Crush - episode 4

(Continued from episode 3 )

For the next few years, we were all busy with our lives. My parents used all their connections in Beijing to introduce potential matches to me, but nothing worked out. They were getting anxious, saying I was getting older and had no one to care for me in Beijing. They asked what exactly I was looking for. I told them not to worry, that fate would decide, and joked that their daughter-in-law might still be in kindergarten, and rushing wouldn't help. One day, I said, when the project I was working on took off and we bought Lenovo, its CEO himself would come to my door to propose marriage.

You might think I would remain single forever, but that wasn't the case. Once, with my old roommate Lao San, I met a girl named Hai-Yun at the Forestry University’s English Corner, and we hit it off. We married the next year, had a son, and began the hustle of raising a child.

Except for Lao San, no one knew about my feelings for Xiao-Hui. The story should have ended there, if there weren’t any surprises.

At our fifteenth-year college reunion, Lao San told me that Xu the section chief had become Xu the director and had an affair. His mistress was over a decade younger than him. Xiao-Hui couldn't take it and divorced him. She remained single.

What can I say? Things are unpredictable, but I had always doubted Xu the Poet when I saw his flamboyancy. I called Xiao-Hui to ask how she was doing.

The voice on the other end of the line was familiar and calm.

She said she and Xu Yong were never meant to be, and their being together was a mistake. Even without the mistress, they would have separated eventually. Life was long, and a short pain was better than a long one. Now she considered it a timely loss cut.

When hanging up, Xiao-Hui said, "Wang Si, do you remember the Tuojiang River? It's usually calm, and many people swim at Dazhou Dam every summer. My dad could even swim to the other side. But one year there was a flood, and many houses on the riverbank collapsed. I skipped school to see the flood and was almost swept away, scared to death. I heard that the river's water is less and less every year. Let's go back and see it sometime before it’s completely dried up."

I never quite figured out what she meant by that.

Mars

After that call, I saw Xiao-Hui a few times on and off. Each time there were others present, and she didn't mention going back to our hometown to see Tuojiang River again.

I'm a reserved person, always lacking a little initiative when dealing with people. My college roommate, Lao San, said I'm a loner who can't be roused. Hai-Yun did nothing wrong to me, and I can't wrong her, so I never deliberately contacted Xiao-Hui, just silently paying attention. Whether you call it avoidance or cowardice, the decades passed quickly.

By 2040 A.D. I was nearly 70. One Friday afternoon, I suddenly received a holographic call from Lao San. He panted, babbling: "Wang Si, quick, quick, look, I forwarded you, a piece of news! Xiao-Hui, gone!"

I was shocked and hurriedly clicked on the pop-up window to find Xiao-Hui's name in the news.

She went to Mars, as part of the second phase of the Tinder Project.

I gave Lao San a slap: "Damn Lao San, even my smart toilet speaks better Chinese than you. You scared me to death!"

Lao San's holographic image wobbled. He chuckled: "Was I wrong? She! Ascended! To! Heaven!"

Ah, how did I end up with such a lousy friend?

The Tinder Project was initiated by American billionaire Marlon Newell. He was always worried that super AI would one day destroy humanity. To preserve our civilization, he planned to build a base on Mars.

Civilization is brittle, he said, and if a civilization is left unchecked, it will eventually develop a machine intelligence that far exceeds human intelligence. Machine intelligence would be so powerful that the entirety of human intelligence would be vulnerable to it. At that point, a small action by a machine could exterminate mankind, just as a child's mindless play could cause the entire world of an ant colony in an instant.

According to Newell, the greatest danger is not even malevolent AI deliberately opposing humans, but AI without any feelings for humans choosing a solution that is optimal but detrimental to humanity while completing a pre-set task.

AI is only concerned with optimizing the answer; if the disappearance of humans would make the problem easier to solve, it would not hesitate to destroy humanity, just like the AI HAL in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," which killed all the astronauts on the spaceship to fulfill its scientific exploration mission.

For a whole half-year, Newell bought out the top advertising spots on the three major global social media platforms, continuously proclaiming his philosophy. During that time, you couldn't even escape the scrolling ads on the stall doors when using the restroom:

Broad bridge to hell, Crafted by AI well.

Revel today without a care, buried by AI who-knows-where.

Guard against fire, theft, and AI; protect the country, family, and future time.

The writing was so odd that if you didn't know, you might think Newell was some local tycoon of a small-town enterprise.

If you linger in the stall for more than three minutes, you'd hear Newell rambling: "Mars, an untouched virgin land. At the Skyway company, we strictly control the flights to Mars to prevent unchecked AI technology from flowing to Martian bases. The chance of Mars City being infected by strong AI is at least a thousand times lower than anywhere on Earth. When AI exterminates humans on Earth, Martian residents will shoulder the mission of human rebirth. Mars, the future of humanity."

At this point, the camera quickly zooms out, revealing a group of handsome men and beautiful women behind Newell, flashing goofy smiles at the camera. A line of large text rolls out on the screen:

Mars, a vast land of great potential.

As I'm pulling up my pants, I hear Newell say: "A great person in China once said, 'A single spark on Mars can start a prairie fire.'"

His Chinese is a match for Lao San’s.

(Continued to episode 5 )