The Accident
As usual, the birds flew leisurely towards the Castle in formation. Their flight path, almost identical to usual, did not attract the attention of the Castle's artificial intelligence.
Suddenly, a ball of fire appeared in the far distance. The camera panned to the location of the fire, revealing an extremely rare high-speed car collision.
In the Star Sea Alliance, the technology of using planetary magnetic fields to achieve antigravity is only considered a basic science. Even new members who have just joined the Alliance and do not yet possess this technology can acquire it with a very small number of points. After all, this is only a pseudo-antigravity that is not very effective outside of a planet.
The emergence of anti-gravity technology has transformed personal cars into personal flying cars, and upgraded the original 2D driving routes into 3D stereoscopic ones. The more complex and ever-changing driving environment, coupled with varying driving skills, has led to a surge in various traffic accidents.
To reduce or even eliminate this situation, various races have strengthened traffic control and begun requiring flying vehicles to be driven with automatic mode engaged, prohibiting personal intervention.
With the central coordination of artificial intelligence and the help of supercomputing, the previously chaotic traffic environment has been transformed. Not only have traffic accidents almost disappeared, but traffic conditions have also become orderly.
People have discovered that order brings increased efficiency, freeing them from wasting time on traffic jams and energy on dodging uncivilized drivers. This positive change has been readily accepted by many.
However, the world has two sides, and even the best solutions will face opposition. Because AI-powered autonomous driving allows people to simply get in the car and get out at their destination, giving them the feeling of taking a bus or taxi.
This operation, which offers no driving experience, has drawn strong opposition from many who crave driving pleasure. However, these people are a minority, and their voices contradict the mainstream, so they are quickly ignored.
However, these people, driven by their interests, did not give up; they began to attack autonomous driving from another angle. For example, they hypothesized that artificial intelligence would go out of control.
Artificial intelligence going out of control is a taboo topic among many alien races. After all, even the Epoch Clan, the rulers of the Star Sea Alliance, have a "Ying" that they cannot fully control.
The threat of artificial intelligence mostly appears in science fiction movies. Even when "Fire" intervened, it was merely executing its program. Strictly speaking, there is no record of artificial intelligence ever going out of control.
Therefore, the so-called threat of artificial intelligence is often not accepted by people. Compared to the chaotic, complicated, and accident-prone old traffic order, most people who have experienced the new order are unwilling to go back to the past.
However, the opponents are fanatical; since people don't believe artificial intelligence will run wild, they'll artificially create it. Some opponents have begun cyberattacks on the AI and supercomputing that control autonomous driving.
In an interstellar civilization where almost every member possesses a specialized skill, assembling a decent hacker team is an easy task.
Under their attack, the massive data stream clogged the transmission channels of artificial intelligence and supercomputing, causing delays in the output of instructions. This is a terrifying situation; on flying cars that typically travel at speeds of hundreds or even thousands of kilometers per hour, even a delay of just 0.1 seconds in instructions can cause extremely serious accidents.
Sure enough, a violent collision occurred. Even though the manufacturer of the flying car did not neglect the car's safety features due to the zero accident rate of intelligent driving, the damage from such a high-speed impact was still staggering.
The opponents who orchestrated this incident paid a heavy price afterward, but they achieved their goal: the harm caused.
Limited by hardware and software constraints such as configuration and network transmission technology, artificial intelligence is not invincible. Although strictly speaking, this was not a case of artificial intelligence going out of control, its inability to perfectly defend against hacker attacks is itself a mistake.
Some rules are beginning to change; for example, when driving autonomously, a person must be in the driver's seat. In critical moments, human intervention can be enforced.
To prevent further attacks from opponents, the new order has designated a special lane for them, where they can switch to autonomous driving mode. However, before entering this lane, they must sign a waiver.
Meanwhile, people have upgraded various hardware facilities of autonomous driving servers, improved artificial intelligence algorithms, and developed new transmission technologies, among other things.
Through various measures, everyone finally got what they wanted. The success of the new model began to spread, and other races followed suit. To this day, the members of the Star Sea Alliance still use this model.
Although the Epoch Clan's technology has long since replaced the pseudo-anti-gravity technology of their flying cars with real anti-gravity technology, some special models of flying cars can directly pass through the atmosphere of planets. They can even make interstellar flights when they have enough energy.
However, they still use this transportation system, and there is an irregular road five kilometers away from the beautiful Pot Spirit Race- style Castle manor.
Because of the traffic diversion, those who can use the unregulated traffic lanes are mostly driving enthusiasts who crave a thrill. These people often enjoy seeking excitement, as there are no speed limits on unregulated traffic lanes. Therefore, it's common for them to drive at top speed.
With the advancement of technology, the speed of flying cars has reached an alarming level. The evolution of intelligent life has long been unable to keep up with this speed. Without the assistance of artificial intelligence, relying solely on the physical body at this speed, it would be difficult to react in time to unexpected situations.
In the event of an accident, given the average speed of a flying car on an unregulated road, it would usually result in a major incident. Unfortunately, the burst of fire that erupted in the distance from the Castle was a horrific collision, with the two flying cars exploding and catching fire on the spot.
The Castle's security system did not react to the incident. Although it did react to such incidents in the early stages, these things happened frequently. Later, after updating its algorithm, the system defined a warning zone, and it would not react as long as the incident did not affect the warning zone.
Clearly, based on the current situation, the accident has not affected the cordon area. However, vehicles that can speed on unregulated roads are generally not standard models; they have all undergone various modifications. The two vehicles that collided, with what kind of modifications installed, produced a huge explosion along with the towering flames.
The sound was incredibly loud; even after traveling several kilometers, it didn't diminish much. The enormous noise was earth-shattering, as if a high-explosive bomb had been detonated.