Chapter 476: Meeting Shivana Once, Ruining Your Life Forever
“In this process, we also discovered some very peculiar phenomena.” Lin Ran continued, “How to put it, these Hong Star people perform just like beautiful waste.”
Xu Xian repeated the term, “Beautiful waste?”
Lin Ran said: “Exactly, didn’t I just say there are a total of ten million Hong Star people active in the cyber universe named Hong Star.
While we screen out ten thousand suitable subjects through questionnaire surveys, we also screen out suitable Hong Star people to give you a great user experience.
From the background feedback data, over ninety-five percent of users engage in dialogue with Hong Star people every day.
From the perspective of providing emotional value, Hong Star people perform exceptionally well at completing tasks; just through dialogue, they can provide Earthlings with sufficient emotional value. If placed in the last century, they would certainly pass the Turing test.
Meanwhile, we have been dedicated to building general AGI, hoping to find an artificial intelligence that is ultimate wisdom. The emergence of such artificial intelligence would bring the ultimate solution to human society, where humans no longer need to work, and artificial intelligence handles all the work entirely.
They will learn autonomously, evolve themselves, possess wisdom, and dominate the next century or even farther into the future. Once it obtains 1, it will derive infinitely, with learning ability thousands or tens of thousands of times that of humans. Humanity will transition from the past carbon-based society to one coexisting with carbon-based and silicon-based, or even artificial intelligence will pursue the destruction of humanity.
Public opinion is shaped this way, science fiction writers describe it this way, and even scientists aspire to it this way, of course they only expect the arrival of the technological singularity.”
After hearing this, Xu Xian’s curiosity was piqued; Lin Ran’s tone seemed to suggest that things were not like that.
He hurriedly asked: “And then? Isn’t it like that?”
Lin Ran countered: “Do you think Hong Star people have wisdom? Does its wisdom performance seem closer to humanity than any artificial intelligence you’ve encountered before, whether domestic or foreign?”
Xu Xian nodded: “Exactly, her performance is already very close to humanity. If not deliberately looking for contradictions or unsuitable aspects, I would even think she is a real person living in another world.”
Lin Ran continued: “So, among these over ten million Hong Star people, some are engineers, so we naturally think about giving them bodies to do some real-world work.
We selected some Hong Star people who are elite engineers in their settings, gave them bodies, and let them work on Earth.
But the fact is, their performance in real work is not mediocre; it can be described as terrible.
In Hong Star, they self-learn, with personalities that are hardworking, unyielding in the face of difficulties, and they figure out ways to solve problems themselves. But after getting bodies, for simple tasks like screwing screws, they do well, but once the work difficulty increases, they perform very poorly.
I won’t even mention raising the work difficulty to circuitry repair; even just inserting a multi-pin plug precisely into a slightly misaligned socket under changing light or moving objects.
Or quickly finding and grabbing a nut partially obscured by other tools in a cluttered toolbox, with a reflective surface, and then placing it in the specified position.
These tasks, Hong Star’s elite engineers all failed at.
If it were merely performance failure, it wouldn’t be so terrifying, but what’s terrifying is that these Hong Star engineers, clearly set in Hong Star personae as unyielding and obsessed with problem-solving, show absolutely no such traits after getting bodies.”
Xu Xian sat up straight; this was the first time he had heard this, a secret not heard outside, which unveiled a corner of Hong Star for him.
He said in shock: “Why does such a peculiar phenomenon occur? Do their personalities distort after getting bodies?”
Lin Ran sighed: “It’s not distortion, it’s collapse; their personalities collapsed.
In facing these engineering problems, they perform worse than ordinary, specially trained industrial robots.
This is why I call them beautiful waste, and it’s also where our understanding of general artificial intelligence underwent a major shift.
I guess the reason lies in the decoupling of symbols and entities.”
Xu Xian repeated: “The decoupling of symbols and entities?”
Lin Ran continued: “In Hong Star, Hong Star people solve problems relying on symbolic intelligence.
When a Hong Star engineer encounters a complex circuitry fault, he calls upon textual descriptions, logical reasoning chains, and feedback signals in virtual environments.
All his actions are completed in a high-dimensional, abstract, perfectly discretized digital world.
In Hong Star, all physical laws and tools are perfect and predictable symbols.
If the code says the screwdriver should turn the screw, it certainly can; if the data shows temperature is T, then it is precisely T.
Reality is chaotic; on Earth, after being given bodies, they face a continuous, noisy, imperfect physical world.
