Bian Ziyuan had certainly heard of Mei Yiqiu's reputation, otherwise he wouldn't have joined the volunteer team. Judging from the scale of the recruitment and the level of secrecy involved, he assumed it must be a very significant experiment. In fact, he hasn't changed his opinion yet.
For the past week, Bian Ziyuan had been speculating about the purpose of the experiment. He even secretly used his own compiled code to infiltrate the web server, but found nothing.
At first, he was very careful in doing these things, afraid of being discovered. But after a few days, he discovered that the designers of the experiment not only did not dictate what they should or could not do, but also did not dictate what they could or could not do. In other words, as long as he was in this position, he was free, and could even go online to do things that he could not do on the campus network or home network, because the network here was completely open and he could log in to the external network without the need for circumvention software.
Bian Ziyuan freely. He brought the hacking tools he had developed in his spare time and thoroughly searched all the servers and computers on the local area network. However, apart from discovering that many of the volunteers who came with him were secretly watching porn or browsing the dark web, everything else seemed normal. It really felt like this was just an ordinary company.
Bian Ziyuan secretly asked the girl sitting next to him what she thought. The girl said it was a behavioral test to see what thousands of people would do on a completely unrestrained internet. Bian Ziyuan thought it made some sense, but also felt that things might not be so simple.
On the seventh day, each of them received a sealed document. They had to tear off the first page to see the next page, somewhat like a game mission.
After Bian Ziyuan returned, he brought over the modified copy of the " Forbidden Land of Magic " game disc. It was an old game, and its art style, special effects, and gameplay were vastly different from modern games; few young people would play it anymore.
But Bian Ziyuan think so. He liked the gravitas of old games and could feel the development team's serious attitude. The essence of a game is not in the graphics and special effects, but in the story and emotions. Only a good story can truly immerse players and allow them to genuinely experience their mission and pursuit within the game's grand background and worldview.
With the explosive growth of the gaming industry, more and more novices have joined the ranks of players, and more and more poorly made games have been developed. Driven by capital, everyone has begun to pursue low-level operations, short-term profits, and fast-food-like enjoyment, like a one-night stand—once it's over, that's it. As for fine wine, coffee, and romantic moments, nobody cares anymore.
Bian Ziyuan believes that, like the film and television industry, the game industry inevitably experiences phenomena such as the bad driving out the good and vulgarization due to the combined effects of capital and human nature.
So he enjoys watching old movies and playing old games. But as a computer genius, he certainly wouldn't be satisfied with just "playing".
Bian Ziyuan long wanted to develop a game that was highly playable and could incorporate new elements. However, as a science student, he got a headache just thinking about the plot. So, he inserted an intelligent game extension program he had developed into the game, adding an NPC Kronos to the Forbidden Land of Magic, meaning someone who could control time and change order, and also changing the single-player game to be playable with multiple players.
Kronos can appear anywhere on the game map. Players can find him, talk to him, and persuade him to help them complete quests, obtain equipment, or even change the rules of the game world. As the supreme god of this game world, Kronos controls time and order and can change everything in this world, including destroying the game itself.
Of course, players must pay a price to get Kronos to fulfill their requests. No one knows what Kronos will ask for, not even the program's designer Bian Ziyuan.
Bian Ziyuan has been working on improving the intelligence of Kronos. Because the game itself is suspected of copyright infringement, he hasn't widely distributed it, only inviting some classmates who like the game "Forbidden Land of Magic" to play together. Even so, the game world has been expanded to a great extent.
Kronos has become the most fun part of the game; the first thing players do upon entering the game is to find him and start making demands. Through the combined efforts of the players and Kronos, the game has Bian Ziyuan out of control.
In Bian Ziyuan's mind, Kronos's intelligence level had surpassed most small AIs. He even arrogantly believed that Kronos's potential exceeded AlphaGo. If he had a high-level R&D team and enough money, Kronos would become the world's best artificial intelligence.
When Bian Ziyuan knew the real show was about to begin. However, he still couldn't figure out the purpose of this experiment.
He suddenly thought of something interesting. The modified game was originally installed on the beat-up server he bought in his rented apartment, which was already overloaded. Because of the server's limitations, the expansion of Kronos was also severely restricted. Since there were no restrictions on anything here, could he install the game on this server? Playing online would definitely be much smoother, and perhaps Kronos would also see some breakthroughs?
However, just as he installed the game and started playing online with his classmates, the internet suddenly went down.
Bian Ziyuan initially thought there was something wrong with his program, or that the administrators weren't allowing him to play the game on the server. But he noticed that everyone around him was looking around and making strange noises, indicating that he wasn't the only one experiencing a network outage.
At this point, everyone was notified that they could look at the next page of the seal.
Bian Ziyuan tore off the first page of the sealed document and saw that the second page read --
Please have a conversation with the most intelligent software you've downloaded and installed. We will control the software from the background; you could be talking to a program or a human. Yes, some of you have probably already guessed it—this is a Turing Test. There's no time limit; stop when you are absolutely certain whether you are talking to a program or a human, then open the next page of the sealed document.
Turing Test? Something flashed through Bian Ziyuan's mind, and he seemed to understand the purpose of this experiment, yet he quickly became even more confused and bewildered. Was it necessary to subject these downloaded chatbots to Turing Test?
The game screen was still displaying on the monitor. A pop-up appeared in the center of the screen.
Network disconnected, continue or exit?