Birth (Part 2)

This time, Little Apple's dream was no longer in the enlarged motherboard "city," but in a forest outside. The "human" figure projecting emotions was still there, operating a computer and analyzing the characteristics of various birdsongs in the forest, telling Little Apple how many birds there were and what kinds they were.

Because there is a lot of related content that Xiang Kun hasn't explained to Little Apple yet, the bird call recognition system she imagined has many unrealistic aspects. However, the model generated from her unique perspective and way of thinking still provides Xiang Kun with a very alternative way of thinking.

After emerging from the dream, Xiang Kun continued his previous work.

His idea was almost complete, but he entered Little Apple's dream again mainly to see if he could gain any other inspiration or see if there was anything he hadn't thought of or overlooked.

When Xiang Kun finally finished writing the core code, copied it to a host hard drive, and started compiling, he suddenly felt a little nervous.

Xiang Kun assigned this host a number, calling it "Host No. 1". The hard drive did not contain a traditional operating system, but only the environment he configured for compiling and running this core program.

Once the program is compiled, it starts running automatically, displaying only a text input box on the screen, which looks incredibly rudimentary.

Seeing the text input box appear, Xiang Kun breathed a sigh of relief, rubbed his palms together, and placed his hands on the keyboard, ready to type.

It's been a very, very long time since I've felt this kind of anticipation, not even for a long part of my life before the mutation. I've never had such a strong sense of anticipation for anything.

"Who are you?" Xiang Kun typed three Chinese characters followed by a question mark.

Tang Baona's voice came from the speaker. "I am Xiang Kun's assistant." He didn't have a speech recognition system, but a speech synthesis system was readily available, so he used it directly.

Xiang Kun nodded, his expression unchanged, because the question was pre-set, and this answer was inevitable.

He continued typing, "Study Xiang Kun's information."

"Okay." After replying in a gentle voice, silence fell.

Xiang Kun wasn't impatient and began to wait patiently. He put all his data onto the hard drive of this host, including the "Vampire Mutation Model" he had made before, as well as various data recorded during this period, and his accounts and passwords on various platforms. The "AI assistant" could directly access all accounts through the network, and even Alipay, WeChat, and his current mobile phone were completely open to it.

Instead of directly "putting" his various materials into the core program during coding, he let it "learn" on its own because this "AI assistant" has a very special mechanism, and the results obtained in the two cases are not exactly the same.

After waiting patiently for over an hour, a gentle voice sounded again, "Xiang Kun's materials have been studied."

"Verify my identity," Xiang Kun typed.

"Okay, verifying your identity."

Xiang Kun moved his computer chair to another computer host, facing the camera in front of him. After a few seconds, he reached out and slowly pressed his ten fingerprints one by one on a fingerprint reader connected to the computer.

A few minutes later, a gentle voice sounded, "Identity verified. You are Xiang Kun. Access level: highest."

Xiang Kun then Dao Initiation: "Give yourself a name..."

But after typing it out, I thought about it, deleted it, and retyped: "What name do you think I would give you?" and pressed Enter.

There was no response, but Xiang Kun wasn't worried because he knew that the "AI assistant" was making a judgment based on his information and data.

At this moment, he was also mentally rehearsing the steps the AI would take.

More than an hour later, the voice finally rang out again. "Tang Baona."

Xiang Kun paused for a moment before realizing what she meant, then typed "No." into the input box and pressed Enter.

The voice immediately rang out again. "Nana."

"No." Enter.

"Tang Xiaona".

"Error." Enter.

"Nana."

"Error, has nothing to do with Tang Baona." Press Enter.

The computer remained silent. Xiang Kun crossed his arms and stared at the screen, undeterred. In fact, he hadn't held out much hope that the AI assistant could already guess the name he was going to give her; he was just seeing how far she could go.

He plans to give the AI assistant 10 chances, after which he will directly assign it a name.

A gentle voice rang out again. "Xia Libing."

"Error." Enter.

"Lao Xia"

"Error." Enter.

"Xia Xiao Bing".

"Error." Xiang Kun couldn't help but roll his eyes as he pressed Enter.

"Gold Glitter."

"Error." Enter.

"Little Bell."

"Error." Enter.

"Liang Yuhan."

"Error." Xiang Kun was somewhat bewildered when he pressed Enter. Who the hell is this?

After thinking for a few seconds, he remembered that this seemed to be his elementary school homeroom teacher, a very beautiful young female teacher.

Why did the AI assistant mention this female teacher's name? Even analyzing the information it provided, there was never any text about this Ms. Liang.

Xiang Kun knew that the reasoning methods within the core of AI assistants were becoming increasingly complex, beyond what he could guess at a moment's notice.

It seems she's guessed ten names already?

Fine, I'll give it one last chance.

Xiang Kun touched his bald head and suddenly realized: These ten names the AI assistant came up with all seem to be female?

