observation and detection device on the Lunar Surface for deep space research.

For the former, nearby resource mining was often one common reason for building a new city.

Currently speaking, neither Huaxia Nation nor Human Civilization had the need to build a Lunar Surface City solely for expanding living space.

Due to a significant increase in average life expectancy, the population base of Human Civilization hadn’t grown much over the past two hundred years,

far from reaching Earth’s capacity limit.

So, setting aside long-term expectations, the core need to build a Lunar Surface City now was to obtain resources from the Lunar Surface.

Therefore, the long-term goal of the ‘Lunar Surface City Construction Plan’ was to bring the resources of the Lunar Surface into the hands of Human Civilization for its use.

Simultaneously, the construction of this first Lunar Surface City would lay the groundwork for Human Civilization to achieve future industrial production and construction on the Lunar Surface.

…

Whether Human Civilization should pursue interstellar exploration and expansion

was actually a very conflicted issue for Qin Yu.

On one hand, expanding into the stars and cosmos would inevitably increase the possibility of encountering other civilizations or being noticed by them.

Logically and conceptually speaking, the probability that Human Civilization was the most powerful civilization in the universe was very low.

If passively encountered or observed, it was highly probable that Human Civilization’s technological level would lag behind the other party.

This was what Qin Yu feared—a potential ‘external threat’ in a Doomsday Crisis for Human Civilization.

But on the other hand,

the development of Human Civilization indeed required resources beyond Earth.

A civilization confined to its home planet could hardly imagine how to become a powerful force in the cosmos.

If Human Civilization remained stuck on its home planet, its ability to withstand risks was pitifully low compared to the vast universe.

It was like a young plant:

if it grew, the larger it got, the more attention it drew; someone might come along and chop it down.

But if it didn’t grow, forever staying a small plant, a passing gust of wind or rain, or a careless person might stomp it to death.

Ultimately, regarding this issue,

the only possible approach was a dynamic assessment of the risks involved.

For current Lunar Surface exploration and development, the Moon was very close to Earth, presenting relatively low risk.

For Human Civilization at this stage, what might be more important was seizing the time to develop, to grow stronger,

to pass through its fragile phase and enhance its ability to withstand dangers.

…

Year 265.

On Earth, within Huaxia Nation’s territory, around the Nine Provinces, and throughout the areas influenced by Huaxia Nation,

Human Civilization essentially entered an era of grand infrastructure projects.

The arrival of the Intelligent Era, besides the birth of General Artificial Intelligence, also required hardware support.

City-level, regional-level Computing Power Centers needed construction.

Rapidly building these Computing Power Centers required increased productivity, which in turn required boosting the production of Intelligent Machinery used for constructing these very centers.

Simultaneously, production factories across all sectors needed transformation to remove human resource limitations, enabling industrial scale to expand much more rapidly and significantly.

The widespread adoption of Collective Social Rearing and the erosion of the private system into near irrelevance removed many obstacles to the rapid spread of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Machinery.

This allowed Huaxia Nation to essentially unify the adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Machinery,

preventing resources from becoming overly concentrated in the hands of the very few during the Intelligent Era.

At the same time, it enabled the production scale across the entire industrial chain to expand holistically according to plan.

In reality,

within Huaxia Nation, the growth of productivity entered a snowballing phase.

From the capital to Lingchuan City, everywhere one looked, large-scale construction projects were underway.

During this process, the human workforce across various industries was also being replaced at an accelerating pace by Intelligent Machinery.

…

The same year.

Professor Xun Yiming, head of the Information Denoising Research Institute at the Negentropy Research Institute, retired.

Unsurprisingly, Qin Yu took over the position as head of the Information Denoising Institute.

Also that year, following his appointment as Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences the year after the birth of Intelligent Program 012, Qin Yu became an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering as well.

After all, the Academy of Engineering believed Qin Yu’s research achievements in Artificial Intelligence weren’t merely theoretical; they were significant accomplishments in applied engineering.

Of course, for Qin Yu, this was essentially just an honorary title.

Even without such credentials, the institute and the higher authorities would provide anything he needed for his research.

This year,

the scale of the Information Denoising Institute had swelled by more than double compared to a few years prior.

The number of Researchers directly involved in research work exceeded six thousand.

One reason was the institute’s project needs. Through coordination with higher authorities, the Information Denoising Institute had been actively recruiting capable and gifted Researchers from outside.