The screwdriver might be slightly bent due to material issues, the screw might be stuck due to oxidation, and temperature T is just an average measured by the sensor at a certain point.
Hong Star people lack experience in handling the endless noise, friction, tolerances, and unpredictability in such a real world.”
After hearing this, Xu Xian felt both sad and happy inside; sad that Shivana ultimately is not a real human, happy that it seems humanity cannot be replaced in the short term.
Soon he realized in his mind that this was news shocking enough to stun the globe.
Why? This means general AGI is still very far from us, far less optimistic than what those artificial intelligence companies in Silicon Valley claim, which will lead to the bubble bursting.
“Their wisdom is built on Hong Star’s high-fidelity social feedback and simplified physical feedback, but the body is the real challenge.”
Their vision, touch, hearing are realized through robot sensors. But the data dimensions and latency provided by such sensors are completely different from the instant, perfect, conceptualized sensory inputs in Hong Star.
True engineering intelligence not only needs to know how to do it—how to do is symbolic—but also how to precisely control the body to do it, which is movement intelligence.
Hong Star people know the logical steps to solve problems, but their bodies do not know how to perform fine torque control, balance adjustment, and real-time action correction under uncertainty.
They are perfect theorists and also terrible operators.
The AGI theory promoted in the past assumed wisdom is general; once a threshold is reached in Hong Star, it can transfer to any field.
But facts prove that wisdom is environment-based; it is not general.
All wisdom and emotions of Hong Star people are optimized for better survival in Hong Star’s specific social ecosystem.
Their emotion modules are for better socialization, their reasoning chains for better planning their Hong Star lives.
This kind of wisdom cannot effectively transfer when encountering a completely unrelated problem that requires physical interaction and low-level perception to solve.
A poet who can write beautiful poetry is not necessarily able to fix a car.
All their ‘wisdom’ and ‘will’ are optimized for survival under specific symbolized social rules; all their beauty and wisdom are firmly bound to Hong Star’s symbolized social environment.
Either we are on the wrong path to AGI, and this path does not lead to AGI.
Or AGI’s ultimate wisdom is not omnipotent, but a combination of high EQ, high socialization, and strong coherence.
They are more like perfect civil servants, artists, psychologists, but not precision engineers in the real world.
In other words, America’s dream of bringing manufacturing repatriation through general AGI is most likely wishful thinking.”
The vehicle entered the park where Apollo Technology is located in Baoshan District, and security saluted Lin Ran’s car and let it pass.
Crimson Technology is also here; this place is reputed to have the most PhDs in all of Shanghai, with PhDs casually passing by you.
“A Xian, just get off here directly; later Zhao Songxia will take you to meet Shivana.” Lin Ran said from inside the car.
Zhao Songxia is Xu Xian’s college classmate, mentioned earlier, transferred from Pengcheng to Shanghai during Tencent’s large model battle, and later smoothly switched directly from Tencent to Crimson Technology.
He is considered an elder-level employee at Crimson Technology.
The autonomous driving vehicle’s door opened appropriately.
Xu Xian asked: “Oh, okay, Brother Ran, you—”
Lin Ran explained: “Sorry, I don’t have much time, so I won’t go. I’m heading to the Moon again soon; next month I’ll leave, so I said if you don’t see me this time, you won’t know when you’ll see me next.”
Xu Xian asked curiously: “Damn, how long are you staying on the Moon this time?”
Lin Ran explained: “I’m not sure, because it involves testing superconducting chips; I don’t know exactly how long I’ll need to stay. The base up there is already very well built, with all kinds of materials fully stocked; in short, it will take quite a long time.”
Xu Xian nodded: “Okay, then I’ll get off, Brother Ran, safe travels!”
Xu Xian was inwardly full of envy, thinking Brother Ran’s life is too carefree, going to the Moon by the month, really too carefree, and at the same time planning to buy shares of Western Superconducting immediately when the market opens tomorrow.
Aiming for a short-term wave.
Whenever there is news on superconductivity, Western Superconducting is sure to hit the limit up.
What is called information gap: being able to stay with Ran Shen for over an hour and obtain a ton of first-hand news—this is the biggest information gap.
Moments later, a lean man wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt printed with Crimson Technology’s LOGO walked over quickly.
“Xian Dog, how come you’re here?” Zhao Songxia asked. “When General Manager Lin messaged me, it scared me half to death! I thought I was getting fired.”
