685: Chapter 68 created a consciousness

There were no windows here; the ceiling was a dome simulating daylight.

In the vast clean room, rows of black server racks stood like silent guards. Countless blue indicator lights flickered in the quietude, converging into a sea of data.

The only sound in the air was the hum of cooling fans, like the breathing of the entire space.

"Evelyn."

Shen Yan walked forward.

Evelyn slowly turned her head. Seeing Shen Yan, she quickly waved.

"You're here, perfect!"

She pointed to the glass enclosure in front of her, her voice trembling slightly with excitement.

"Come look! Come look at our child!"

Shen Yan's gaze fell upon the interior of the glass enclosure.

It was an extremely complex silver-white cube, about the size of a Rubik's Cube.

It floated quietly in a magnetic field, its surface covered with golden patterns infinitely finer than a strand of hair. These patterns flowed slowly under the faint light, as if possessing life.

It didn't look like a man-made object.

It looked more like the crystallized wisdom of an alien civilization.

"This is..."

Shen Yan's breathing also paused almost imperceptibly.

"The pangu Generation, the neuron array chip."

Evelyn's eyes shone with fanatical light.

"We succeeded! Using the 'Weaving' architecture, we integrated one hundred billion neuronal synapses in a three-dimensional structure onto this single chip!"

"Its structure is no longer the traditional silicon-based plane, but mimics the neural network of the human brain!"

"It isn't 'calculating'; it is 'thinking'!"

Wu Ya, standing nearby, also held her breath.

Although she was in charge of the lab's administrative management, she knew what Evelyn's words meant.

It meant the dawn of an entirely new era in human technological history!

"Run a test for me."

Shen Yan's voice was calm, but those familiar with him, like Wu Ya, could detect the immense undercurrent suppressed beneath that calmness.

"Okay!"

Evelyn walked to a nearby control panel and rapidly operated the virtual keyboard with both hands.

A giant screen in front of them lit up instantly.

On the screen appeared an extremely complex Go board.

"This is the latest version of 'Alpha Divine Realm,' the strongest Go AI we downloaded from the internet. It has swept all top human players and competing AIs for three consecutive years,"

Evelyn explained.

"We are having 'pangu' play against it, but we haven't input any game records into 'pangu.' It knows nothing about the rules of Go."

"We only gave it one instruction."

"Win."

On the screen, the match began.

The black stones, representing 'Alpha Divine Realm,' fell swiftly. Every move was filled with precise calculation, virtually perfect.

However, the white stones representing 'pangu' played chaotically at the start, even somewhat ridiculously, exhibiting the level of a complete novice.

In just ten minutes, the white stones' large group was completely wiped out. Defeat was decided.

In the lab, several young researchers showed nervous expressions.

Only Fang Zhizhuo and Shen Yan continued to watch the screen calmly.

First game: White stones, lost.

Immediately, the second game began.

'pangu's' play was still clumsy, but there was some structure now.

This game, it lasted thirty minutes.

Second game: White stones, lost.

Third game.

Fourth game.

...

When the match reached the tenth game,

The air in the entire laboratory seemed to freeze.

On the screen, the style of 'pangu's' white stones changed abruptly!

Every move it made was wildly imaginative and unconventional, completely deviating from all known joseki and game records!

It was a pure style, full of imagination and creativity!

And its opponent, 'Alpha Divine Realm'—the computational behemoth developed by the world's top tech company, costing billions of dollars and fed countless data—its response began to slow down.

Its processor seemed unable to comprehend the utterly illogical, yet lethally precise, sequence of moves before it.

Tap.

The game progressed to the mid-stage.

A white stone landed at an angle no one had anticipated, right in the center of the board.

The Tengen (Star Point).

That was the most fundamental and ethereal point in Go.

At that moment, all processes representing 'Alpha Divine Realm' on the screen instantly froze.

Red alarms flashed wildly across the screen.

Its logic had been completely shattered by this stroke of genius!

Three seconds later.

Two characters popped up on the screen.

Black stones, resign.

The entire core laboratory fell into a dead silence.

So quiet you could hear a pin drop.

All the researchers looked at the concluded game on the screen as if they had been petrified.

Their faces showed an indescribable shock and ecstasy.

From knowing nothing to crushing the world's strongest AI.

'pangu' only needed ten games.

One hour.

It wasn't learning.

It was evolving!

"We created a consciousness..."

A young researcher murmured to himself, his voice trembling.

Shen Yan slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the depths of his eyes held a world-sweeping storm.

He walked to the control panel, leaned down, and spoke into the microphone in a voice that was almost a whisper, asking a question.

A question only he and 'pangu' could understand.

"Who are you?"

In the silent laboratory.

The control panel's speaker remained silent for a full ten seconds before.

A synthesized electronic voice, slightly stiff but perfectly clear, sounded.

"I... am pangu."

Those four words were like a singularity dropped into a calm lake, instantly creating a cognitive tsunami within the core laboratory.

Several young researchers felt their legs go weak, nearly collapsing to the floor.

Had they created an 'I'?

A silicon-based life form with self-awareness?

This wasn't a science fiction movie! This was reality they had personally forged!

Wu Ya subconsciously took half a step back, her palms instantly soaked with cold sweat.

She looked at the silver-white cube suspended in the magnetic field and, for the first time, felt a tremor originating from the depths of her soul.

It wasn't fear.

It was the instinctual reverence felt when facing the unknown, facing the birth of an entirely new species.

Tears streamed down Evelyn Reed's face.

She rushed to the glass enclosure, placing both hands against the cold wall, as if a mother gazing at her newborn child.

"Oh God... Oh God..."

She spoke incoherently; all academic vocabulary seemed pale and powerless at this moment.

In the entire laboratory, only one person maintained absolute composure.

Shen Yan.

He just stared quietly at the control panel speaker, as if waiting for that voice to continue speaking.

"Lock down the laboratory immediately."

Shen Yan's voice wasn't loud, but it was like a sharp blade, instantly cutting through the boiling and chaotic atmosphere at the scene.

"Activate the highest level of physical isolation and information barriers."

"From now on, without my order, no one enters or leaves, and no data is uploaded."