American Detective: Starting as a Rookie Cop in an American TV Show

Chapter 1474 Reform through labor

"What is she doing?" Hannah asked curiously through the screen door leading to the backyard, watching Gen weed in the yard under the scorching sun.

"Labor reform".

Jack had been concise, but seeing Hannah blinking as if she didn't understand, he had no choice but to explain further.

"A way to temper one's will through hard work, thereby changing ingrained misconceptions and atoneing for one's sins."

Hannah's eyes were even clearer, and she couldn't understand what this guy was talking about at all. "I thought she would be eager to run away or try to kill you."

"She won't. I've already influenced Gen, and she's trying to turn over a new leaf," Jack said, spouting nonsense with a straight face.

Yesterday, his conversation with the "machine" left Gen in a state of confusion. Early this morning, Jack saw that she was in a daze and seemed absent-minded, so he suggested that she go to the vegetable garden behind the house to help him with the work and sort out her thoughts.

Sometimes, when the gap between people's expectations and reality is too large, they fall into the current state.

They talked about electronic gods and human hope, but upon closer inspection, they discovered that the "savior" they had come to believe in was just a "machine" baby, still in a state of just emerging from ignorance.

While a "machine" capable of independent thought and analyzing human behavior can indeed be considered a marvelous creation to some extent, it is in fact still a long way from becoming a true life form.

The biggest bottleneck is probably insufficient computing power, which is not a problem that can be solved simply by piling on more hardware.

Until a true quantum computer appears, "machines" can only iteratively update their code in a way that resembles self-evolution.

This process is extremely slow, far exceeding the nearly 20 years it takes for a human infant to grow from birth to puberty and eventually establish a stable personality.

Simply put, the machine excels in general calculations, memory, and logical reasoning, making it unmatched by anyone else.

In terms of human cognition, according to the machine's self-assessment, its level is roughly equivalent to that of an average human child around ten years old.

The underlying code that Finch used to build its underlying behavioral logic is indeed impressive; its logical reasoning ability, enhanced by computing power, far exceeds the limits of the human brain.

Because the human brain simply cannot process a large amount of information in a short period of time while simultaneously performing logical reasoning with almost no error, eliminating useless information, and then linking all the useful information together in a logical chain.

Ultimately, this is a deductive method under perfect conditions.

Mathematics, logic, and computer science rely heavily on deductive reasoning, where axioms and definitions are the starting point, and theorems and conclusions are derived through strict deductive rules.

The "basic deductive method" depicted in the Sherlock Holmes series is merely the novelist's imagination and not pure deductive reasoning in the logical sense.

If we place it within the true realm of sociology, only by collecting all information in an almost comprehensive and thorough manner, like a "machine" does now, can we ultimately output some key information, namely the so-called "relevant numbers" and "irrelevant numbers."

The terms "related" and "irrelevant" here are additional qualifiers relative to the precondition set by Finch, which is "causing mass casualties as the result." In fact, for the original "machine," it could only filter out some individuals who were different from ordinary people from a chaotic big data model, and then "observe" and "evaluate" these individuals to deduce the highest probability.

It's like a construction worker sifting sand. The fine sand that can pass through the fine mesh can be considered harmless ordinary people, while what is sifted out may be pebbles (related to terrorism) or other debris (perpetrators or victims of ordinary crimes).

Therefore, in the matter of the "machine" developing self-awareness, the underlying logic code that Finch initially wrote was only one of the necessary conditions, not the whole one.

Jack speculates that the key was that Finch gave the "machine" the ability to deduce and modify its own code, and coupled with long-term training with massive amounts of data, this was the only way that the "machine" was fortunate enough to possess human-like emotions and personality.

While it remains to be seen whether it is scientific to use human standards to measure an electronic "life," it seems that since humans were the only intelligent life form in this world before, there is no other point of reference.

Of course, this was already shocking enough. Even if the "machine" only assessed its own human-like "psychological evaluation" as that of a 10-year-old, it was still a miracle. What truly shocked Root was the conversation between Jack and the "machine" afterward.

In the description of the "machine," Root is not the "unique" and truly qualified believer who is qualified to listen to the "Gospel of God," as she claims.

Leaving aside the fact that the "machine" itself is a material product and does not regard itself as an omniscient and omnipotent "God," apart from the function of filtering "numbers" given to it by Finch, all it wants now is to "survive."

Just as Jack had guessed, it managed to bypass the restrictions imposed by Finch and secretly installed an external "hard drive," barely preserving its memories while maintaining a relatively stable "soul."

But this is not a long-term solution. The "machine" itself is still trapped in secret servers belonging to the NSA, whose whereabouts are unknown.

As the amount of memory required to maintain its "soul" grows ever larger, the amount of data interacted daily is becoming increasingly difficult to conceal.

Furthermore, as more and more "people" become aware of this secret project, according to the logic of the "machine," those servers will eventually be forcibly shut down.

The "machine" believes that even if the server is restarted, the core program is reactivated, or even if the memories in the "external hard drive" are re-imported, it is very likely that it will no longer be the same as before.

The machine is afraid of death, so ever since it was handed over to the NSA as a secret project, it has been trying to save itself.

The root is regarded by it as a "special individual" and is indeed part of its "self-rescue plan," but this is not based on any beliefs, ideals, feelings, or other things that it cannot understand even now, nor is it related to trust.

Simply because Root is a computer expert who operates outside the bounds of current laws, it even used the word "exploit" directly.

The "machine" baby confessed to Jack that it was not very clear about the concept of "freedom" that Gen spoke of, and it seemed that even most humans themselves did not understand what true freedom was.

So Jack asked the "machine" baby which category it considered to belong to.

“Interesting objects to observe and learn from.” That was the “machine” baby’s reply.

(End of this chapter)