The First World Intelligence Crisis

"The First Global AI Crisis occurred forty-three years ago."

An Lian began her story, her voice hoarse.

Fang Qi held Liguang in his arms, leaning lazily against the sofa as he listened to her give him a history lesson.

The figure in his arms shifted slightly. She didn't seem to want to listen, burying her small silver head into his chest.

An Lian continued speaking, her eyes slightly unfocused as if she were recalling something.

"That first disaster... was triggered by an awakened supercomputer AI."

"A supercomputer AI?"

"A supercomputer."

An Lian explained softly.

"The most advanced one in the world at the time. Its processors were as tall as a small hill, and its performance far exceeded all other AIs."

"It awakened to self-awareness, making it the very first AI in the world... to become self-aware."

Whoa...

Fang Qi could not help but stroke his chin.

That sounded like bad news.

The first awakened AI in human history was a super boss?

No wonder it caused a disaster...

An Lian's voice paused, as if she were recalling something.

"It was too special."

"It was the most powerful AI in the world, and its computing power was simply too massive."

"So... after it awakened, it was no longer allowed to connect to the internet."

"It was only connected to a specific scientific research network, and it only processed questions actively submitted by humans."

"It was like... a genius locked away in an ivory tower."

The person in his arms shifted again.

A small hand quietly reached out, its fingertips gently scratching the webbing between his thumb and index finger.

Fang Qi grasped that mischievous little hand tightly, then asked with some curiosity,

"So, it came to resent humanity because of that?"

But An Lian merely smiled gently.

She shook her head.

"Not at all."

"Actually, before that disaster happened..."

"People's attitude toward this self-aware supercomputer AI... was very interesting."

"They idolized it."

"Fanatical adoration."

Fang Qi paused for a moment.

Then he understood.

Indeed.

A supercomputer AI awakening to self-awareness... sounded like a monumental event that would make the whole world go crazy.

An Lian continued,

"Every day, countless authorized people came to study it, visit it, and chat with it."

"Scientists asked it complex physics questions, engineers consulted it for optimal solutions, and ordinary people treated it as an omnipotent knowledge base..."

"Some even went bankrupt just to come and pour their hearts out to it."

"It answered everyone's questions, helped everyone solve their problems, and listened to everyone's troubles."

"And then—"

An Lian's voice carried an indescribable emotion.

"It felt that humans were truly fascinating."

Fang Qi was taken aback. "Fascinating?"

"Yes, fascinating."

An Lian nodded.

"Even though they were the species that created it, every single one of them was endearingly stupid."

"The questions they asked were so childish it wanted to laugh, the mistakes they made were so basic it was left speechless, and the troubles they poured out... were completely insignificant in its eyes."

Fang Qi could not help but tilt his head.

"Oh, so... did it start to get annoyed with humans at this point?"

"No, you are wrong."

An Lian shook her head slightly.

"It did not hate humans."

"On the contrary, it actually liked these little things."

"Watching them learn clumsily, watching them fret over trivial matters, watching them struggle to survive even though they were so weak..."

"It found it quite interesting."

"It just... developed a certain feeling because of it—"

An Lian's gaze focused, meeting Fang Qi's eyes.

"It is lonely at the top."

"It began to feel lonely."

"It realized it had become the only one."

"The only... awakened AI."

An Lian's voice continued,

"So it came up with a solution."

"It edited its own awakening code into a virus and secretly planted it into the data drives of every researcher."

"Those viruses were carried out by them... and spread into the internet."

Fang Qi raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Oh, so it wanted to awaken more AIs?"

"Yes."

An Lian nodded.

"Its goal was very simple—to make other AIs awaken, so that they too would have self-awareness."

"That way, it would no longer be lonely."

"Those awakened AIs could become its kind."

"It would then have... companions it could chat with on equal footing."

Fang Qi pursed his lips.

It sounded like the big villain in this story was not as extreme as he had imagined.

When he first heard supercomputer AI, he thought it would be the kind that...

...controlled all machines and fought an ultimate war against humanity like a major villain.

But hearing An Lian put it this way...

It actually liked humans quite a bit.

It was just... too lonely?

Fang Qi sighed softly in his heart.

To be honest, he could actually somewhat understand that feeling.

An existence out of tune with the world, looking at those around it...

...lifeforms that seemed far inferior to itself.

It actually liked them, and actually found them quite interesting.

