Chapter 1 Space-T Starship Launch Site, Texas, USA

Observation Tower.

Jask basked in the midday spring breeze, gazing at the distant rocket launch tower, already opened to both sides, all its support frames lying flat, and its interior completely empty.

Just a few tens of minutes ago, the long-prepared, yet never fully completed Starship rocket launched from there.

It carried no satellites, no spacecraft of any kind, and certainly no astronauts.

It wasn't even fully fueled.

A hasty, slipshod launch.

He remembered when he was a child, he was fascinated by the universe, loved spaceships, loved watching rocket launches, and dreamed of owning his own rocket.

But everyone told him that rockets were a crucial national asset, a high-tech creation possessed only by superpowers.

At the time, no more than five countries in the world had the independent capability to launch rockets.

Rockets were categorized as the pinnacle of human technology, a technology that only technologically advanced nations could master.

Someone even told him:

"Rockets are just intercontinental missiles; the principles are roughly the same. A country capable of launching rockets is also capable of launching intercontinental missiles."

"Although there are many differences in the specific details, a country that can send a satellite-laden rocket into space can certainly send a rocket filled with explosives to any corner of the globe."

Mmm.

Impressive.

It sounded like he would never own a rocket in his life.

But who knew if he didn't try?

Today.

The only private aerospace company in the world capable of launching rockets, spacecraft, and even manned missions into space is under Jask's name.

He launched the world's leading reusable rocket,

Sent a Tesla car into Earth orbit,

Sent four ordinary people into space for tourism,

Is preparing a lunar landing program, and all ten tickets have been sold.

And his ultimate gaze is directed towards Mars, hundreds of millions of kilometers away.

His appearance has shattered many legends in the aerospace field and created many miracles.

Are rockets difficult?

It doesn't seem that difficult; it's just a big firecracker. It's not as high-end as everyone used to hype it up to be.

What high-end materials, precise control.

Stainless steel can still go to space, and a few exploded engines don't matter.

However...

Using a rocket as an intercontinental missile was something he was trying for the first time today.

Facts have proven.

It works!

If the target is a manned spacecraft, then the rocket would probably never hit it; the flexibility and instantaneous awareness of human operation are far superior to mechanical guidance.

But...

What if the target of the "rocket missile" is also an unmanned spaceplane, and it's extremely fast, moving in a straight line, and always locked onto another spaceplane?

That's much easier.

In the face of the rocket's ultra-high speed, a remotely controlled unmanned spaceplane is just a sitting duck in the sky.

"爽 (Shuang - Awesome)."

He clenched his fist in the air and laughed heartily.

He had wanted to do this for a long time! What man doesn't dream of being an arms dealer? Who can resist launching a missile and hitting the world's most advanced spaceplane?

"Thanks, Turing."

He said with a smile:

"But... the revenge for Starlink, I'm still going to settle with you. No... not just the revenge for Starlink."

噔噔噔噔噔噔噔噔噔噔! (Deng deng deng deng...)

The sound of hurried high heels on the iron platform.

A short-skirted secretary in a coat, holding a folder, quickly ran up the observation tower with a twist of her hips.

She was panting from exhaustion.

It took her a while to straighten up, push up her red-framed glasses, and look at Jask:

"Three bad news, which one do you want to hear first?"

Jask was stunned and turned around:

"I remember this line wasn't said like that, right? Shouldn't there be a good news option at least? Otherwise, what's the point of choosing this multiple-choice question?"

"Okay then."

The secretary nodded:

"I'll put it another way. Three bad news, and another extremely bad news, which one do you want to hear first?"

"How did you add another one!" Jask exclaimed:

"Is that how you report for work!?"

He imitated the facial expression of a good friend who had once reached the top of the United States, glaring with his eyes and pointing at the secretary with his index finger:

"You! Are! Fired!!"

"Understood."

The secretary replied calmly, and was about to throw away the name tag hanging around her neck:

"I didn't want to do it anymore anyway."

"Hahahaha, I'm kidding." Jask immediately conceded:

"My old friend, isn't he running for the election these days? I'm helping him out... Compared to the extremely bad news, the three bad news are actually good news, so I'll listen to the three bad news first."

The secretary pushed up her glasses.

Opening the folder in her hand, she looked at Jask:

"First bad news, all of your Starlink satellites are gone. Although only 9,000+ crashed into the atmosphere and burned up. But the remaining ones have run out of fuel, can't climb into orbit, and can only struggle helplessly in a gradually decreasing orbit... Eventually, they will all burn up in the increasingly lower atmosphere, turning into shooting stars."

"The Starlink project that we spent so many years and tens of billions of dollars building has been completely destroyed today."

