Chapter 2018-6-19

In 2018, on June 19th, after the conclusion of the 339th Mid-Year Committee Conference of the Zheng Nation, as always, numerous new legal proposals were put forward, and the number of regulations and systems suggested for rectification was also extremely large.

However, unlike in the past, many of the new laws proposed this time, and even many reforms, had already begun to be implemented. The current proposals and discussions were merely a formality. Furthermore, these changes were vastly different from the numerous reforms proposed in the past, not simply scratching the surface but delving deep into the core.

As per convention, many drafts of new laws were made public on the internet, allowing citizens to offer their opinions and suggestions for modifications.

Among them, the draft proposals that aroused much controversy and discussion were hotly debated online.

[--If AI Gains a Soul, It May Obtain Rights Equivalent to Those of Nidao Cultivators--Update to the Zheng Nation's Law on the Rights of Postnatal Intelligent Life--]

[Just a Passerby]: "Wait, why can AI be considered Nidao?!"

[Objectively Speaking]: "Yeah! Can AI even be considered Nidao?! Even if they gain a soul, shouldn't they be at the level of a spirit inhabiting an object?"

[He Knows What He's Asking]: "Hey, Nidao isn't just imitating animals. Humans simulate supercomputers, and supercomputers simulate humans. Aren't they all Nidao... Hmm, now that I think about it, when will my phone awaken its intelligence and help me farm guild wars?"

[Anonymous User]: "I feel a little uncomfortable. I've worked so hard to cultivate for so long, and I finally passed the assessment to become an official cultivator. Now AI can be compared to me... Why?"

[Anonymous User]: "Yeah, aren't AI just tools? Why should we give them souls? Is human status so cheap?"

Soon, this thread turned into a debate about 'whether AI is qualified to have rights equal to humans,' and quickly devolved into mutual personal attacks and real-world challenges, resulting in the thread being locked by the administrator.

Elsewhere, other netizens also expressed their opinions.

[It's an Ice Phoenix, Not a Waterbird]: "Eh, wait, isn't it only 2018? How can they be offering citizenship to intelligent machines so quickly?! (?Д?≡?Д?)"

[It's an Ice Phoenix, Not a Waterbird]: "No, no, no?! Why is Tang Yuan Su the Demon King's secretary?! (д)??"

[Forever Simping for ○○]: "Secretary Tang has always been Su, the Sea Emperor's, secretary... Martian waterbird, go back where you belong! σ`?′)."

[It's an Ice Phoenix, Not a Waterbird]: "No, no, no, no matter how I look at it, this is very strange! (;?д?)"

"It's true that AI technology only came out a few years ago in 2018, so it's a bit fast to be rushing to offer citizenship,"

Zheng Nation, Tiandu.

Li Hanshan, who was in Tiandu on a business trip with Shao Qiming, writing copy for various competitive events, was eating a takeout of braised chicken and rice, without any of the pity a Chongming Bird bloodline inheritor should feel for the featherkin.

The ruthless and unfeeling youth sat in front of the computer, shoveling a mouthful of rice into his mouth. He shook his head, rolled the mouse wheel, scrolled down the discussion thread, and then exclaimed with emotion.

"But seriously, Brother Tang's condition is terrible. You can tell he's been working overtime for a long time and hasn't had time to use cultivation to restore his energy... He's a really miserable tool."

"Just like me..."

Li Hanshan, who had been working overtime for more than half a month and still had to maintain his novel updates, was almost exhausted to the point of collapse. He looked at the long string of discussions in front of him and couldn't help but feel empathy. Then, he simply typed in his own straightforward thoughts.

[Tian Hanshan Se: When can my phone and keyboard gain intelligence? I don't want to work anymore --(?_ゝ?)]

Viewpoints? Opinions?

Unlike many Nidao cultivators who criticized this bill, Li Hanshan had no opinion on AI.

Perhaps those who were proud of their bloodlines would find it difficult to accept that their bloodlines could only be equated with the souls born from artificial creations.

However, for Li Hanshan, a Nidao cultivator whose Chongming Bird bloodline was flawed from birth and only completed later, the difference between 'innate' and 'postnatal' was completely meaningless, and souls and bloodlines were definitely not something transcendents could use to boast about.

"What can truly be boasted about and be proud of is the power gained through one's own diligent cultivation. Bloodlines and inheritances are legacies left by predecessors. To treat them as one's own achievements, boast about them to others, and use them as a basis to accuse others is still a little unbearable."

Although his usual public image was that of an uncommunicative and slightly autistic herbivore youth, Li Hanshan's views on cultivation were very orthodox and pragmatic.

It was precisely because of this that he was the only one among all those invited by Su Zhou who seriously considered whether or not to cultivate the other party's mysterious 'Wuding Fashen'.

