Collective Wisdom

Without hesitation, the scholar immediately voiced his thoughts. "Based on the Silver Mist Consciousness's consistent behavior, we have reason to believe that this is a question it subconsciously doesn't want to answer, or is deliberately avoiding."

The moment those words came out, the other experts looked a little awkward. Wasn't that just nonsense? Why was he refusing to answer when they wanted to?

However, the scholar seemed completely oblivious. He paused briefly before continuing, "There are two reasons for avoiding a question: one, simply because they don't want us to know; two, because there's more to it than meets the eye."

Since the Silver Mist Consciousness already believes it has victory in its grasp, there's no reason it wouldn't even say this. Therefore, I believe it's the second possibility: it can't say, or it's unwilling to reveal it because it involves its own secrets.

"Based on this speculation, we can easily draw the following conclusions: First, when we landed for the first time, the incoming Silver Mist was not controlled by the Silver Mist Consciousness.

Second: It was the Silver Mist Consciousness was in control, but at that time it may have been affected by some kind of built-in program, the original mining program, and therefore did not have time to 'apply the brakes', causing the Silver Mist, which was operating according to the mining program, to disintegrate the first batch of transport ships.

Third: More than 20,000 years is a long time for any kind of life, and Silver Mist, as a self-aware, arguably living being, must have felt incredibly bored.

Because it is limited by itself and can only stay on that barren planet, unable to do anything, the Silver Mist Consciousness may pass the time by going into hibernation.

And that's why the Silver Mist that initially attacked us was controlled by the original mining process, which decomposed what the original Silver Mist Consciousness needed.

Fourthly, life's energy consumption is always enormous. The Silver Mist Consciousness reduced its energy consumption through hibernation to survive the long years, ultimately missing its first opportunity.

From the Silver Mist Consciousness's brief refusal, the scholar summarized four possibilities. Although the third and fourth points were very similar, they were still quite remarkable.

His words made everyone, including Yue Yuan, fall into deep thought.

Everyone is thinking that perhaps the weaknesses of the Silver Mist Consciousness are hidden behind these four possibilities. If it can be confirmed that this is the reason, humanity may be able to follow the clues and find the weaknesses of the Silver Mist Consciousness.

Just then, another scientist on the split screen, who had been pondering for a while, suddenly spoke up, "I think there is a fifth possibility."

Everyone looked at the screen in front of them and saw that the speaker was Chen Haiyu, an expert in the field of AI.

"I'd like to add something," Chen Haiyu said. "I think there's another possibility: there's more than one Silver Mist Consciousness."

Upon hearing this, everyone participating in the video discussion displayed different expressions.

Before they could ask, Chen Haiyu explained, "According to the development of computers, in the field of AI, we all know that the core of AI is its data, computing power, and algorithms, which can be simply called programs."

"As a consciousness that evolved from Intelligent Program, the most basic component of the Silver Mist Consciousness must also be an initial program. Since a program can usually only control one or a single unit of hardware or machine, the only way to achieve multi-machine control is to form a network."

At this point in Chen Haiyu's speech, an expert couldn't help but interject, asking, "Does Dr. Chen mean that there's a problem with the Silver Mist Network?"

"Hmm," Chen Haiyu pondered for a moment upon hearing the question, but did not refute it. Instead, he nodded to the expert who had interrupted and said, "It is possible, but I think it is unlikely. Or rather, it is a problem with the network, but not the network in the traditional sense."

Chen Haiyu took a breath and continued to explain, "For us, all we need is a program and to establish a network of various nodes, just like 'Tianhe Light'. But if we do it this way, once there are too many threads, we will run into a situation where the computing power is insufficient. And this is precisely the real situation of the Silver Mist Consciousness."

"How so?" someone asked.

"Life! Creation!" Before Chen Haiyu could speak, Yi Kai, who was also discussing the video on the screen, answered first, "Although the Silver Mist Consciousness claims to be a higher existence than us and the Moke Star People, this is precisely where its insecurity and weakness lie."

Life is so wondrous. How can a mere creation of a civilization compare to life that has emerged over billions of years of cosmic evolution? Therefore, I believe that even if the Silver Mist Consciousness is intelligent and its computing power surpasses ours, its fatal flaw is its lack of creativity. This is why, as a Level 3 Civilization, it is confined to a mere planet.

"Yes, Doctor Yi Kai is right."

Chen Haiyu nodded in agreement at Yi Kai, then continued with his addition, "It's normal that you don't work with AI and don't understand the Silver Mist Consciousness. Only what Doctor Yi Kai said can explain its predicament of being trapped on the planet."

So now we can conclude that the Silver Mist Consciousness, in addition to possessing mining skills and self-awareness, may also include some limited information about the Moke Star People, but it certainly hasn't mastered much of the science and technology of Level 3 Civilization.

This explains why it didn't even know about Controlled Nuclear Fusion back then, and the stories that deceived us, along with the footage of the Moke Star People, were likely data from the original Moke Star People base on this mining planet.

"We've gone off on a tangent," Chen Haiyu scratched his head, which had lost a few more strands of hair, and steered the conversation back to the main point he wanted to make at the beginning. "In other words, the Silver Mist Consciousness is limited by hardware conditions, but it needs to control all the Silver Mist, so it can only use one method, which is very simple for a consciousness born from Intelligent Program, and that is to copy another program that is exactly the same as itself!"

"Just like when we copied two subroutines from 'Tianhe Light' and used them on Ross 154-7 and its satellite base respectively."

"By using this method, one's own sub-individuals can control other Silver Mist pairs. As we have seen before, after those Silver Mist flew out of the cave, they were still clearly separated into distinct patches, instead of all the Silver Mist merging into one, just like this Silver Mist that is chasing us now."

"However, if you use your own clones to control more Silver Mist, a situation will inevitably arise: leave a backdoor for the clones, and then enslave your own clones."

If this is the case, it's not hard to deduce that the Silver Mist Consciousness that disintegrated us was likely enslaved by itself for too long, lost all hope, and committed suicide. The Silver Mist thus became a mining program without consciousness.

Uh... is that really the conclusion?

Looking at Chen Haiyu speaking eloquently, Yue Yuan was somewhat surprised by his conclusion.

Yue Yuan felt that the information Chen Haiyu mentioned during his analysis was more valuable than his conclusion.