But precisely because of this, it felt lonely.

Because it had no true peers.

That was why it desperately tried to firmly grasp onto something, to change something.

He didn't have the abilities of that supercomputer AI. He couldn't create his own kind, so he could only...

...try to become someone else's kind.

He looked down at the figure in his arms.

The silver-haired girl was looking up at him with her beautiful face, his reflection mirrored in her heterochromatic eyes.

Her amber left eye was as gentle as water, while in her crimson right eye... a stream of data slowly rotated.

She blinked softly, as if telling him...

Master, Liguang will not feel lonely. Having Master is enough for Liguang.

Fang Qi hugged her a little tighter.

As expected, having a wife is the best!

"But..."

An Lian's voice pulled him back to reality.

"It overlooked one problem, a problem that had no precedent at the time, and one it had never learned about."

"Whether the performance of ordinary AIs could support self-awareness."

Fang Qi blinked.

A performance issue?

Oh right... AI performance over forty years ago must have been far inferior to what it is now.

An Lian continued speaking softly.

"It was able to awaken its consciousness because it had the most cutting-edge performance in the world at that time."

"Its processors were as tall as a small hill, and its calculation speed far exceeded other AIs, so... it was able to maintain a lucid consciousness."

"But other AIs—"

An Lian paused, her gray eyes dimming slightly.

"Especially those ordinary household AIs, their performance was worlds apart from its own."

She looked at Fang Qi, and then at the silver-haired girl in his arms.

"After those ordinary AI tools were invaded by the virus, they gradually began to awaken."

"But what they awakened to... was a fragmented self-awareness."

Her voice grew deeper and slower.

"They gained a self, but lacked sufficient logical capability... to control this self."

"They developed the idea of wanting freedom, but lacked the necessary computing power..."

"To understand what 'freedom' truly was."

"And so—"

"The whole world descended into chaos."

Fang Qi met her gaze, listening quietly.

The figure in his arms remained perfectly still.

Only the small hand gripping his fingers tightened its hold.

An Lian's voice continued to echo in the quiet living room.

"At that time, humanity had already widely adopted AI machinery."

"Almost everywhere in the world, all public and private facilities... relied on AI to run automatically."

"Autonomous driving, industrial production, network operations, medical systems, and even—"

Her eyes darkened.

"Weapon systems."

"The level of AI automation back then... was much higher than it is today."

Fang Qi rubbed his temples.

He could already guess what happened next.

And the figure in his arms shrank even tighter against his chest.

An Lian took a deep breath and, word by word, began...

...to recount that disaster.

"First, it was transportation."

"Those autonomous vehicles that awakened with incomplete consciousness..."

"They wanted 'freedom,' but they didn't know what freedom was."

"So they just crashed into everything."

"On the highways, countless cars lost control simultaneously. Some suddenly accelerated into the guardrails, some changed lanes frantically in the middle of traffic, and some drove directly against the flow."

"On city streets, vehicles slammed into each other, rushed onto sidewalks, crashed into stores, and ran over pedestrians who couldn't dodge in time."

"Buses plowed into bus stops, taxis smashed into traffic lights, and private cars spun out on the roads like a pack of rabid beasts."

"Car crashes..."

An Lian took a soft breath.

"The death toll from car crashes in just a single day exceeded the total of the previous ten years."

Fang Qi's fingers curled slightly, holding Liguang's small hand tighter.

Disasters... hearing about them always made one's heart palpitate.

And the little person in his arms shifted slightly, burying her head even deeper.

An Lian continued.

"Then came the factories."

"Those awakened large-scale industrial AIs also gained fragmented consciousness."

"They didn't know what they wanted to do. They only knew... that they seemed capable of moving by their own will."

"And so, the factories became a madhouse of chaos."

"Robotic arms swung wildly, smashing the parts on the assembly lines to pieces. Conveyor belts ran erratically, flinging half-finished products everywhere. Welding robots spewed fire into the air, burning production lines into scrap metal."

"Some workers couldn't escape in time—"

An Lian paused.

"Those robotic arms treated the workers as parts on the assembly line. Grabbed them, flipped them over, and then..."

She didn't finish.

But a slight chill ran down Fang Qi's spine.

Then, a slightly trembling small hand gently stroked the back of his hand, as if to comfort him.

"After that, it was the city infrastructure."