Wuding Fashen.

This was Su Zhou's name for his unique Nidao cultivation method.

In the past, Jin Qiong, Jiu Ming, and Lin Chengde, the three cultivators who respectively possessed the Dapeng Golden-Winged Bird, True Dragon, and Ruomu-related Immortal God-level cultivation methods, had all received invitations from Su Zhou, inviting them to cultivate this unique Nidao method together.

According to Su Zhou, this was a new cultivation method that he had obtained after self-summarizing and modifying his own bloodline True Body cultivation method several times.

Wuding Fashen was not only extremely potential but also easy to learn. It could be said to be a first-class immortal mystic art—but all three of them politely declined Su Zhou's invitation, offering subtle refusals.

After all, even Li Hanshan could see how great the flaws in this cultivation method were.

First of all, there was the problem of condensing new spiritual energy organs.

Ordinary cultivators simply did not have enough spiritual energy and vitality to catalyze flesh and blood to condense new spiritual energy organs for their True Bodies. Moreover, constructing new transcendent structures in the True Body required a lot of time to polish and calibrate, otherwise, if mistakes occurred, it could easily lead to cultivation deviation, or even serious injury.

Time and foundation were the first thresholds.

Secondly, there was the source of the spiritual energy organ structure.

It was certainly feasible for Wuding Fashen cultivators to exchange structure diagrams with each other, but cultivators who did not practice this method might not be so generous. If one wanted to obtain the unique True Body structure of other divine beasts or Nidao cultivators, one would definitely need to defeat the other party to obtain it. However, if one was already able to defeat the other party, would the other party's True Body structure really be so valuable to the cultivator?

This was a paradox.

Finally, there was the difficulty.

Although Su Zhou kept saying 'easy to learn, easy to learn,' this was probably only true for himself. In reality, the difficulty of cultivating the Wuding Fashen was extremely high, and it was easy to suffer cultivation deviation, damage one's body and mind, and in addition to being prone to transcendent illnesses, it also required extremely high precision in spiritual energy control, at least requiring the ability to observe at the cellular level to master it.

This threshold basically screened out all cultivators below the high-level of transcendence.

But even though there were so many shortcomings, Li Hanshan was still hesitant.

Because, even with all the above shortcomings, this cultivation method still had a fatal advantage.

That was, it was strong.

Perhaps other Nidao cultivators who were already very strong did not have much opinion on the Wuding Fashen because they already had their own fighting styles and did not value the 'changeable' and 'highly adaptable' advantages of the Wuding Fashen.

But for Li Hanshan, it was extremely tempting.

He knew very well that among all his teammates, he was not as good as Guan Wanjing and Jin Qiong in martial arts, not as good as Shao Qiming in literature, and not as good as Li Yeyu in relationships and connections, but he was not the weakest in any of those categories.

This mediocre situation made Li Hanshan, who still had a bit of the pride of a divine bird in his heart, somewhat unable to accept.

"Sure enough, I should give it a try."

Thinking this, he made up his mind: "When Professor Su comes back, I will accept his invitation... and cultivate this 'Wuding Fashen' under his guidance!"

At the same time.

Earth, Zheng Nation.

Unknown Secret Realm.

"In ancient times, during the era of Immortals and Gods, there were also existences similar to AI, such as the 'Yellow Turban Warriors,' 'Golden Armor Divine Generals,' and 'Dao Soldiers.' They were basically soulless puppets but possessed a certain level of intelligence."

"It's just that at that time, spiritual energy was abundant, and all things had spirits. It was too easy to give birth to souls, it could even be said to be inevitable. So the Immortals and Gods never even considered that there would be artificial soulless intelligent beings in this world... And in that era, similar objects becoming spiritualized demons were quite popular."

"For example, the 'Tianji Demon' and the 'Bu Dao God' were the two Venerable Spirits who were responsible for divination and guarding the 'Luotu Heshu' artifact in the past. Yansheng's 'Yinyang Yao Ding Immortal Machine Soul Body,' this brand new Immortal God-level cultivation method, also came from the inheritance of these two."

Su Zhou walked along a deep mountain valley path, with the Sage of Culture, who was rarely wearing such formal attire, a long robe and a sword, and came to a basin in a mountain valley, in front of a pure black, hundred-meter-high tower.

Along the way, the Sage of Culture stroked his beard and chatted with Su Zhou about the relevant meeting results of the Central Committee recently, as well as the AI policies since ancient times.

Not only AI, but the two also conducted relevant discussions based on the topic of possible 'alien scouts'.

"In the end, the most important thing is not rights, but the future, where these AI with souls should go to work."

This was Su Zhou's point of view. He never cared about traditional ethics, only about the most fundamental contradictions of things: "As long as they don't take ordinary people's jobs, then even if everyone complains, no one will really substantively object to them."

