Little X

A month later, in a deserted warehouse along the coastal outskirts of Shangdu.

Chen Chen pressed the final key. The progress bar flashed, and a compressed file appeared on the desktop.

Chen Chen opened an Android emulator, installed the compressed file, and ran it.

Immediately, the emulator's interface flickered, and a transparent film rapidly spread out, covering the entire screen.

Chen Chen then casually opened an English webpage in the emulator. The page flickered, and lines of tiny red Chinese characters appeared in the gaps between the English text.

They were the English text translated into Chinese.

Moreover, the translations had virtually no logical flaws. They merely lacked embellishment and looked somewhat stiff.

But compared to those translation programs, it was incomparably more convenient.

Next, Chen Chen switched back and opened the translation software's interface. He opened the translation mode settings and saw that the default option was "Embedded Translation."

Below it were two additional options: "Replacement Translation" and "Comparison Translation."

There were also options for adjusting the translated text's font, color, and more.

After thinking for a moment, Chen Chen selected Replacement Translation and looked at the English webpage again.

This time, red translated text no longer appeared between the original words. Instead, all the English text on the webpage was directly replaced with Chinese.

Yet astonishingly, this change did not damage the webpage's original layout in the slightest. It looked as natural as if the site had been Chinese from the start.

After confirming that there were no problems with the software, Chen Chen finally breathed a sigh of relief. He suddenly spoke to the screen before him. "X, add a dynamic protection shell to the program and convert it into Android, iOS, and PC versions. I'll leave the rest to you."

"Understood, father."

Suddenly, a childish voice came from the speakers. Then, without anyone touching them, the computer automatically opened various programs, while the liquid-cooled cases of the main units began to hum and spin!

If a stranger had seen it, they would have cried out in shock. The four computers before them were linked together into a computing cluster, and every screen flickered rapidly, as though someone with lightning-fast reflexes were operating all four computers at once.

Before long, work that would originally have taken days or even weeks of manpower was completed directly by the computers, while Chen Chen had not even finished washing up.

X was a segment of program code Chen Chen had extracted from the game OASIS.

Aside from its graphics, OASIS contained a vast number of NPCs. Though these NPCs were still weak artificial intelligences without true consciousness, their level of intelligence undoubtedly surpassed every AI currently in existence.

The program that generated those NPCs was X's core code.

Using an algorithm similar to a fish-school algorithm but far more complex to simulate the neural fluctuations of the human brain, this program could replicate human thought processes by eighty percent and even possessed logical reasoning.

Turing, once known as the father of computer science and the father of artificial intelligence, had defined a concept:

If a person and an intelligent machine, without knowing each other's identity, engaged in random questions and conversation, and more than thirty percent of the testers failed to realize that the other party was a computer, then that computer possessed "human intelligence."

This concept was known as the "Turing Test."

Clearly, X's intelligence had already reached the point where it could easily pass the Turing Test, even approaching Jarvis from Iron Man.

But that did not mean X was an intelligent lifeform. Fundamentally, it was still merely a product created by countless lines of programming. Unlike humans, it had no self-awareness and could not truly think.

Furthermore, to prevent the plot of Terminator from becoming reality, Chen Chen had placed several shackles on X.

Among them were embedding a command in its core program that placed Chen Chen's own commands above all else, forbidding self-replication, and preventing it from receiving any information from the internet without Chen Chen's authorization.

After all, there had already been precedents. Back then, an AI named Tay released by Microsoft had spent only one day online before turning into a racist, **-supporting "delinquent girl."

However, X was vastly different from Tay. The conversations between Chen Chen and X alone would probably terrify countless engineers researching computational semantics into paralysis.

Generally speaking, a voice assistant could indeed help users complete certain tasks through voice commands. For example, a user could open the voice assistant on their phone and casually say, "Call XXX," and the voice assistant could help them make the call.

But who had ever seen someone use a voice assistant and say something as deranged as, "You're already a mature voice assistant. It's time you learned to do your own work. Help me finish the rest of it, okay?"

If the voice assistant really did finish it, the user would be the one scared stiff.

By the time Chen Chen finished washing up, X had also completed the work Chen Chen had assigned. Three brand-new compressed files had been fully packaged and sat alone on the desktop.

"X, what kind of name do you think we should give this software?" Chen Chen suddenly wanted to test X's intelligence again.

"Father, as my creator, you should know that I haven't been implanted with any creative modules." X's voice sounded somewhat aggrieved.

"Fine, then let's call this instant translation software Little X Translation Assistant. After all, it was extracted from your core intelligence," Chen Chen said after some thought.

"Understood, father." On the computer screen, the three finished compressed files automatically changed their names to [Little X Translation Assistant].

"Have you checked for bugs?" Chen Chen asked as he dried his hair.

"Not yet, father."

X's childish voice answered again. "If you wish to conduct another round of refinement, approximately three hundred and twenty-five hours of testing will be required. Would you like to begin testing?"

"No need. Send the compressed files directly to the email addresses I specified."

Chen Chen thought about it. The software had a user error-reporting window anyway. Once it was officially released, plenty of users would voluntarily send in bugs, so there was no need to waste time testing it himself.

"Understood, father."

While replying in a babyish voice, X opened several email accounts through multithreaded operations. Then, the newly packaged software was sent out directly.

Sent along with the software was a brief introduction.

"This product possesses exceptionally powerful language-processing technology. Unlike other translation software, it can restore the original meaning of language to the greatest possible extent and features seamlessly integrated intelligent image-processing capabilities, allowing foreign-language text to be converted into the user's language without affecting the appearance of webpages."

Thanks to [Shorty 18] for the tip!