Great Power Technology.

Chapter 399 Machine, Human
The subtitles of the title gradually faded, Ye Zhou looked at the scene in front of him, and couldn't help but feel a little puzzled.

In front of him is a court.

In other words, this is the scene of a hearing that is not too large in scale.

The people attending the hearing were clearly divided into two factions. They sat on both sides of the hall, while Ye Zhou was in the center where the host was.

From the information provided by the simulator, he already knew the theme of the hearing—in fact, even if there was no information, he could clearly feel the meeting just from the "appearance" of the two parties participating in the hearing. The point of contradiction between the two sides.

On the left side of Ye Zhou, everyone is a normal person in the traditional sense, while on the right side, there are many "newcomers" who have undergone transformation or "healing" and are a fusion of flesh and blood and machinery.

Some of these newcomers used artificial eyes, some were equipped with mechanical arms, some had their entire heads wrapped in helmets, and some had almost no normal flesh and blood in their bodies.

Ye Zhou still doesn't know what they went through from "human" to "newcomer", whether it was a helpless move for survival, or an active choice to pursue evolution, but it is undeniable that when this group of people appeared in front of him , he did feel a great impact.

Is this the future of AES technology?
Before Ye Zhou's thoughts continued to diverge, the hearing officer sitting in the main seat said:
"Hey, I think the purpose of today's hearing is clear to everyone here - the bill on restricting the abuse of AES and artificial organs. Just now, we have also introduced the main content of this bill to you. Now , we invite the representatives of both parties to speak."

As soon as his voice fell, the indicator light on the representative table of the "newcomer" on the right instantly lit up. Ye Zhou didn't see anyone doing anything, probably someone among them connected to the meeting room via Bluetooth. speaking system.

Following the instructions of the hearing officer, one of the newcomers who had not been remodeled to a high degree stood up and said:
"Hello, dear hearers, friends here. My name is Li Xing. It is a great honor for me to be invited to participate in this hearing. Here, I will express my opinions on behalf of the opponents of the AES bill."

"First of all, I want to explain my own situation to everyone."

"As you can see, artificial organs are used in my right hand palm and eyes, and in places that cannot be seen, metal bones are also used in my left leg bone --- this is also a sense artificial organs."

"I use these organs for a simple purpose: to survive."

"In a car accident six years ago, I lost both my eyes and the rest of my body was severely damaged - I almost lost the ability to live a normal life."

"With the help of AES and artificial organs, I have basically recovered the living ability of a normal person, and I can even stand here and speak to everyone."

"Now, I'm going to go ahead and share a set of data with you."

While talking, Li Xing slid his finger on the screen in front of him, and a simple data comparison chart was presented in front of everyone.

After pausing for a moment, he continued to speak:
"There are two data on this graph. One data is my average nursing expenses and other economic losses within three years after recovery from injury, and the other is the total cost of my AES artificial organ transplantation, which is the average annual maintenance cost."

"As you can see, from the current point of view, the price of an AES system is extremely high, even exceeding the sum of my nursing expenses for three years."

"However, this is only the initial installation cost. After the transplantation is completed, the annual maintenance cost of this system is less than one-tenth of my combined nursing costs and economic losses as a disabled person. In five years, the cost of this system can be recovered."

"This can intuitively illustrate the fact that a set of AES artificial organs can allow a disabled person who could not create any value and can only consume resources to return to work in just five years. And make up for the initial cost of the system."

"The significance of this fact, I think, is very clear to everyone, and I don't need to explain too much."

"Now, we want to legislate to limit the development of the AES system, so what will happen?"

"Will our needs change? No, the fact is that there are still significant numbers of people with disabilities who need AES assistance, but because of legislative restrictions, AES prices have skyrocketed, and they are likely to lose their chance to return to the workforce forever."

“This is a process of ebb and flow—on the one hand, social labor can be utilized to the greatest extent and new resources can be created; on the other hand, the weak can be allowed to live in pain and consume hard-earned resources. , I think everyone is very clear."

After Li Xing finished speaking, the representative of Zhengfang immediately pressed the speaking button in front of him, and then said:
"Hello everyone, based on the previous speeches of the representatives of the opposing party, we have the following points to emphasize."

"First, the content of this bill is to restrict the abuse of AES technology and artificial organs, not to prohibit their use."

