Chapter 1059 — Taking Fire
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
From Pei Yun's attitude, Beiyila realized that the "synthetic brain" technology she had created seemed to matter more than she had anticipated—the "Outlander Wanderer," who always thought one step further than others, appeared to see in this technology some broader prospect for development, or perhaps... had already arranged some future application for it.
"May I ask?" After a moment's thought, she could not restrain her curiosity. "What do you intend to do with these 'brains'? Surely it is not merely to expand the ranks of the psionic singers and manufacture more mental-assist devices?"
Pei Yun looked at Beiyila in silence. After brief deliberation, he smiled and asked, "Have you ever visited those roaring factories?"
"Factories?" Beiyila paused, then nodded. "Of course—though I cannot move about now, the whole of the Solin region has many factories. I have seen the ones producing clothing and metal containers, and the ones treating wastewater and recycling slime monsters... Those machines are impressive."
"Yes, impressive—but perhaps they could be even more impressive," Pei Yun raised an eyebrow. "Those machines possess great power and high efficiency, yet compared with a deft craftsman, what they can do remains too little, too crude. As a Gondorian, you must know how the magical workshops of seven hundred years ago operated..."
"You intend to make the machines... learn to think?" Beiyila finally understood Pei Yun's meaning, and her eyes went wide. "Using those synthetic brains?"
"Not only that—we may even be able to make the factories themselves learn to think," Pei Yun nodded. "Picture this scene: our factory is a vast steel behemoth, and this behemoth has acquired a mind. At the factory's heart, in the thinking apparatus, a loyal wetware mainframe is immersed; its neural fibers spread along the pipes throughout the workshops; every machine is its terminus. All the gears and levers have now grown deft, performing fine work like a craftsman's fingers, while the workers and technicians need only issue commands and design ever more advanced workflows..."
For several seconds Beiyila said nothing. She thought that if she still had a heart, it might have skipped a beat. She admitted to herself that she was drawn in by the picture Pei Yun described, yet she also felt an inexplicable... vigilance. At last she shook her head and stared into the eyes of the Empire's Chief Druid. "How is it I never knew you had such exquisite command of language?"
"Because those words are His Majesty's, and I merely memorized them for recitation," Pei Yun admitted without a trace of concern. "He conceived an astonishing mode of production... But then again, he also stressed the unsettling aspects of this technology—whether these brains might slip out of control, whether they might develop 'thoughts' of their own, what role humans would play in the factories... You are a technician too, and you lived through the Gondorian era. You should understand what His Majesty is worried about."
"Indeed, I understand—and fortunately he is already worrying about these things. His worry actually sets my mind at ease," Beiyila said, and as she spoke she made a motion as though exhaling, much as a human would. "How should I put it... The future you just described even made me feel a touch of tension... and when I imagine those factories and machines actually beginning to think, the tension grows all the more."