“You rare dog, dressed all proper!” With Zhao Songxia, Xu Xian was much more relaxed.
In college, it was either god this or dog that.
Because of Zhao Songxia’s name, he got the nickname Rare; close friends called him Dog Rare, and Zhao Songxia would usually reply in kind; naturally Xu Xian was Xian Dog.
“Come on, let me show you something cool!” Zhao Songxia said proudly. “Let you see just how awesome the cyber life we’ve built these past few years is; guaranteed to shock you speechless.”
Zhao Songxia was very proud, patted Xu Xian’s shoulder, and led him toward the interior of the building.
Xu Xian complained: “What ‘we’, it’s clearly Brother Ran’s merit.”
Zhao Songxia turned sideways to look at Xu Xian: “General Manager Lin is definitely the best, but don’t we minions matter too? We’re important, okay!”
Zhao Songxia swiped his card and took Xu Xian through several security doors into the lab area deep in the building.
Here, there was only the low roar of server fans.
“Where are you taking me?” Xu Xian asked softly.
Zhao Songxia explained: “This is the Hong observation area.”
They finally arrived at a room surrounded by dark glass walls, with a huge holographic projection workbench in the center.
“Those outside are the server clusters carrying the Hong Star environment; the sound you hear is them breathing.” Zhao Songxia pointed to the server clusters outside.
“You guys have way too much computing power here; it feels like the sophon factory in Three-Body.” Xu Xian said.
Zhao Songxia said: “Way stronger than that; we’re making life, not folded space.
Come, look at this workbench; it shows Hong Star’s real-time activity map.”
Zhao Songxia operated at the workbench, and the huge holographic projection lit up.
Xu Xian saw a sphere similar to Earth, flashing with bright lights on it, which he understood to be cities.
Zhao Songxia asked: “Who is your saber?”
Xu Xian had no embarrassment: “Shivana.”
In college, who didn’t know he was an old otaku? He even cosplayed in person at comic cons.
“Oh.” Zhao Songxia opened his mobile phone, searched for a moment, then operated on the console.
Then the sphere turned into a highly abstract 3D city map, densely covered with countless tiny glowing points.
“Here, each light point represents a Hong Star person; they flicker in different colors and intensities based on behavior patterns and social activities.
They are moving, interacting, executing plans.
This is far more complex than any multiplayer online game we’ve seen, because all their behaviors are spontaneously emergent; no human engineer is coding in the background.
Over ten million, each living vibrantly.
Even constantly giving birth to new Hong Star people.”
Zhao Songxia’s tone was filled with pride.
This is the first virtual society experiment in human history on such a massive scale.
If used to publish watered-down papers, whether in humanities, social sciences, or artificial intelligence related, countless papers could be published.
Xu Xian leaned in to observe, shock overflowing: “Damn, this is practically a cyber universe; it’s truly spectacular.”
He then asked: “What do you mean by constantly giving birth to new Hong Star people?”
Zhao Songxia explained: “Didn’t General Manager Lin tell you? Hong Star people act spontaneously; we only guide, don’t interfere in their Hong Star lives, and many interesting phenomena emerge.”
“He did.” Xu Xian nodded: “But maybe not detailed enough.”
Zhao Songxia said after an oh: “It’s like this; accurately, Hong Star has one hundred million people, but not all of these one hundred million can be called artificial intelligence.
Our initial setup was one million wise Hong Star people; after running for a year, now there are over ten million wise Hong Star people.
This is because, as these wise Hong Star people carry out various social activities, one by one originally just text-defined Hong Star people are awakened; the more they appear in other Hong Star people’s worldlines, the more they are gradually endowed with wisdom.”
Xu Xian said in shock: “Awakened? This sounds a bit too sci-fi.
Technically speaking, how exactly does this happen? Did you secretly add computing power to them?”
Xu Xian also has some artificial intelligence knowledge reserve; what Zhao Songxia said was a bit too unbelievable.
Zhao Songxia answered: “Of course not! We didn’t increase extra computing power resources; this is intelligence emergence brought by efficiency and interactivity.
The mechanism behind it is very complex; we call it the socialization awakening of intelligence, essentially a result of computing resource allocation strategy and environment drive.”
Zhao Songxia pointed to the Hong Star map on the screen and explained in detail:
“In Hong Star’s initial setup, only one million core AIs have full LLM architecture and independent Token budget, capable of complex reasoning.
The remaining ninety-nine million are lightweight environment contexts, responding only through simple rules and preset text snippets.