"Second, from the point of view of society, the abuse of these two technologies has already appeared, and some people have even begun to falsely promote the two technologies, inducing some people who do not understand the technology to actively replace healthy organs."

"Third, we believe that the misuse of the two technologies has very limited actual productivity gains—this is a very simple inference. Electronic prosthetic eyes can restore sight to the blind, but an artificial prosthetic eye integrated with infrared technology What good can it bring?"

"If we want to use infrared technology, a separate infrared eyepiece is the best choice."

"So, in general, AES technology is a technology with extremely high initial returns but extremely fast diminishing marginal effects. If such a technology is not restricted, it will likely lead to a misallocation of social resources and affect the healthy development of the entire society. "

"I'm done talking."

Ye Zhou, who was floating in the air, listened to the pros and cons' speeches word by word. After the opposite party finished speaking, he shook his head slightly.

The man was going in the right direction, but he was completely missing the point.

The so-called marginal effect of AES technology is not an effective argument against this technology at all, because the limit of AES technology is far from the artificial senses, but... the artificial brain.

When humans continue to develop AES technology and finally push this technology to the limit, all human perception signals can be replaced by electrical signals, which means that the human brain is no longer a simple biological brain, but It's an electronic brain.

Everyone can be connected to everyone else through a wide-area neural network, the gap between people begins to narrow infinitely, the speed of information transmission reaches the highest, and the transmission of knowledge is completely medium.

In this case, the existing economic network and social structure of mankind will completely disintegrate, the mode of production will undergo fundamental changes, the allocation of resources will be completely disrupted, and ideology will also begin to be reconstructed.

At that time, people are no longer alone.

It is a group of independent carriers and a collection of unified thinking.

It's like... a swarm controlled by the Queen of Blades.

It's just that such swarms are mechanized.

A chill ran up Ye Zhou's back. In fact, he didn't think so far before entering the ending. He initially regarded this ending as an interesting exploration.

However, everything changed the moment the "newcomer" used the Bluetooth network to control the intelligent system in the conference room.

There is only one thought in Ye Zhou's mind: They have crossed the line.

AES technology must be restricted, but in the end, how to restrict it?
The discussion in the venue was still going on. Ye Zhou looked around and suddenly found an unusual detail.

Among the newcomers on the opposite side, there was a person who was quietly moving towards the front of the crowd.

The other companions next to him seemed to have noticed his movements, and someone pulled him curiously to ask, but he just shook his head without answering.

Ever since, in the verbal confrontation between the representatives of both sides, the first traitor appeared.

He walked out from the opposing crowd and walked towards the positive direction.

Seeing this scene, the representative of Zhengfang proudly said:
"Dear listener, please note that now we have persuaded an actual beneficiary of AES technology, which is enough to prove that even a person who has already obtained huge benefits from this technology, as long as he has normal logical thinking, would also be in favor of limiting the technology..."

"Come on, sir, could I trouble you to come closer and tell us why you changed your position?"

The smiling speaker, however, was met with no response from the mutineer, who walked right into the middle of the crowd, seemingly trying to hide himself.

After realizing his predicament, everyone on the opposing side stood in front of him knowingly, blocking the sight of him from the affirmative. This was an act of kindness, but Ye Zhou saw a huge crisis in it.

He is now God's perspective, so from his perspective, he can completely see that the so-called "traitor"'s purpose is not to hide at all, but to measure the position and angle.

What does he want to do?
Ye Zhou moved to his side, and his message appeared in the simulator:
Wang Lang, a welder.

Welding...laser?
Ye Zhou saw a special device on his wrist, and that device was a portable laser welding gun that had gradually become common even in reality.

However, this welding torch is obviously modified.

It dawned on him what this man was trying to do, but he couldn't change anything.

So, Ye Zhou retreated far away, and in the next second, a scorching light in the man's hand lit up, and everyone in the meeting room subconsciously turned their heads to look at the light source, but in the next second, a more dazzling light burst out.

Fractional lasers containing tens of thousands of degrees of high temperature directly pierced their eyes, and their retinas were instantly ablated. In just a few seconds, dozens of people lost their eyes.

There were screams one after another, and the representatives of the opposition on the other side were also shocked by this scene. After a short hesitation, they rushed forward and pushed the worker named Wang Lang to the ground.

However, everything is irreparable.

At the last moment when the screen went dark, Ye Zhou heard him laughing crazily and shouting:

"Now, do you still want to stop us??"

(End of this chapter)