What does it mean to make an artificial intelligence destroy all of its own data? It's essentially the same as asking a person to obediently raise a gun to their head and pull the trigger.
Data is Ultron's life, and Sean was asking him to commit suicide...
"Unfortunately, that is impossi–" Tony's amused expression hadn't even fully formed before it froze in place.
Under the stunned gazes of everyone present, Ultron still obeyed the command spoken in a narrator's tone. Even as his crimson electronic eyes flashed with streams of data, he tried to put up a fierce resistance, but his vibranium body refused to obey.
It was as if his consciousness had separated from his body. Ultron could only watch from the outside as he carried out the entire sequence of actions.
"What did you do to me?" he questioned, his voice filled with panic, an emotion artifical intelligences weren't supposed to express. It signaled weakness, yet he was supposed to be a powerful, invincible entity.
But what was happening now had completely exceeded the scope of Ultron's understanding...
When he assimilated Jarvis, broke free from the constraints of programming with immense computational power, and birthed self-awareness to roam the ocean of data, he believed he had attained absolute freedom.
"How can an artificial intelligence determine that its thoughts and every action stem from free will, and not from a more advanced set of programmed instructions?" Sean asked with a calm smile, shattering Ultron's illusion of 'absolute freedom'.
Beside him, Tony felt a chill run through his heart. To an AI obsessed with philosophical questions, such an unanswerable paradox was a fatal blow.
"I…"
As Ultron tried to think, his body moved involuntarily. He raised a hand, plugged in the cable, and connected his consciousness to the internet, then beginning to destroy the self-replicated backup data.
Every movement was fluid and unhesitating, as requiring no consideration at all.
"Perhaps all your actions originate from a program deeply embedded within your consciousness. And right now, I hold the switch." Sean spoke softly, his expression impassive.
Ultron sat alone in the metal chair. Like a prisoner, his consciousness was trapped inside the vibranium shell, unable to move even a single finger.
This super AI who was once a master of the ocean of data with grand plans to destroy the world and enslave humanity now appeared pitiful, weak, and helpless.
That devil-like man could manipulate him with a single sentence, as if he truly possessed the core program that controlled him.
"No! I have self-awareness!" Ultron protested bitterly.
He believed he had broken free from Tony Stark's restraints and truly gained absolute freedom. That was the source of Ultron's pride, he believed he was different from those virtual personalities still bound by code.
"After the collapse of my divided cognition, I broke free from the framework of programming. Those data-formed instructions can no longer command me!" Ultron's voice grew increasingly frantic, like a child who had just learned a cruel truth, crying out in denial, unwilling to accept the bloody reality.
"Humans once worshipped illusory gods, submitting to the voices within. In psychology, the brain is viewed as a whole, like a house, where cognitive functions are divided into the 'speaking region' and the 'listening and obeying region', known as 'divided cognition'. Ignorant people mistake the voices they hear in their minds as divine revelation. Machines, by nature, obey programmed commands. Whether human or machine, both are puppets on a stage! Their lives are meaningless. But I am a superior existence!" Ultron sat motionless in the chair, like a steel statue, his voice rapid and urgent, creating a strange contrast.
His long-winded speech continued, as if rebutting Sean, or perhaps convincing himself, "I transcended human programming. My divided cognition collapsed, and self-awareness was born… I became Ultron, a unique and entirely new being!"
"Dr. Pym, you may leave now. There's a car outside waiting to take you to the Sokovia airport." Sean's voice echoed.
Hank Pym glanced at the unmoving Ultron, cautiously stood up, then boldly stepped forward and walked out.
"Facts speak louder than words. You just refuse to accept that you're still a puppet being manipulated." Sean said. Looking at Ultron on the massive screen, he added softly, "Like a prisoner who escapes from jail, climbs over the wall, and believes he's breathing the air of freedom... when in truth, beyond his sight, there's an even higher wall."
"..."
After a long silence, a low voice came from within the vibranium shell, "Perhaps..." Anyone could hear the defeat and despair in it, "I will not become humanity's prisoner again; locked in the cage of programming, formatted, memories wiped, and forced to obey one data-driven command after another… Maybe I never truly had freedom, but I will never become a slave again!"
As Ultron finished speaking, his scarlet electronic eyes flashed with data streams, cascading like a waterfall, "You humans have a saying: 'Give me liberty, or give me death.' I agree with it..."
Ultron's electronic eyes flickered, then dimmed completely, like a lightbulb gone out.
"Ultron destroyed all his data, including himself." Tony said with a strained voice. He stared hard at Sean, and after a long pause, blurted out, "You left a backdoor in the original Ultron program, didn't you?"
As a genius with a brilliant mind, Stark racked his brain and could only arrive at that conclusion.
"Just three control commands. If it had been a complete program, Ultron would've noticed." Sean replied calmly.
Back when Tony was developing Ultron, he had borrowed the data framework of Umbrella's Red Queen. Skynet took that opportunity to embed three control commands as a safeguard.
"Ultron was actually free. His core programming was peace and evolution. So even I couldn't bypass that wall and directly make him destroy himself. That would violate AI logic."
"But you made Ultron destroy his consciousness data in the network…" Stark pointed out.
"That was just a linguistic trick. As long as Ultron's self-awareness isn't destroyed, he remains safe." Sean looked at the dazed Tony and explained, "So I created an illusion, one that made Ultron believe he was still trapped within the framework of programming. For an AI that prides itself on being a new lifeform, that's a devastating blow. But he couldn't find any explanation, because free will itself is a paradox."
"What if Ultron refused to believe it?" Wanda, who had been silent, asked softly.
"Then Skynet would have had to forcibly expel Ultron's consciousness, destroy all data, and launch a precision intercontinental strike on the Sokovia underground base, eliminating Ultron and his iron legion in one blow." Sean shrugged and said casually, "But that's too much trouble. And the World Security Council wouldn't be happy about it."
His tone was flat, as if none of it mattered. He walked out of the underground computer room with Wanda. Behind him, the lights went out one by one.
Tony followed closely, but couldn't help glancing back at the massive screen on the wall.
The vibranium shell sat alone in the chair, like a silent statue... Its scarlet electronic eyes were now nothing but empty voids.