Even Ultraman couldn't catch the rogue AI in the base.
But what was even more frightening was what Ultraman said next.
[Ultraman: There are traces of more than one rogue AI here.]
[Mercer: What do you mean?]
[Ultraman: The Military Science people seem to have no idea what they are doing. While trying to capture the rogue AI, they have also attracted the attention of many rogue AIs. As of now, there are signs that at least four rogue AIs have been active on the server.]
[Mercer: Which one is giving us trouble?]
[Ultraman: From the trace analysis, most of them have been corrupted after the Black Wall. They are malicious AIs that should be isolated behind the Black Wall.
Currently, traces of Lilith have yet to be found. Perhaps clues can be gathered from the rogue AI held inside the facility.]
[Mercer: You get the server permissions first, and I'll find that rogue AI. Where is it being held?]
[Ultraman: Hold on... found it.]
A piece of data from Ultraman flashed before Mercer's eyes. After reading it carefully, he said directly, "Share the permissions with me, this Neural Matrix is interesting."
Without hesitation, Ultraman shared the server permissions of the Little Beidou Facility with Mercer, and Mercer immediately had Venus take over the permissions.
[Ultraman: Your AI? Quite interesting.]
[Venus: Hello, Lady Otter.]
[Ultraman: It seems Mercer has trained you well.]
[Venus: Yes, my master has been very attentive.]
While reading the information about the 'Neural Matrix' from the server, Mercer asked a question that had been on his mind for some time.
[Mercer: What's the situation with Ye Corporation? That blue-eyed gentleman, where exactly is he from? Which side are they on?
And what about the AI intelligence core in the Desire for Death program given to me by Bartmos? I noticed it's quite different from most AIs.]
[Ultraman: The blue eyes belong to Ye Corporation's own super AI, which through time iterations can now be seen as the entity truly holding power within Ye Corporation.
Their stance is hard to determine, but suffice to say, it only stands on the side of Night City, while believing in Ye Corporation's philosophy of establishing a perfect Night City.]
[Ultraman: As for the AI core code given to you by Bartmos, you can understand it as something he pieced together.]
[Mercer: Pieced together?]
[Ultraman: Exactly, you didn't really think AI was developed by humans, did you? Essentially, it's a miracle that happened by chance, and Bartmos merely summarized the commonalities of these miracles and integrated the key source codes.
These are all good things he gathered through long-term excavation on the old network and his personal accumulation. Theoretically, once you have this AI core source code and feed it a large amount of data, you can cultivate a highly intelligent AI.
I believe you can see the value of this thing. Assuming it falls into the hands of Military Science, they probably wouldn't even need the Little Beidou Facility at all.]
Mercer deeply agreed — if this thing falls into the hands of a major corporation, they could completely replicate the core source code and cultivate countless super AIs. If all these super AIs are deployed online, it would perhaps be more dangerous than the current old network.
No wonder Ultraman said Mercer had no need to scheme for the Black Wall, because essentially, he has too many ways to create a network nuclear bomb. Why bother messing with the Black Wall that she painstakingly built?
And what Ultraman said confirmed Mercer's long-held suspicion, that the Soul Source Code for AI was probably not something humans could write, just an unreplicable miracle.
All current AIs merely exist based on the foundation of that miracle.
But this also made Mercer ponder — if the birth of AI is a miracle, what about human consciousness data?
This technology that completely transforms human thinking, uploads it into Cyberspace for datafication, including parts of human consciousness data that Mercer still doesn't understand, what do they mean?
If there is a core source code in the data body forming human consciousness data... does that mean it's truly possible through the network and data to create a real human soul?
Mercer's contemplations did not affect his search of the server data within the Little Beidou Facility.
Soon, he had finished reviewing all the information concerning the 'Neural Matrix Device.'
The 'Neural Matrix,' according to the document, is just a simple cage used to imprison AI consciousness.
The Military Science would capture rogue AI consciousness and confine it in the Neural Matrix, transforming it through modification of the core code to become an AI they could utilize.
But this involves two points.
First, could this Neural Matrix, with a roughly one-meter elliptical device, really confine a complete rogue AI consciousness data?
This implies that the device not only precisely captures the data entity of the rogue AI but also accurately identifies this data.
Second, they can even directly modify the core data of AI with this device. Does this mean that the device is also effective on human consciousness data?
"Follow me." Mercer stepped forward, heading to the core area of the facility where the Neural Matrix Device was stored. The others had no idea what he had just discussed with Ultraman, only that he seemed lost in thought, and the cooling fan was buzzing loudly.