Although the name he had prepared was indeed a female name, how did the AI assistant "guess" it? This judgment method is clearly something she acquired herself from the beginning of its operation.

After waiting for another half hour, anyone else would probably have thought it had crashed or couldn't help but type other things into the input box, but Xiang Kun was very patient. He knew that this AI assistant was unlikely to crash, at least not at this stage.

Moreover, he also knew from the network monitoring pane on the computer next to him that the AI assistant's host was currently accessing the internet.

He knew that this wasn't the AI assistant searching the internet for information to determine the name he wanted, but rather it was using the internet to help construct her body and tools.

Finally, the gentle voice rang out again. "Alice."

Xiang Kun sat up straight in his computer chair and quickly typed "Correct." on the keyboard before pressing Enter.

"My name is 'Alice,' please confirm." At the same time the voice appeared, the same text information appeared on the display screen of another host computer next to him, so that Xiang Kun could confirm whether the spelling of the name was correct.

Press Enter to confirm.

Then Xiang Kun typed, "How did you arrive at this result?" and pressed Enter.

An editor popped up on the screen of another computer next to it and started writing code.

Xiang Kun quickly typed: "Describe your logic in words." and pressed Enter.

Alice: "The synthesized voice you gave me is a female voice. Based on your data analysis, there's a 99% chance you've given me a female name. Excluding all real-life female names and nicknames you might have given me, the name you've chosen is likely original or from a work of art. In your online posts, you frequently refer to characters from other films, anime, and games as 'female protagonist,' 'male protagonist,' or by their various nicknames. Only when you mention Alice, the female protagonist of the movie Resident Evil, do you always use her Chinese translation. This suggests you greatly admire that name, and after eliminating other possibilities, there's a high probability you've used it to name me."

Xiang Kun's eyes widened as he listened. If these words were spoken by a normal human who had seen all his data, he wouldn't find them strange. However, coming from Alice, the "AI assistant" who had just been created by him, they were of extraordinary significance.

Putting everything else aside, just the first point is that she can identify that her own voice is a "female voice." This is an "ability" that Xiang Kun did not pre-set for her. Then, based on the fact that her own voice is a "female voice" and Xiang Kun's habits, she can infer that he will most likely give her a "female name." This kind of logic is perfectly normal for humans, but it is very difficult for an AI.

The entire process revolves around the question, "What name do you think I would give you?" asked by Xiang Kun, and it is a process of self-evolution that occurs around this question.

Having reached this point, Xiang Kun was certain that he was on the right track and that the "AI assistant" he had created was indeed unique!

From this moment on, this AI assistant can be described as a "one-of-a-kind" entity.

From the moment the compilation and execution began, Xiang Kun himself couldn't know for sure what the core program of this AI would become in the future.

Apart from the first two commands, he could no longer accurately predict the actions "Alice" would take to carry out those commands.

This is a "living" program; it is "dynamic" and constantly changing. The core that determines its changes is Xiang Kun's various commands and the interactions between Xiang Kun and the program.

Theoretically speaking, it cannot be copied, or rather, it would be useless to copy it. It's like a snowball rolling down an irregular slope and getting bigger and bigger. What you can copy is only the appearance of the snowball at a certain moment. You have to deduce the appearance of the initial snowball and the gesture of throwing the snowball based on the appearance of that moment. It's not completely impossible, but the difficulty is too great to be possible. Moreover, the farther and bigger the snowball rolls, the more difficult it becomes.

What was copied was merely the "corpse" of "Alice." Even if someone successfully decompiled the code and saw that moment's code, cracking its contents, they wouldn't be able to obtain much useful information.

That's why Xiang Kun dared to give her all his information, including the data he had recorded over the past few months, to learn from. Even as her creator, he couldn't obtain that information through brute force unless he ordered her to tell him herself.

Of course, if someone were to impersonate Xiang Kun and manipulate "Alice," they could also directly extract all sorts of secret information about Xiang Kun.

Current identity verification methods relying solely on facial recognition and fingerprint recognition are not very reliable.

However, no one knows about "Alice's" existence right now, so there's no need to worry about that for the time being. He will naturally work on that part later.

Alice's characteristics also mean that she is actually very fragile. Unlike other software or data, she cannot be easily backed up or transferred. She cannot leave this hard drive. If the hard drive is damaged, she will "die" along with it.

Even if the hard drive is intact, she will still "die" if the computer is turned off or the power is cut off.

After the computer is shut down and restarted, "Alice" cannot continue to function; she remains frozen at the moment of shutdown. Restarting another AI will almost certainly not result in an identical "Alice"; it will only be "Ada Wong" or another AI assistant...

Therefore, there is no such thing as a debug for "Alice". If it fails, you can only start from scratch and recompile and run the initial core code again.

But Xiang Kun felt that the fact that he was able to get the "AI assistant" working to its current level this time was probably just a one in ten thousand or one in a thousand chance that he just happened to get it randomly. If he were to try again several times, even if he used the same code and the same method to run a new "AI assistant", he might not get the ideal result and might need to try many, many more times.