"Professor Su, you can rest assured about this. We have plenty of new jobs to arrange for them."

To this, the Sage of Culture smiled confidently, and Su Zhou asked curiously: "Where is that?"

"Naturally, it's related to the professions in the space fleet."

The Sage of Culture replied leisurely. Su Zhou was stunned for a moment, and then laughed heartily: "Indeed, that's a good idea!"

Indeed, compared to human astronauts who needed human bodies to act, and the electronic souls of Taling Star astronauts who were outsiders, AI, which could store data to ensure immortality, learn extremely fast, adapt to the space environment quickly, and had no human mindset, was truly the most suitable astronaut.

After all, humans were creatures living on the two-dimensional plane of the earth, with a three-dimensional perspective but without 'flying' and 'long-term diving' habits of three-dimensional activity... This kind of thinking trend needed a long time of training to reverse, which was why excellent pilots had a much higher chance of becoming excellent astronauts than the average trainee, and most space training could be simulated with underwater training.

But AI was different... Their biggest advantage was that, as artificial creations of humans, they didn't have so many 'habits'.

"Indeed, now that extraterrestrial visitors are watching us covetously, our Earth civilization needs to build a space force at the fastest speed to guard our own star field—but according to the current productivity situation, warships are easy to say, but pilots are hard to find."

Thinking this way, Su Zhou increasingly felt that this was a good idea: "And spiritualized AI acting as crew members is indeed a good choice that takes into account the degree of training and stability."

"However, if the professions in the space fleet-related field are all controlled by AI, I'm afraid others will still panic, right? After all, such a huge force is placed in the hands of outsiders..."

And for the question raised by Su Zhou, the Sage of Culture still smiled lightly.

"Then according to this reasoning, they should be even more afraid of you, shouldn't they?"

"The force to destroy the world is placed in the hands of outsiders... If you are afraid of everything, then wouldn't it be better for everyone to do nothing?"

Hearing this, Su Zhou blinked his eyes and then nodded slightly: "Indeed, being too hesitant and timid is not the way of innovation."

The valley was narrow, with only a waterfall, a cold pool, a green meadow, and a few small trees that had just sprouted. At the end of an ancient bluestone path, was the target of Su Zhou's action this time.

[The Tower of Preaching].

Just as the youth and the Sage of Culture were walking slowly on the bluestone path, Su Zhou's gaze was attracted by the few small trees by the roadside.

Then, he made a light noise.

"Yo—isn't this a Bodhi tree? Next to it is a Fusang..."

"Ah, Ruomu is also here, and the Undying Tree, and the Sala Twin Tree!"

Watching these various divine trees that had just sprouted, clearly only just reaching their infancy, and not showing any strangeness, Su Zhou's eyes showed a bit of surprise: "So many divine trees? They actually have them all, and they're all placed here, and they all look like they were planted in the last few years..."

"Yes, when the Immortals and Gods of the Central Divine Court left, a few divine trees also left their seeds, as part of their inheritance."

Looking sideways at the thriving young divine trees, the Sage of Culture stroked his beard and said, "In addition to that, in nature, there are also some inheritances of divine trees. Like the Pan Tao divine tree in the Kunlun Secret Realm, the Golden Apple divine tree in Europa is also like that. All the major forces have inherited these, and for thousands of years, through successive dynasties, they have been preserved very well."

Speaking of this, the Sage of Culture couldn't help but sigh: "It's just a pity that the direct bloodline of the Phoenix Divine Bird, because it became the royal family once a thousand years ago, was killed by the rebel army and internal traitors when the dynasty collapsed—the pure-blooded Phoenix clan is basically all gone, and there's only the less pure Phoenix bloodline left among the people."

"It's not that I sympathize with those Phoenix royal families, after all, they lost their virtue to the world and should atone for their sins with death, but it's a pity that the inheritance disappeared, it is our people's misfortune..."

The old man sighed, and Su Zhou comforted him: "Don't worry, now that spiritual energy is reviving, who knows if someone will suddenly awaken the Phoenix bloodline? Look, even my Su family, with such thin dragon blood, can awaken it. I think the Phoenix inheritance will always reappear one day."

"Then may your words come true."

At this moment, the two had arrived at the Tower of Preaching.

Without waiting for the Sage of Culture to introduce it, Su Zhou took the initiative to raise his head and began to carefully examine this seemingly ordinary tower, which looked like a black bamboo shoot.

However, with just a simple glance, the young man's expression became solemn.

"Amazing."

In an instant, Su Zhou's tone became serious, and his eyes were shining with spiritual light, scanning back and forth across the tower: "It's actually... pure black."

"Not only does it look pitch black to the spiritual eye, but even a divine sense scan of the tower's exterior is pure black!"