Chapter 246 The Internet Supervisor’s Review and the Haunting of the Soul Killer

(Note: If you have any questions about the settings and plot expansion of these two chapters, please refer directly to the author’s words.)

In the cyberpunk era, the value of information is beyond imagination.

As a top company in network information technology, Network Monitoring has always maintained a mysterious image in front of the public. At most, it promotes itself as the last barrier between humans and AI.

In this incident, they were essentially the initiators of the initial commission, but they maintained a consistent low-key style throughout the incident——

Of course, this is actually due to Lille's arrangements, which essentially demonstrates the professionalism of the team.

And in the end, when it comes to soul killers, they also appear ruthless and focused.

First of all, Bryce did not lie to Lille. Considering Lille's ability, the 60% chance of escape was indeed not made up.

But everything is based on the fact that he is human.

"Because of this operation, you intercepted part of the code of Soul Killer and then referenced some kind of cyberspace weapon targeting AI.

This weapon recognizes the source code of Soul Killer, but when the progress of Soul Killer reaches a certain level, that weapon will also attack me -

Are you planning to kill me too? "

Blythe admitted frankly: "That's the risk I'm talking about and you accept it - as for the other scenario.

Take a look at this as part of the deal, it's valuable information. "

He handed over a chip.

The contents of the chip are considered top secrets to 99% of the people in this world--

It’s about blackwalls.

The representation of the black wall in cyberspace is a black and red digital wall, with neither the top nor the bottom visible.

It monitors all data flows in various subnets. The sense of isolation is the feeling in cyberspace. A more logical statement is.

It directly eliminates AI that matches the data characteristics.

Bryce continued:

"You may be wondering, didn't the human world regard all AIs as scourges after the collapse of the old network?

Why do I still use a program that can be regarded as AI in cyberspace? Why do large companies still use AI to assist production and various activities?

Blackwall - blocks all AIs, why won't these AIs be eliminated? "

And what is AI? Simply put, it is a thing that can replace human thinking and action to a certain extent, so Blackwall can be regarded as a kind of AI.

AI needs to be trained, just like humans, and just like humans, they are all different.

As a very large AI, Blackwall does not iterate quickly, which is equivalent to humans lacking self-awareness and motivation to learn and evolve.

One of the tasks of network monitoring is to help blackwalls keep up with the iteration speed of AI leaking out of blackwalls, and prevent those extremely aggressive AIs from finding a way to invade new networks one day.

For example: In cyberspace, human consciousness and AI are both data streams, and there is essentially no big difference.

But the blackwall will not actively attack humans. There must be an identification mechanism in effect.

So what if an AI is very human-like?

Will Blackwall still attack it?

This is what network surveillance worries about soul killers.

They wanted to know the answer to this matter, but Arasaka would definitely not cooperate with the research and hand over his secret weapon.

Secondly, even if Arasaka agrees, given their style of conduct, network surveillance does not believe that they will honestly hand over the source code of Soul Killer.

Even theoretically speaking, Soul Killer was deleted by Buttermos before the old network collapsed, but the fact is that Arasaka reinvented it later.

They claimed that they had re-developed it themselves, but the network supervisor had enough reasons to believe that Arasaka had secretly accessed the old network through the black wall and dug this thing out of the old network.

Leal put down the chip.

"So it was the black wall that attacked me."

Bryce nodded: "Let's put it this way, since the collapse of the old network, almost 90% of the world's online activities are under our control.

Only a handful of megacorporations carry out nefarious activities within their own hidden networks.

And if we only focus on AI, it will not defeat human society. We will hardly care about more things--

The hacker who caused the tragedy in Atlanta, the guy who hired you, has also demonstrated the ability to operate in a stealthy manner.

It is 100% an AI, and a very dangerous AI. "

Hearing this, V paused while chewing an apple, and Jack scratched his head. These reactions were all seen by Bryce.

Of course, Lille noticed it, and he said: "No wonder he is always mysterious.

So your plan is to lock me up with the Soul Killer as a honeypot, and intercept the Soul Killer's code when Arasaka launches an attack.

And use this experimental technology to carry out attacks.

If I were human and didn't have too many characteristics recorded by the Soul Killer, I would survive.

But if I were an AI, or I was too similar to the Soul Killer’s transformed AI——"

"You will die. The black wall will burn all the equipment related to you in an instant. To be precise, it will explode."

Hmm. Lille nodded.

It's a very smart approach. If he were a network monitor, he would also use this method to verify whether the suspected target is AI.

The behavior of network supervisors is clearly reflected in this: they do not deliberately target you, but when it comes to network security, they can pay any price and do not care too much about collateral damage.

But Lille added: "I still have a question. How did you confirm that Arasaka would attack me? Besides, besides the soul killer."

"To answer your second question first, yes, this is also the direction we focus on in our activities within the wall, some AI that is very human-like.

The good news is that the black wall has the power to crush almost all circulating AI, and its recognition ability is also very strong. Almost no circulating AI can escape the black wall——

Unless they are willing to imitate a human being from the bottom to live in society.

And if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck, and the same goes for AI.

Such AI's damage to the network environment is very limited, but we still need to be vigilant at all times. They may cause harm to the world from another dimension.