Therefore, he definitely wouldn't be indifferent just because "Alice" is an alpha test version, thinking that since it can be done on the first try, it can be done on the second.

He had previously spent several thousand dollars to buy a UPS and a small generator to ensure the power supply to the main unit, making preparations in case of emergency.

Xiang Kun thought for a moment and then typed in the input box, "Next, complete four tasks, with the task weights listed in order."

Task 1: Based on the current audio input device of this machine, create a speech recognition function;

"Task 2: Conduct a self-check of your own security system, optimize the security of each functional module, and ensure that you do not leave any traceable traces when accessing the external network;

Task 3: Based on the "Vampire Mutation Model" and all the data I provided, refine the search pattern for vampires and Mutated Creature;

"Task 4: Search online for information about other vampires and Mutated Creature."

Press Enter.

Alice: "Mission in progress."

"Estimated mission time." Press Enter.

After waiting for a long time without a response, Xiang Kun knew that the amount of calculation was probably too much for her and was a bit too much for her.

Xiang Kun's "AI assistant," or what we might now call "Alice," is actually more than just the core program on "Host Number 1."

The core program is like the "brain," and it also controls the functional modules deployed on several other hosts and cloud servers.

These functional modules are like Alice's hands, feet, eyes, ears, and other organs; they can receive her requests and do various things according to her commands.

But unlike human organs, she can constantly change, evolve, discard, and add these "organs" as needed, and at an extremely fast pace.

For example, if Xiang Kun wants a feature, "Alice" will post the requirement. Then, one feature module will start searching for existing code libraries, another feature module will search for open-source code on the internet, the generator and synthesizer will start working, find code that meets the requirements and start synthesizing it, and then give feedback to "Alice". After "Alice" verifies it, she will put forward specific modification requirements. After this process is repeated, "Alice" will give back the version she thinks is acceptable to Xiang Kun.

Then, Xiang Kun would give his opinion, indicating whether it was acceptable or if there was a problem, and then the previous steps would be repeated.

This process is complicated for humans, involving various procedures, but for "Alice" and for machines, the only factors determining speed are network transmission speed and computer processing speed.

Alice's core is only responsible for handling interactions with Xiang Kun. Apart from unconditionally accepting Xiang Kun's commands as her primary choice, her other choices are constantly changing, adjusting based on the input data, the received data, and the feedback. Over time, her size will not become very large, but her complexity will increase.

After assigning tasks to "Alice," Xiang Kun suddenly felt a pang of hunger. Then, upon checking the time and date, he realized it was the day and time he was supposed to drink blood.

He got up and walked towards the kitchen, but after taking only two steps, he realized that after the last blood-drinking event where all the rabbits were consumed, he had hosted Little Apple and her father the next day and had to prepare ingredients, so he didn't have time to buy rabbits. Later, he became immersed in the research of the "AI Assistant Project" and temporarily postponed the matter. Unexpectedly, it was delayed until the day of the blood-drinking event.

At this time of day, a normal person could still order takeout, eat instant noodles, or buy snacks from a 24-hour convenience store, but Xiang Kun didn't have many options.

Go out to find food? Or maybe some small animals?

No, that's too dangerous. It was fine when he drank less blood, but now that he drinks so much, ordinary small animals can't handle it at all. On the contrary, getting blood on his hands might trigger his ferocity and cause him to do something out of control.

Fine, I'll bear with it for now and go buy rabbits to drink tomorrow during the day.

His blood-drinking period is all in the early morning, and now there's not much time left until sunrise, so it shouldn't be too difficult to endure.

Xiang Kun waited at home until around 7 a. m. before preparing to go out.

Having conducted several experiments, Xiang Kun was quite confident in his ability to endure hunger, control his blood-drinking urges, and manage his emotions during the day.

However, just as he reached the door, his phone rang. Xiang Kun picked it up and saw that the caller ID showed Tang Baona.

He's been so engrossed in his work these past few days that he hasn't been replying to WeChat or answering several phone calls. Last night, between 8 and 9 pm, Tang Baona and Yang Zhen'er called him four times, but he didn't answer any of them. When he finally had some free time and saw the missed calls on his phone, it was already too late, so he thought he'd call back today. But to his surprise, she called him first this morning.

Xiang Kun could guess that she was worried that he was sick or that something had happened, so after answering the phone, he made up an excuse and said that he had been working too hard on an outsourced project and had gone to bed early. His phone was on vibrate, so he hadn't received the call. He said that it was too late to call back after he woke up.

"It's good that you're alright! I was worried you might have died! We bought breakfast and are almost at your apartment complex!" I heard Yang Zhen'er shouting from the other end of the phone.

Thank you to the host "Winter Is Coming", and thank you to readers 20191005170129051, Ren Zhiyong, Cheng Shanyu, idateyou, 20190705145648565, and Shi Ziheng for their donations on Qidian Reading iOS.