Unable to Advance an Inch
A century of ups and downs, a world undergoing profound changes.
During the construction of the Space Multi-Point Particle Collider, humanity is also climbing towards higher scientific peaks.
While engineers are working tirelessly to build the Space Multi-Point Particle Collider, scientists from various fields are also busy, leading their teams in their respective areas to launch wave after wave of attacks on higher scientific peaks.
Because humanity has long known that the hallmark technology of Level 3 Civilization is True Nano Technology, the scientific team's research objective is very clear: either to directly explore microscopic Nanotechnology, or to study technologies related to or preceding Nanotechnology.
Of course, research in other areas will not stop, only the allocation of resources will be slightly different.
In this context, many outstanding new-generation scientists have emerged in human society, and there have been many breakthroughs in science and technology, with many new theories being proposed.
The first advancement was in Quantum Computer technology.
Humans have encountered genuine Nano Consciousness, so it's clear that with current computer technology, it's impossible to create such advanced Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, humanity has consistently strived to improve its computer technology.
Humans have long since achieved General-purpose Quantum Computer, but there is still room for optimization in computer architecture design, various logic settings, and so on. Therefore, in recent years, humans have been making unremitting efforts to improve the General-purpose Quantum Computer.
After so many years of hard work, we have finally taken another big step forward.
However, computer scientists have discovered that even a well-developed General-purpose Quantum Computer cannot truly become a self-aware Artificial Intelligence.
Humans do want the AI they create to become increasingly intelligent, but they do not want the AI they create to have self-awareness, because that would mean Technological Crisis.
Since the "Silver Mist Consciousness" incident, humanity has understood this point, which is why it has been somewhat hesitant to promote the advancement of General-purpose Quantum Computer and create smarter AI.
However, scientists have now discovered that their general-purpose computers seem to have reached a bottleneck.
After countless years of optimization, they all felt that humanity's Central Computer, the largest General-purpose Quantum Computer, had reached a point of perfection that could not be improved. In short, they could not find any area where humanity could make further improvements.
Not only those who work on computer optimization, but even AI scientists who have created AI based on General-purpose Quantum Computer cannot find any improvements in the new AI they have created.
The new AI can learn and update itself. Once authorized, it can input massive amounts of data or simple rules, learn on its own, adjust and analyze the model, and then output new ordered information. It can continuously optimize and adjust, forming a cyclical process.
Since its creation, the new AI has undergone decades of iterations by scientists. With the powerful computing capabilities of current General-purpose Quantum Computer, this AI has already updated and iterated countless times.
Its capabilities have completely surpassed those of previous AI systems. In fact, if you didn't know it was AI beforehand, you could talk to it for years without realizing it was AI. Whether in terms of knowledge accumulation or work efficiency, it is far beyond the reach of humans.
But that's all. In terms of reason, it has completely surpassed humans, but in terms of handling and judging the unknown and events, as well as in the emotional cognition of things, it is inferior to humans.
Human scientists naturally understand this, but this new AI seems to have reached a point where it can't go any further, just like General-purpose Quantum Computer. Scientists have tried to make it continue to iterate, but after countless years of iterative experiments, the AI remains the same.
It's like the road ahead is blocked.
Scientists have also wondered if there is room for optimization in the General-purpose Quantum Computer that forms the basis of AI, but they have found no possible room for optimization.
Humanity doesn't want to create a self-aware AI, but it does want to understand why it can't create such an AI. After all, only by knowing why can we effectively prevent the Technological Crisis.
To find out why, scientists even created an AI that simulated the human brain, but it was completely useless; this AI was even dumber than the previous AI.
Not only computer technology, but also human research into the microscopic realm has reached a bottleneck.
Scientists are trying to create smaller robots by manufacturing smaller chips, but in the process they have discovered that no matter how they optimize them or what materials they use, they cannot avoid the Quantum Tunneling Effect that occurs at the 1nn level.
This is far from the picometer- and Femtometer -level circuit technology that humanity speculated about when encountering the 'Silver Mist Consciousness' back then. Of course, scientists have also tried photons, but like electrons, all microscopic particles exhibit Quantum Tunneling Effect.
This is a law of cosmic physics that humanity simply cannot solve.
Humanity's impact on Level 3 Civilization was thus blocked by an invisible wall, remaining out of reach.
Decades have passed, and in an effort to solve these problems, humanity has pooled its wisdom, holding countless Technology Seminar and academic conferences, trying every possible method, yet still without any clue.
"Year after year, are we really stuck at the Level 2 Civilization?!" After another seminar ended, Yue Yuan sighed and slowly stood up from the audience.
Over the years, humanity's countless top scientists seem to have changed when faced with the challenges of Level 3 Civilization. Their sharpness remains, but they seem to have become mediocre.
For the past ten years or so, Yue Yuan has attended Technology Seminar almost every year as an observer. Although he does not participate in the discussions, he can tell that after so many years, humanity is still helpless in the face of this problem.
At the annual Technology Seminar, other scientific and technological topics were fine, but the topic of Nanotechnology was almost always the same old story. Optimization of General-purpose Quantum Computer, microscopic Quantum Tunneling, AI iteration problems, and breakthroughs in Nano Core were all stalled.
In fact, after so many years of development, humanity has already mastered the technology that marks Level 2 Civilization, and its derivative technologies have been realized one by one and used to serve humanity.
It can be said that humanity had already reached the peak of Level 2 Civilization a hundred years ago, but at this point, it began to stagnate.
If this continues, Yue Yuan is genuinely worried that humanity might become decadent.
During these decades of technological stagnation, Yue Yuan had already sensed some signs. It wasn't that some scientists were becoming complacent, but rather that some people on the internet were expressing the idea that technology had stagnated and that humanity was trapped at Level 2 Civilization.