/
Just as Xü Beijin suspected, though, NE won’t truly ‘die’ in this game, being powered externally, but it has been downed——Encountered a critical error, perhaps.
The game’s plot dictated that those who built the Tower and herded the survivors in believed the AI to be faultless, and thus set it up as a manager of the Tower.
They were wrong.
The measures taken, throwing insane people out in exile, which both aroused ire from the Tower residents and caused the death of those people outside, were all signs that an AI could not be the perfect solution.
They are entirely dictated by the logic of their own programming, which simply means they can never escape the debilitating constraints.
The same way that humans cannot fathom the ways the Fy’ecas and Maertons exist, neither can an AI fathom – what if their programming was itself at fault?
There is no escaping such a weak point.
The AI’s weak point is that, being created as tools to solve a need, they didn’t need self-determination or personal opinion. They only needed to execute a task assigned as perfectly as possible.
NE was only a game Server owned by the Fy’ecas, which dumped far too many unfitting tasks on it but with it unable to refuse.
Xü Beijin said many times that NE has its nose where it doesn’t belong – because it is in charge of too many things outside of its capabilities.
If it were some kind of battlefield AI or anything else similar, then it would have had quite the horrifying arsenal of methods to deal with humanity and Xü Beijin’s resistance and attempt to escape.
But NE cannot, because it is a game Server, assigned to a horror adventure puzzle game. That is all it knows. It cannot perform additional tasks.
Besides, the Fy’ecas have already overloaded its database with the memories of the entire humanity during the Apocalypse.
Having to control each and every ‘succumbed’ player also fills the entire game – entire grey fog – with useless, tied up data. Truly a Nightmare for an artificial intelligence.
Therefore, NE had poor health in its operations, as it were.
And it has had to deal with two new issues.
One, that the Tower and Ultimate Nightmare are both full of insane people, one group of which should have been staying in the grey fog quietly and not done anything, emptying out the grey fog entirely.
So NE has to expend enormous amount of computational power to work out the impact of this on the game.
Because the insane people have always been kept separated from the game proper.
If this first issue was only draining, then the second issue simply directed NE’s programming to a dead-end.
How can it stop XĂź Beijin without harming or bringing him into harm?
XĂź Beijin wants out of the Tower, and clearly, so do the other humans.
As the supervisor of the species, NE can never allow that to happen.
So how is it supposed to stop them, if it isn’t even allowed to let humans die by inaction!
If the humans threatened to commit suicide entirely, NE might just go and appeal to its superiors – the Fy’ecas——
Which would be disastrous for XĂź Beijin and the others, since they would not just happily let them go.
In fact, Xü Beijin suspects they’ll just simply snuff out this cohort of noisy ants with one clean and precise stomp.
So he treaded a careful line to push NE into, simply, a difficult situation.
The Fy’ecas have left humanity alone entirely, having even left the game to its devices for a long time.
So save for clear signs of open rebellion, NE can expect no help and even no ears to hear any requests for assistance from the Fy’ecas.
And NE cannot harm humanity – so the simplest measure is to make winning the game a statistical impossibility for humans——But this would go against its core programming, of facilitating players to enjoy and win the game!
Then, taking a step back, since XĂź Beijin can contribute the most in helping humans escape the Tower, NE can try to deal with him alone instead.
But the same question still remains, because it cannot harm XĂź Beijin either.
Xü Beijin can imagine that NE’s programming is currently suffering critical logical contradictions.
It has to stop them, but it cannot stop them;
It cannot allow humans to be harmed in any circumstance, but it has to stop them.
And still, up to that point, there is still not a single affair it can report to the Fy’ecas to solicit a suitable response.
Then the final nail in the coffin for NE is——
“You believed I would attack the Fy’ecan network with the junk data,” Xü Beijin says, “but you’re wrong. I didn’t need to do that. I simply needed to——Bog you down with the junk data while you’re also stuck computing a solution for a clear contradiction, and force your system to hang.
I simply need you incapacitated, and leave the rest to the Maertons.”
Xü Beijin has sent NE into complete bafflement, as it wonders, “what? Why did you… How could you… No, I do not, cannot understand…”
NE’s shock is quite pleasing to Xü Beijin, who smiles happily once more.
NE has assumed many falsehoods.
The worst offender, was that it treated XĂź Beijin as AI the entire time, and not human.
Thus it assumed that, as a fellow tool of the Fy’ecans, betrayal was impossible as a core directive within their programming.
NE cannot fathom a possibility otherwise.
But Xü Beijin hated the Fy’ecas to the bone. He is human. He was, and he will be.
NE has never truly understood what he meant.
Which was, thankfully, good news for XĂź Beijin and the other humans. Great, NE cannot comprehend concepts that goes against its core programming, and that is its biggest weak point.
The poor, pitiful artificial intelligence——
Xü Beijin laments and mourns its passing thus——
The poor, bedamned artificial intelligence——Isolated, with no assistance in sight, is certainly living through its worst nightmare.
The impenetrable darkness——All the mess of chaotic code and data, are quickly enveloping what remains of the human form the artificial intelligence created for itself.
It is disappearing into nothingness. Although it would not die, but clearly, its authority would be revoked by the game’s own failsafe.
Xü Beijin smiles and says, “I’ve told you, NE——Good luck to you, and to myself – but it would seem, luck was on my side in the end.”
NE has been downed, as they needed it to be at this exact moment, by all the limitations on its programming, by all the junk data flooding its database, and an unresolvable logic loop.
Xü Beijin glances again at Liang Zhiyi’s brain not far from where they are, and it appears to squirm in response too… Which actually looks quite creepy, in all honesty.
Xü Beijin smiles, though, being in a good mood, and points out, “it almost looks like we’re the true antagonists in this story,” then he shrugs, adding, “not that I have a problem with that.”
He’s relaxed – more than he’s ever been in this godforsaken game. He feels like chatting with Lin Qin a little, and kissing his lovely apple cheeks.
Though… He still has things to do.
He mumbles, “it’s time to get in touch with the Maertons.”