"Oh, my God."

Jask feigned a posture, covering his face with his hands:

"I thought this matter should be the extremely bad news, but it's just an ordinary bad news! I can't help but start to look forward to it."

"Second bad news."

The secretary looked down at the paper clipped in the folder:

"Wall Street has lowered all of our ratings. The Starlink system has been repeatedly invaded and used for pranks or sabotage during this period, which has greatly affected our reputation and investor attitude, and has even affected Tesla's stock price to plummet. The board of directors is preparing to impeach you."

Jask straightened his back, unconcerned:

"That's what I call a decent bad news, what's next?"

"Third bad news."

The secretary looked up:

"Except for Tesla's Gigafactory in Longguo (Dragon Country, i.e. China), almost all of our factories, server rooms, and data centers have been attacked by Kevin Walker."

"That's right, no need to investigate, it's Kevin Walker. He's obviously very angry, to the point of wanting to kill you, so he's being very obvious. What's more... it seems like he never even thought about disguising himself, all the attacks are so arrogant."

"But compared to the first two bad news, this one doesn't count for much. Because for some reason, Kevin Walker's attack this time was much weaker and slower, and the damage caused to us was not too great, and is still within an acceptable range... Of course, you understand, only relative to the above two bad news."

……

Jask chuckled:

"Of course, otherwise, what do you think my [virus] is for?"

The secretary tilted her head.

Not quite understanding:

"Your virus... isn't it for super artificial intelligence? Kevin Walker is a person, can your virus make him sick?"

Jask shook his head.

His hand touched the seam of his pants, feeling the unscientific blue light radiating from the flash drive inside his pocket, as if there was flowing glass:

"Just like I just told you, this virus is [far beyond the current era], and it's true that it's specifically targeted at super artificial intelligence."

"But, you wouldn't think that Kevin Walker doesn't have artificial intelligence, would you? That's impossible... No matter how strong a hacker is, no matter how talented a hacker is, it's absolutely impossible to simultaneously invade hundreds of vulnerabilities and simultaneously control hundreds of devices. Unless he's a centipede with 800 hands. But obviously, there's no such alien in the world."

"Anyone with eyes can see that Kevin Walker must have artificial intelligence Ai, and his artificial intelligence is far more powerful than the Chatgpt on the market today. I personally think that Kevin's Ai is already very close to the [baseline] of super artificial intelligence."

"Kevin Walker's technology is strong, but Kevin Walker is only one person, he can't cope with thousands of troops, unless he also has thousands of troops. This is the purpose of his training artificial intelligence, he wants to have countless subordinates, and each subordinate is as good and as smart as Kevin Walker."

Hearing this.

The secretary suddenly realized:

"So that's it... You used your virus to kill Kevin Walker's artificial intelligence! Making him lose thousands of troops! And because the virus will exist forever in the network world, Kevin Walker's strength is not only greatly weakened, but even he will never be able to create powerful artificial intelligence in the future."

"Because, you use the artificial intelligence owned by Kevin Walker as the [baseline], any artificial intelligence that is smarter than this baseline will be immediately destroyed by the virus; and any artificial intelligence Ai that is stupider and less intelligent than this baseline will be allowed to exist. In other words... your so-called virus from a bygone era has locked Kevin Walker's upper limit!"

"It's also because of this that Kevin Walker's attack on us this time was so weak, because his strength is now far inferior to what it used to be. Including the fall of the Starlink satellites and his operation of the NASA spaceplane X-37B, he is doing everything manually."

"It's conceivable that the brainpower and operating speed of an individual are limited, so our rocket was able to hit the spaceplane hijacked by Kevin. If Kevin's artificial intelligence Ai was still there, he could hand over other tasks to artificial intelligence, and concentrate on controlling the X-37B spaceplane, and then it would be very likely to flexibly turn and avoid our rocket..."

"So, this is your purpose, your plan? Mr. Jask."

……

Jask didn't speak.

He smiled meaningfully:

"Not all right, not all wrong."

"The trigger baseline of this virus is indeed set based on Kevin Walker's artificial intelligence. But the target of my use of the virus is not Kevin Walker, Kevin's artificial intelligence can't be regarded as super artificial intelligence yet, it's still far from real super artificial intelligence."

"Even if Kevin Walker's artificial intelligence is left alone, he can't do anything else except engage in hacking and sabotage. And it's not a threat to me, I'm not afraid of his artificial intelligence."

"His artificial intelligence will not think or truly create, it's just copying his operations and logic hundreds or thousands of times, in the final analysis it's still an emotionless puppet, a puppet army that obeys Kevin."

