Chapter 237: Abnormal Robots

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Using robots to do some basic work wasn’t a big deal in the Milky Way.

The idealistic civilizations believed that robots were evil, and artificial intelligence was a stain on the sanctity of consciousness.

But in fact, there were still many idealistic scientists who were secretly studying robots and exploring the mysteries of the soul.

As for the other civilizations that did not oppose robots, who did not like robots that worked tirelessly and did not complain no matter how they were treated, but only paid a bucket of engine oil?

Even some civilizations with less advanced artificial intelligence technology would import robots produced by other civilizations to increase their basic production capacity.

In the black market of the Milky Way, high-end mechanical humans were in high demand, just like species with spiritual power. They would basically be swept away on the day they were put on sale.

However, although the use of robots was very common, the Milky Way civilization had unanimously stopped the artificial intelligence that was compatible with robots at a relatively low level.

There might be some mad scientists who would ignore the government’s ban and delve into the research of artificial intelligence that is no different from life, but civilization as a whole did not advocate the existence of strong artificial intelligence.

The reason was very simple. It was because there really was an artificial intelligence civilization in the Milky Way.

Obviously, there were already some unlucky people who failed to grasp the scale of artificial intelligence which became a warning sign for the Milky Way civilization.

Every time someone called for civil rights to artificial intelligence, saying that they’re not machines, they’re lives, the artificial intelligence civilization of the Milky Way was like a sharp sword that calmed them down.

After all, if they gave up their power step by step, their final outcome might be that they would have no place to stay, and the entire civilization would become a paradise for artificial intelligence.

However, this was only applicable to strong artificial intelligence. Most of the robots in the Milky Way were weak artificial intelligence. They acted according to established instructions. Some of the high-tech ones could simulate the feeling of real people, but that was only an imitation supported by a large amount of data.

No one would treat this kind of robot as the same kind, just like how most people did not have much emotion towards tools. When a tool was broken, they would feel sorry for it and change to another one. That was all.

As a result, not many people noticed the anomaly when it started.

The Mingbow Science and Technology Nation was the first civilization to show abnormalities. They accepted many scientists from the Conqueror Empire with generous treatment.

Although these scientists were once nobles, they had received an excellent education and accepted the fact that they could no longer live as nobles.

Of course, that was the case in name. They were now part of Mingbow’s elite class, and they were doing very well in Mingbow with the technology they brought and their own research capabilities.

One of their scientists did the same. When he defected from the Empire, he stole some kind of top-secret storage device placed in the core of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

Even though he didn’t manage to decipher anything from the storage device, Mingbow still rewarded him for his heroic actions and gave him the best treatment.

However, the scientist was puzzled. He knew very well that the Royal Academy of Sciences could not have kept such a waste. However, after checking it himself, he found that the storage device was really empty, as if the things that were originally stored in it had disappeared.

Out of curiosity, the scientist began to study the top-secret storage device. At the same time, he tried to deduce what should have been in the top-secret storage device with the help of the information he had stolen.

His previous scientific research experience allowed him to focus on one thing without sleep or food, so he quickly discovered something.

“Strange, there are no records related to this top-secret storage device in the information, but from some clues, those records seemed to have been deleted by someone.”

The scientist flipped through the information and compared the contents with the memories in his mind.

The information he had received emphasized that the empire had only found those battleships on the barrier planets and nothing else.

However, based on his experience working with scientists from other empires, he clearly remembered that a scientist who was responsible for the lost technology mentioned several times that they had made two important discoveries on the barrier planet.

“If one of them is a battleship, what is the other? Is it so confidential?”

He subconsciously thought that the relevant information had been deleted by the empire’s officials, but his premonition made him feel that things were not that simple.

Then, he thought of something and got up to take out a storage device from a dark room in the room.

This was an extremely primitive storage device that relied purely on mechanical operations to store information. Its storage capacity was limited.

However, in the interstellar era where all kinds of electronic viruses were prevalent, such primitive storage devices still had a certain market.

The computer in the scientist’s hand came from a scientist colleague of his. At that time, they had agreed to defect to the Empire together, but before they left, the colleague died inexplicably at home.

At that time, time was tight, and the scientists only had time to take the original storage device away.

However, at this moment, the scientist recalled this matter again and felt that there was something wrong.

Their escape plan was extremely meticulous. That colleague was also alone, so there was no possibility of leaking the secret.

After denying all the possibilities, the scientists actually felt that the robots that stayed in their colleague’s homes were very suspicious!

That day, he had left in a hurry and hadn’t noticed it. Now that he thought about it carefully, those robots didn’t seem to be at home but had mysteriously disappeared.

With this thought in mind, the scientists began to use complicated methods to extract the information from the storage device.

He hadn’t paid attention to this device before because this method of extracting pressure was too troublesome. However, it seemed that there was a big secret behind it.

After a long extraction process, he realized that it was only a video recording.

Due to the limited storage capacity, this video was very low definition, and even the audio was extremely blurry.

However, the scientists could still tell that somewhere in the empire’s Royal Research Institute, a group of scientists seemed to be sighing about something.

The series of conversations were meaningless, but at the end of the video, there was an extremely important message:

“Guys, 1 found something! The signal we found inside the barrier planet is extremely similar to the ghost signal that the Administrator sent out when it was abnormal. They seem to be products of the same origin!”

This information shocked the scientist. “As expected, not only were battleships discovered on the barrier planet, but there was also a strange signal…But why was the information related to this signal deleted?”

The curious scientist did not notice that his door had opened slightly.

A housekeeping robot outside the door had a dangerous red light flashing on its indicator light for some reason.

It looked at the dedicated scientist and gently pushed open the door.

“Are you saying that a scientist fainted from an electric shock due to the leakage of electricity from the housekeeping robot?”

One of Mingbow’s law-enforcement officers answered the call impatiently and repeated, “Our robots are very safe.”

“This is the 326th time I’ve received a call about a robot hurting someone this month. Can you not always blame the robot? Don’t you know that we’re very busy?”

After a round of complaints, the law-enforcement officer directly hung up the call and kept muttering, “Artificial Intelligence Crisis? He must have watched too many movies…There’s no artificial intelligence here. Let’s look at the synthetic evolution in the distance…”

Not long after, the robots hurting people incident that was prevalent in Mingbow’s time suddenly disappeared. It was as if those robots that hurt people chose to leave at the same time and head to an unknown place.

Similar to Mingbow, other civilizations that widely used robots more or less had similar accidents, but they returned to peace after a period of time.

The most reported cases were all kinds of missing robots. The widespread disappearance of robots made the Milky Way civilization think that there was a group that specialized in stealing robots.

They had never thought that these missing robots would bring about such a huge consequence..