For example, your previous employer, and the son-of-a-bitch voodoo gang!

I suspect their head is just such an AI! "

It was obvious that Bryce had a lot of dissatisfaction with the Voodoo Gang. When he said this, his aura increased, as if he wanted to eat them alive.

Lille waved his hand: "Get the money ready, and I can consider helping you settle them."

“Well I still have to take some time to prepare.

Then let’s get back to the first thing, about Arasaka. "

Bryce's expression became solemn: "Thanks to what you did in the company square, EMP interrupted most of the company's secret equipment.

We captured traces of Arasaka using the Soul Killer in Night City - but the strange thing is that we did not observe any abnormal death of network hackers in Night City.

Remember, I said that Soul Killer is a BUG of Black Wall, a dark cloud entrenched in Black Wall."

Leal immediately understood what Bryce meant.

The Soul Killer killed a person, but also gained a person's digital consciousness.

If Arasaka quietly replaces someone, Blackwall won't know about it, Internet monitors won't know about it, and the world won't even know about it.

And Arasaka can replace someone quietly

You can replace a lot of people quietly.

Bryce continued: "Of the three commissions I give you, two of them will involve Arasaka. You are professional mercenaries and there is no chance of mission failure.

I am quite confident that Arasaka will take fierce countermeasures when you get to the core of the matter.

Of course, it doesn't necessarily have to be a soul killer, but in this world, nothing can ever go 100% according to plan. "

Leal nodded, indeed.

Therefore, the ability to adapt to changes is extremely valuable, and there is no such thing as making things go 100% according to the expected process.

Plans will change, unexpected things will happen at any time, you may even fail, and you will experience a painful failure——

These are the normal conditions of survival, and this is the normal condition for top special staff like them.

As for those that went exactly as expected, either the matter was not big enough, or the planning time was not long enough, and the impact was too small.

If H8 Skyscraper cannot fish out Arasaka, then continue to trace other clues to put pressure on Arasaka, so Bryce will say that these tasks can only be done by the Burger King team.

Because only the three of them could use limited resources to force Arasaka to do this and make a realistic enough honeypot.

Bryce changed the topic and returned to the soul killer: "Furthermore, we still don't know whether Arasaka can adjust the digital soul to make these digital personalities become what they want.

But just thinking about it, this is an extremely scary thing, and we need the truth.

Well done this time, engineers at the headquarters are decoding and analyzing the intercepted data stream, and we are getting closer to the truth——

There's some kind of big change happening in Night City, and we'll find out what Arasaka wants to do with AI. "

What Bryce said was truly horrific.

Quietly replacing a person, becoming a person who is not even aware of it, who naturally thinks that he likes Arasaka and recognizes Arasaka's style and philosophy.

As long as such actions are implemented slowly, the entire society will unknowingly become a quagmire of identification with Arasaka.

Leal banged on the table, thinking about the possibility--

However, there were not many things related to this in the game. The ones that impressed him slightly were about AI, either Ultra, or about the brainwashing case of mayoral candidate Peralez.

Lille also needs to collect more intelligence for re-analysis. Making judgments too early will interfere with subsequent thinking.

But Lear looked at Bryce: "Is it you, or is it you?"

"I" Bryce paused, "What's the difference? It's the task of network monitoring, and it's what I want to do."

"It certainly doesn't look like it now, but you act very hot-blooded, like a street kid."

Bryce stopped talking and poured himself a glass of real water.

".I'm a British guy and I've seen similar things and I think it's similar.

People, led by the person they wanted to overthrow, overthrew something they thought should be overthrown.

If the Soul Killer could do this, history would repeat itself in an even more brutal form.

The rooms here are really nice, and the real water tastes good, but tasteless. "

Putting down the cup, Lil could see the indicator light on the back of Bryce's neck flashing red——

This box can isolate signals and is one of the few places where company employees have legitimate reasons to voluntarily turn off their networked prosthetics.

It seems that this is a corporate dog with a story.

Lille nodded: "Now let's continue talking about the remuneration. Also, the glass of water is 1,000 euros."

Bryce: "."

This is just an additional explanation for the original novel, and book lovers who don’t mind can ignore it.

As for whether Soul Killer has such a function, it is indeed not mentioned clearly in the game.

But let me give two examples here to show that there is deep content to dig into: one is that you can see the record left by a Lunar agent in the bad land, indicating that he knows the underlying reason for the cooperation between Holt and Arasaka, but the Moon does not Concerned, deal with him directly

The other is that Wakako’s hacker Nanchang Xun received a help message from his friend, a hacker trapped in Soul Killer. This hacker was involved in the election competition.

It’s true that the game didn’t mention what it is, but I think that if we want to expand on the existing clues, the soul killer has the greatest potential.

As for whether the Internet Regulatory Commission will investigate Arasaka, there are quite a few clues that prove that the Internet Regulatory Commission is really keeping a close eye on Arasaka. I won’t go into details here. It mainly shows that although the author can make up a lot of content, it is not pure nonsense.

The subsequent plot will have a lot of expansions based on the original clues. In short, I think it is reasonable. The ideas are based on a core setting inherited from the Cyberpunk series: Saburo Arasaka is the biggest threat to the entire world.