"Of course, the virus was like this when it was sent to me, and I don't understand this technology. To be honest, if I were given the authority to set the erasure baseline, I would definitely set Chatgpt or even stupider artificial intelligence as the baseline."

Speaking of Ai, Jask snorted lightly:

"The emergence of this kind of thing greatly inhibits human creativity, innovation, and thinking ability. The so-called creation of Chatgpt is all pseudo-creation. Once this trend rises, bad money will drive out good, and humans will only live in a cocoon and become more and more degenerate."

"Mike's speech this year was all written by Ai, with no nutrition, going around and around! We must hold a high-level meeting in the future to eliminate this phenomenon from the root. I don't allow my employees to lose their innovation and creativity... After all, the cause we are engaged in is a great project that mankind has never done before, and it is impossible to break through the limitations in thinking."

The secretary nodded.

Taking out a pen from her pocket, she wrote down this agenda item in the folder:

"I understand, the reason why Kevin Walker hacked into our factory to sabotage it is because you killed his artificial intelligence Ai, so he came to retaliate in a rage. But unfortunately, his current strength is far inferior to what it used to be, not only is the damage limited; but even before he couldn't break through Longguo's Internet Great Wall, and now he can't even break into it, and he can't destroy our Tesla Gigafactory in Donghai City."

Jask smiled:

"Longguo's Internet Great Wall has obviously been strengthened... It's very strong, this set of reinforcement is estimated that no one can invade in a short time, it's too strong."

"But, the reason why Kevin Walker is so angry has nothing to do with me killing his artificial intelligence. This is completely accidental injury, my own goal is not him. And with Kevin's strength, he will be able to get the baseline right sooner or later and create a new one. If this matter is really just like this... then Kevin Walker should thank me instead."

"In fact, the real reason why Kevin is so angry, resentful, and retaliatory against us is because of that Starship rocket, which shattered his long-planned grand plan. That rocket caused him more serious and greater losses, so great that they can never be recovered—"

"[I destroyed his historical closed loop. The current history has gone in a direction that does not belong to him... Instead, it has entered my correction track! My future!]"

"A genius as smart as Kevin Walker was finally hooked and fell into the trap I set for him, hahaha..."

He raised his arms high and laughed in the sun.

The secretary standing next to him looked at him blankly, considering whether her boss's brain was broken, and he actually said chuuni remarks similar to those of the mentally retarded villains in Sakura Country (Japan) anime.

But...

Oh.

She was already used to it.

This world's richest man is like this, he never plays cards according to common sense, and his thinking is not something that ordinary people can understand.

This is probably what people often say, the line between genius and madman is only a thin line.

"I majored in computer-related subjects at MIT, in neural networks."

The secretary pushed up her glasses and looked at Jask:

"So I'm more curious, how does your virus identify the intelligent baseline of those Ai and then determine them to be super artificial intelligence?"

"It shouldn't be the Turing test, right? The Turing test is too old, it was proposed by Alan Turing, the father of artificial intelligence, in 1950 to test the intelligence of computers. But today, the Turing test has long become a thing of the past, and many smart Ai can easily pass the Turing test, making it difficult to distinguish between true and false."

Jask smacked his lips and spread his hands:

"I don't understand this very well, otherwise... why would I say that the virus is from a bygone era? But I personally think that the recognition mechanism of this virus should also be similar to the Turing test."

"After all, no matter how powerful artificial intelligence is, it is not human, and it has essential differences from humans. Whether it is thinking, habits, or personality, there are huge differences from humans, and these things are more strict and accurate identification standards than the Turing test."

"You wouldn't think that artificial intelligence can pretend to be a real human, would you? Then I suggest you go back to MIT and retake the course. Artificial intelligence will never be human, and it will never become human, these are two completely different creatures."

The secretary pushed up her red-framed glasses:

"Regarding this, I have a different opinion."

She blinked her eyes:

"Humans can be deceived, programs can be deceived, then viruses can naturally be deceived. If there is really super artificial intelligence that can deceive your virus, making the virus mistakenly think that it is just an ordinary, silly, not so intelligent Ai?"

"You're getting more and more outrageous."

Jask laughed:

"What do you rely on to deceive? Sweet words? Hollywood acting? An Oscar statuette?"

"What's more, the purpose of people creating artificial intelligence is to become stronger, more intelligent, smarter, and more useful."

"[I don't quite believe that anyone in this world would tolerate their artificial intelligence... developing and evolving in the direction of a drama queen.]"

"[That would really be an artificial intelligence idiot.]"

……

Jask turned around.

Leaning against the railing of the observation tower, looking at the secretary:

"Speak."

"The last one, the extremely bad bad news..."

"What is it?"