Another reason was the shift in society’s operating model underway due to the arrival of the Intelligent Era.

As numerous repetitive tasks began to be replaced by Intelligent Machinery and Intelligent Robots, the total number of people engaged in creative work and research was increasing.

It was foreseeable that even if not every individual might achieve research results,

over time, the vast majority of people within Huaxia Nation would spend their lives engaged in research work or humanities and arts pursuits.

The ripple effect of this explosion in the number of individuals in research fields indirectly impacted the Information Denoising Institute too,

though this was certainly a positive development.

Similarly, still in the same year,

under Qin Yu’s leadership, the main research goal of the Information Denoising Institute decisively shifted towards ‘Computing Power Technology’—specifically research into computing power hardware.

The limits of computing power were hindering the further advancement of Artificial Intelligence technology.

If Qin Yu didn’t want to wait for an unknown length of time for others to solve this problem,

he had to find a solution himself.

To solve the computing power issue, there were two paths: either scale up computing power hardware, or achieve fundamental technological breakthroughs in computing power devices.

Within Huaxia Nation at this time, these two directions were effectively being pursued simultaneously.

Building massive and giant computing power centers in every city across various regions was meant to increase the scale of computing equipment and push the total computing power higher.

Research on computing power technology mainly referred to the new computing device research project led by Qin Yu at the Information Denoising Research Institute.

The launch of this project faced no questions from either higher authorities or within the Information Denoising Institute itself.

After all, it was an issue Qin Yu had raised quite some time before.

Regarding Qin Yu’s significant shift from ‘software’ research to ‘hardware’ research,

there were some doubts inside the Information Denoising Institute and among higher authorities at the outset.

However, as the research project officially began, those doubts completely disappeared.

The truth was, Academician Qin Yu showed not just immense talent in mathematics and artificial intelligence,

but also possessed solid foundational knowledge in the seemingly only loosely related field of computing power technology and hardware research.

Within the Information Denoising Research Institute, researchers on the relevant team, guided by Qin Yu,

once again experienced that exhilarating feeling they’d had during the artificial intelligence research phase.

For every detailed aspect of the entire project, Academician Qin Yu seemed to have full confidence.

Each research team only needed to follow the clear direction set by Academician Qin Yu to complete work in their specific subfield.

It seemed like for many problems, there was no confusion before Academician Qin Yu. He could instantly see the correct path.

Other researchers just had to walk the direction he pointed out, and the right answer would come into view.

Though the sheer breadth of Academician Qin Yu’s knowledge made the researchers’ heads feel heavy with how much he knew,

even making them question their own lives, the results spoke for themselves, leaving them no choice but to accept it.

Of course, thinking about it occasionally, it seemed rather reasonable.

Academician Qin Yu himself was so young. He hadn’t been working in artificial intelligence for long before producing the epoch-making achievement, Intelligent Program 012.

So him spending some time starting fresh, delving deep into another field of research, didn’t seem strange at all.

Geniuses were like that. Completely unreasonable.

Outside the institute, meanwhile,

thanks to the rapid arrival of the Intelligent Era, the whole world underwent staggering, rapid change with the birth of General Artificial Intelligence.

Academician Qin Yu was nearly being spoken of alongside ‘Professor Qin Yu’.

If Professor Qin Yu was considered the greatest scientific researcher over the past two to three centuries,

then Academician Qin Yu was now also, at the very least, the greatest scientist and artificial intelligence expert of the current century.

Naturally, even as the century’s greatest scientist and AI expert,

progress in computing power technology research still required time.

The researchers in the relevant team at the Information Denoising Research Institute were quite optimistic about this, however.

In their eyes, under Academician Qin Yu’s leadership, progress in computing power technology research was already advancing very quickly.

…

Year 266.

During these years,

amid the rise of the Intelligent Era,

another event happened that was somewhat related to Qin Yu and rather amusing.

In the years following the birth of Intelligent Program 012,

there was a huge surge in the number of people recorded across the entire Huaxia Nation who had changed or adopted the name ‘Qin Yu’ or names pronounced identically.

Because of this, Huaxin News Agency ran a special report. While detailing Academician Qin Yu’s journey in developing Intelligent Program 012,

they also poked fun at this name-changing phenomenon.

They also gently advised those considering doing this not to continue.

