Chapter 400: Escaping by Uploading Consciousness_1

Jiang Yu laughed and said, "Failure is common, and you are still so young; don't let one failure discourage you.

'This will be a valuable experience for you in the future.'

Sean slowly raised his head, 'Thank you for the encouragement, Wallfacer.'

He took a deep breath and began his report, 'Thank you for the hints you provided when our team was founded. You were right, our greatest enemy is actually human nature.'

'At first, we did not realize this, so our first simulation experiment quickly ended in failure.'

'Because there was a huge disagreement over which people should have their consciousness uploaded and which should be the ones to carry everyone's consciousness for interstellar migration.'

'We did not handle this divergence well, believing that persuasion would make most people willing to upload their consciousness and entrust it to strangers.'

'As a result, we were overthrown by the public, and the experiment failed as well.'

'Afterward, we actively summed up our experiences and eventually found that we could only use authoritarian measures to make the majority comply with arrangements to upload their consciousness.'

At this point, Sean's emotions were somewhat disheartened.

Jiang Yu smiled again and comforted him, 'Have you studied my experiences? When I first took over the Solar System State, the public didn't understand me very well either.

'But now I am willing to let everyone discuss the future fate of the Solar System State.'

'Because often, the perceptions of most people are not necessarily correct, and at those times, we have to use some methods to prevent people from falling deeper into misunderstandings.'

'If we talk about democracy at such times, it would be harmful to both others and ourselves.'

'Now, the people's views are no longer so superficial, and it is appropriate to let them decide their own fate.'

Sean finally felt less tense, and he too smiled, 'We have similar thoughts, which were inspired by another hint of yours, "In that simulated world, you are the Wallfacers.'

'We realized that we had to assume the role of Wallfacers in the simulated world for the simulation experiment to start making progress.'

'Later, the Jupiter University Team went through seventy-three simulation experiments, all of which failed without exception.'

This time, Sean's mood did not sink further, 'I will pick some representative failure cases from the Jupiter University Team and other teams to report to you.'

'After successfully uploading most people's consciousnesses, the progress of the simulation experiments was still slow, first because the data storage devices were too large and required too much energy.'

'After an enormous effort, a large spacecraft was finally built, but it invariably encountered energy shortages for various reasons during flight and had to abandon the maintenance of most people's consciousness.'

A robotic servant brought Sean a cup of tea, and after thanking him, he continued, 'The entire 'Consciousness Migration' discussion group members never anticipated that so much hardware space would be required to store one person's consciousness.'

'Later we used many methods, and before the majority had their consciousness uploaded, a huge fleet was established to solve the energy shortage problem.'

'But this led to many new issues. During the long journey, the fleet encountered divergences multiple times.'

'We had to keep the armed fleet under our control and use force to suppress them, barely managing to reach the Colonial Planetary System.'

'But then new problems arose. On one hand, we lacked sufficient labor to develop the New Star System, on the other hand, we did not have enough resources to produce a large number of Clones to allow the majority to return their consciousness to their bodies.'

'Additionally, many problems emerged in the virtual Consciousness Space. Many people did not want to return to the real world, and many developed world-weariness and homicidal tendencies amidst their virtually endless lifespans.'

'Especially in the virtual space where they were immortal, many took pleasure in killing and had lost all respect for life.'

'An even bigger dilemma was that humans in the virtual space generally viewed those in the real world as enemies, after all, they were forced into the virtual space in the first place.'

Sean took a sip of tea, "We've tried many times, but the humans who returned to reality were no longer normal.

"We... we became very distant from them, as if we came from two different civilizations.

"In any case, humanity entering the New Star System was bound to fall into decay due to internal conflicts even before it had a chance to develop.

"So we changed our strategy, splitting humanity in two, ensuring that those from the virtual world wouldn't return to reality.

"From then on, humanity existed in two parallel worlds: virtual and real.

"But after several centuries, the people in the real world began to treat those in the virtual world as playthings, and inequality emerged between the two worlds.

"Since the real world had to maintain the virtual world, the virtual world was inherently at a disadvantage, and this fragile balance couldn't last for long."

Jiang Yu pinched his chin, "I hadn't thought of that before."

"We also didn't anticipate this outcome," Sean continued. "So we adjusted our strategy and moved towards full virtualization for everyone."

Jiang Yu smiled, "That doesn't sound like a good idea."

Sean sighed, "Indeed, doing so meant that the development of the real world was sure to slip out of human control.

"First, we tried to involve a portion of people in the management of the fleet in reality through intelligent computers after the complete virtualization of the population.

"But this still resulted in human polarization. It was impossible for everyone to return to reality together. Those who were involved in managing reality naturally could return to reality first.

"As with the previous outcome, the part of humanity that returned to reality first had irreconcilable differences with those who remained in the virtual world.

"Those who returned to reality were always on guard against retaliation from the newcomers, while those who stayed in the virtual world treated the returnees as enemies.

"Because both had been in the virtual world for a long time, neither had enough respect for life, so the outcomes were even more brutal than before."

Sean took another sip of tea, "So there can be no exceptions; reality must be completely handed over to intelligent computers.

"But even highly autonomous artificial intelligence lacks the adaptability to handle the complexities and vicissitudes of space.

"Whether facing an extraterrestrial civilization or encountering resource or energy bottlenecks, intelligent computers, in seeking optimal solutions, would only worsen the problems.

"Later we thought we could just broadcast the real world's encounters to the virtual world like news, so that everyone could make collective decisions when something happened.

"But that too failed. In the virtual world, it became possible for all of humanity to vote collectively, but this could lead to days of argument over any issue.

"Moreover, the more people communicated, the more extreme they became, and reaching a unified opinion was simply impossible.

"Events in space needed to be resolved with extreme efficiency, making collective decision-making utterly impractical."

Sean sighed, "In the end, we found that there seemed to be only one path to take: the datafication of the entire population's consciousness, and to remain in that state.

"We could develop human technology in the virtual world, allowing artificial intelligence to become the shell of civilization, with us as the soul.

"But after several centuries, humans in the virtual world lost their biological characteristics.

"Endless lifespans, with no new life being born, caused humanity to gradually detach from biological instincts, becoming increasingly datafied and eventually losing creativity.

"Eventually, after a few hundred years, humanity would become like ghosts in a tomb, completely losing itself.

"Such an outcome completely deviates from our original intention, and once faced with complex space problems, humanity would immediately collapse, with no future to speak of."