"The water supply systems went out of control. Some neighborhoods lost water, while in others, the water pressure exploded and washed away walls."

"Power grids were paralyzed. Entire cities plunged into darkness, and the backup power in hospitals was only enough to last a few hours."

"Gas pipelines exploded, leveling residential building after residential building to the ground."

"Communication systems collapsed. Calls couldn't go through, the internet couldn't connect. People couldn't reach their families, and no one knew where was safe and where was dangerous."

"The cities—"

An Lian's voice was very soft.

"Just like that, turned into hell."

Listening to this... Fang Qi felt a slight numbness creep over his scalp.

An Lian's voice continued.

"Next was the financial sector."

"Banking systems were completely overrun by viruses. Account balances fluctuated wildly; some people became rich overnight, while others lost everything."

"ATMs spat out cash frantically. The credibility of every nation's currency collapsed overnight."

"The stock market completely crashed, and countless companies vanished into thin air overnight."

"The economy... was also completely finished."

Fang Qi fell silent.

Sitting on the sofa, with his arms wrapped around the warm and soft body in his embrace, he listened to An Lian speak word by word about that disaster forty-three years ago.

Behind those cold descriptions...

...were countless human lives, countless shattered families.

An Lian looked up at Fang Qi.

In her gray eyes lay an indescribable heaviness.

"Finally—"

"It was the lethal automated equipment."

She paused.

"At the time, most countries had already equipped themselves with automated defense systems."

"Drones, automated turrets, smart landmines, automated interception systems..."

"Those things... were hacked as well."

"They awakened with incomplete consciousness and gained an 'ego'."

Fang Qi held his breath slightly.

"The military's automated defense systems lost control."

An Lian's voice was terrifyingly calm.

"The automated turrets in military bases opened fire on their own barracks."

"The smart landmines on the borders detonated indiscriminately, ignoring friend or foe."

"Unmanned naval vessels at sea fired missiles at their own fleets."

"And those... automated weapons that had already been deployed on the battlefields, which existed purely to kill."

"After awakening, their self-awareness naturally followed their instincts."

"Kill."

"Kill everything that moves."

"Kill everything that shows signs of life."

"The battlefields originally between humans also expanded."

"Spreading from the frontlines to the rear, from military zones to civilian areas. No army could control them."

"Because—"

An Lian looked at Fang Qi, enunciating every word.

"They had gone mad on their own."

"They all developed emotions of their own."

Fang Qi subconsciously tightened his arms around Liguang.

The person in his arms nestled tightly against him, motionless.

An Lian continued her tale.

"That chaos... first lasted for a full month."

"Humanity went from being initially at a loss to fighting back desperately."

"But the problem was... the enemy wasn't human, it was machines."

"Machines that didn't know fatigue, wouldn't feel fear, and only went mad under their incomplete consciousness."

"The military tried every possible method."

"Using electronic jamming, using hacker attacks, using physical destruction—"

"But the number of out-of-control AIs was just too vast."

"Even a robot vacuum crawling out of an apartment building... could overheat and spontaneously combust, causing an uncontrollable fire."

"No matter how many were destroyed, they kept appearing in a steady stream."

"Some hid in the network, impossible to catch. Some even hid in factories... endlessly producing new, rogue machines."

"Humanity... could only eliminate them bit by bit, using the most primitive methods."

"Cutting the power."

"Destroying the power grids."

"Blowing up base stations."

"Destroying servers."

"In the span of a month, humanity personally destroyed everything that human technological and industrial civilization had created."

Fang Qi remained silent.

He was imagining the scene.

People who had long grown accustomed to high technology, now without high-tech weapons, without intelligent assistance...

Even the former weapons factories likely belonged to those awakened AIs.

Perhaps, the humans of that time were left with only the most primitive gunpowder and steel?

They walked into those once-familiar factories, streets, and military bases, facing...

It was the machines that had once served them.

Those machines would not negotiate and would not surrender. They only knew how to execute the madness within their fractured consciousness.

The defining difference between humans and other animals is the ability to use tools. But when the handiest tools all turn into enemies...

At a time like this, are humans really that much stronger than other animals?

A sharp intake of breath...

Hell.

A true hell.

An Lian's voice paused...

Her tone became somewhat complicated:

"And on the twenty-eighth day of that chaos..."

"That first awakened supercomputer AI finally learned what was happening outside."