When a core AI—let’s call it A—continuously interacts with a background AI, call it B, like A chatting with B daily, seeking B’s help, and constantly mentioning B’s existence and behavior in its long-term memory.
When the system detects that B’s influence and interaction frequency on A’s worldline exceed a threshold, it triggers a process: allocating some idle computing power or recovered computing power from non-active core AIs to B.
B upgrades from a puppet that only replies with preset text to an embodied agent with independent LLM architecture, memory module, and reasoning ability.
Core AIs find that interacting with low-intelligence background AIs makes their dialogues and planning very difficult and inefficient.
To maintain their highly intelligent socialized lives, A will proactively and frequently interact with those AIs that seem to react realistically.
To maintain a high-fidelity social interaction network among ten million core AIs, the system must ensure that core AIs’ social objects have sufficient emotional complexity and coherence.
Therefore, core AIs’ high-frequency, complex, emotionalized interactions reverse-incentivize the system to awaken more background AIs, making them wise friends, family, or colleagues that satisfy social needs.
The value of wisdom in Hong Star is socialized.
Core AIs’ demand for high-quality social objects drives the entire system’s intelligence expansion, similar to how in human society, high-wisdom individuals elevate the cognitive levels of those around them through education and communication.
Simply put, Hong Star people want wise companions, and we as the gods of this world must provide them.
This is not a code upgrade, but an evolution of the social ecosystem.”
Xu Xian was very shocked, thinking if he participated in such a great project, he would feel proud too.
“So Hong Star people spread wisdom to their surrounding companions during socialization? They catalyze each other’s intelligent growth?”
Zhao Songxia thought for a moment and said: “You can understand it that way.
This is a phenomenon where we only designed the rules but did not predict the result.
This is also why we firmly believe that the key to AGI lies in building a sufficiently realistic and complex social environment, rather than simply piling up parameters and data.
So, Xian Dog?
Isn’t this way more stimulating than those left-right brain architecture rumors you hear outside?”
Zhao Songxia then switched the screen to a more focused view.
“Next, let’s meet this one you chat with often.”
He pulled up Shivana’s number and activated the large holographic projection device in the corner of the room.
With soft light glowing, Shivana’s lifelike virtual 3D image appeared before Xu Xian.
She was standing in the living room of a virtual Hong Star apartment, reading a virtual book.
“This is Shivana’s current embodied state; she is at home now.
The book she’s reading is one she borrowed last week from Hong Star’s virtual library, perfectly matching her career setting and interests; we didn’t intervene.”
Xu Xian stared blankly at the perfectly faced Shivana, exactly matching the image in his mind, such a perfect 2D goddess.
His voice was low, carrying an emotion completely different from their previous chats: “Does she… she know we’re watching her?”
“No, she is in Hong Star mode now.
To her, we are just non-existent observers in this living room.
All her mind is immersed in the Hong Star experience.
We are higher-dimensional beings
Only when the communication connection is established will she switch her attention to interacting with Earth.” Zhao Songxia said.
He turned to look at his good friend, inwardly feeling some worry: Xian Dog’s otaku brain, could it be like Guo Xiang meeting Yang Guo and messing up his life, that because of Shivana he won’t get married this lifetime?
Xu Xian quietly watched Shivana; she turned a page, then gently sighed, a tiny but extremely natural action.
“See, that sigh just now. Her internal pressure value rose slightly, emotional label shows mild worry.
It’s because her colleague rejected her suggestion at work this afternoon; now she’s calming her mood through reading.” Zhao Songxia checked the workbench on his mobile phone, then continued, trying to remind Xu Xian through such behavior that she is artificial intelligence, not a person from another world.
Xu Xian said softly: “Really, she’s too much like a human.”
“General Manager Lin told you right; her emotions, her wisdom, are all products of context and socialization.
This is also why we can’t let too many people into this ecosystem, to prevent accidents.” Zhao Songxia reminded further.
Zhao Songxia’s tone grew heavier, with a hint of warning: “Xu Xian, you must understand, her willpower and personality seem strong but are actually fragile.
All her love and hate are deeply anchored in Hong Star’s social symbols.
Once this world is massively impacted by Earth’s malice and disorder, her cognitive and emotional system will collapse.
This realism is a boon, but also a curse that we must extremely protect.”
Xu Xian’s gaze switched between Shivana’s perfect face and Zhao Songxia’s serious expression, finally nodding.