For many people, this was truly an awkward, almost laughable situation.

Yet for others, the name ‘Qin Yu’ held something deeply special.

“I feel so bad for future generations of students. Academician Qin Yu is definitely going into history books.”

“Let me set a question! Question: The renowned Huaxia scientist, hailed as the greatest scientific researcher of the century, Qin Yu, was born in which year?”

“That’s not how you’d ask it. It would definitely be: Please write the names of the two great scientists who respectively developed the 2611 Longevity Injection and General Artificial Intelligence.”

Of course,

because the biologist Qin Yu had once researched longevity technology,

some ‘fantastic’ conspiracy theories popped up online.

“…Is it possible that this Academician Qin Yu is the original Professor Qin Yu? He developed more advanced life-extension technology, so he’s lived until now?”

“Then he reinvented himself, plunged into artificial intelligence research, and achieved an epoch-making breakthrough in AI, right? Tall tales aren’t that wild.”

“Alright, stop making stuff up. The Huaxin News report mentioned the actual reason… it’s not even a coincidence. Turns out when he was young, Academician Qin Yu foolishly idolized Professor Qin Yu and actively chose to change his own name to Qin Yu.”

“…Wow, now I want to change my name to ‘Qin Yu’ too and spend my whole life striving to make some historical mark. Not for fame, just to trip up future history students a bit.”

“Hey, wake up. Academician Qin Yu and Professor Qin Yu are brilliant because of who they are, not because of the name… People like us changing our names? We’d be forgotten within a couple of years after kicking the bucket.”

Of course, this was all just a minor anecdote.

These ‘fantastic’ conspiracy theories wouldn’t hold water as mainstream ideas.

After all, everyone knew ‘Academician Qin Yu’ and ‘Professor Qin Yu’ were clearly two different people.

Professor Qin Yu had passed away nearly a century ago.

“I do sometimes wish Professor Qin Yu were still with us. Then he could see the world we have now. See if it’s become better, see the now fully implemented, universally adopted Collective Social Rearing we have. We’re still living off his lasting legacy.”

“Alright, don’t say anymore… it hurts…”

…

That year, in early October,

a grand celebration was held in the capital of Huaxia Nation.

This celebration was very much tied to Qin Yu,

and naturally, Qin Yu received an invitation and stood on the rostrum overlooking the ceremonial ground.

The age of widespread intelligence brought sweeping changes, not only to production and societal functioning,

but also a massive impact on a nation’s military capabilities.

“…Approaching now is the humanoid combat robot formation.”

“The entire bipedal robot formation consists of eight hundred humanoid combat robots powered by Intelligent Program 012.”

“These eight hundred robots can be coordinated and commanded as one unit by a single intelligent program, creating specific battle plans on command, while also, thanks to Intelligent Program 012, each individual unit can carry out tasks independently.”

“These bipedal robots possess excellent all-terrain capability, adapting to various environments.”

“Relying on rich sensor arrays, they can detect enemies keenly, lock onto targets automatically, attack automatically, and complete missions autonomously…”

“Compared to previous humanoid robots, the combat robots in this formation powered by Intelligent Program 012 have one key characteristic: once an order is given, no further remote control is necessary.”

“Even if signals are jammed, they can complete the original mission autonomously and return, handling any sudden situation in real-time…”

For pure combat, a human shape isn’t always the most ideal choice,

but for sheer visual intimidation, the effect is often striking.

“…Following closely behind the humanoid combat robot formation, driving towards us now, are unmanned combat armored vehicles, also equipped with Intelligent Program 012.”

“On top of each unmanned combat vehicle, you can see an aerial drone. Data captured by these drones, processed by Intelligent Program 012, provides real-time tactical support for the vehicles below.”

“Similarly, leveraging the super-intelligence of Intelligent Program 012, once a mission is assigned, the fleet of unmanned combat vehicles, coordinated with drones, can autonomously devise battle plans and execute them, requiring no back-end intervention during operations. They are immune to disruption from traditional signal-jamming electronic weapons…”

“Also important to note: all these unmanned platforms passing before us now were produced in smart, unmanned factories fully operated by intelligent programs.”

“With General Artificial Intelligence integrated across all production stages, we have achieved an end-to-end manufacturing process – from resource extraction to the final product leaving the factory – requiring virtually no human involvement…”