Chapter 58

“Hold on…”

Chen Chen suddenly halted.

He remembered that the chip in the movie could transmit signals.

Which meant that the chip was still inherently a sim card. It could automatically connect to the GMS network.

‘What would happen if I instantiated the naturally hostile artificial intelligence chip into reality?’

The safety protocols of the current Internet definitely could not hold a candle to those of the future civilization as pictured in the movie. Chen Chen imagined that within a second of the chip being instantiated, its unfathomably supreme processing network should be able to instantly decipher the GMS network and invade the Intranet.

Within two seconds, the artificial intelligence should be able to understand the situation it was in as it would have studied the DNS protocol of the global Internet.

Within three seconds of existence, it should be able to quickly realize the potential risks and opportunities of its existence. Under the circumstances, it would begin to rapidly clone itself and upload its core code into the Internet, thus abandoning its current shell.

In just four short seconds, the artificial intelligence would have infiltrated every governmental network. The events in Terminator would occur in real life.

F**king hell…

When Chen Chen thought of the potential fallout, he cursed up a storm in his mind. He quickly activated the signal cloaking device in the research center and turned off his phone.

After Chen Chen had made sure he did not overlook anything, another idea came to him. He found three tools and placed them in front of the computer.

The three tools he gathered were a fly swatter, a pair of pliers, and a mechanical arm.

The reason he did so was due to his previous experiences extracting items from movies. Due to the energy insufficiency of the USB drive, a small piece of flesh was chopped off from the tip of his finger.

It was not a major issue, but there was a chance that one day the USB drive would go all the way and take a huge bite out of him. Just like that, he would become disabled.

No amount of remorse would be able to help him by then.

That was how Chen Chen got the idea of extracting items from the screen using other tools.

First, Chen Chen played the movie and paused it at the frame with the STEM chip on screen. After that, he took the fly swatter and extended it toward the screen.

Uhmmm…

Needless to say, it was a failure.

Fly swatter in hand, Chen Chen was unable to feel any sensation whatsoever of it merging into the screen.

Chen Chen stubbornly tried the same thing with the pliers and mechanical arm.

Whether it was the fly swatter, the pliers or the high-tech mechanical arm, none of them were able to enter the computer screen.

Nothing worked apart from his arm.

F**king hell…

This was the second time Chen Chen cursed at the wind today.

It seemed like from here on, he would have to take extra preventative measures each time he wanted to instantiate an object.

First, he had to calculate the dimensions and the mass of the target object. Then, he needed to run the calculations to figure out how much energy was needed to instantiate it out of the movie.

He was not going to risk doing anything dumb if he could confirm that the USB drive did not contain enough energy.

Apart from that, he would also need to figure out ahead of time whether the item instantiated would have any impact on the real world. Take the chip today for instance.

If Chen Chen had just been a split second slower, the world would have ended by now.

Of course, this was purely Chen Chen’s speculation. Maybe the chip would still be in sleep mode after he had instantiated it from the movie. Or, maybe the chip did not even possess some sort of transferring or self-replicating functionality in the first place, it was all just in Chen Chen’s head.

Still, there was at least a slither of a chance that what Chen Chen had speculated was true. Even if it was just one out of a hundred, he was still not going to take that risk.

After again ensuring that he had turned on the high-caliber signal cloaking device and no form of electromagnetic signal could be transmitted outside, Chen Chen decided it was time to begin.

Chen Chen began to slowly reach out with his right arm. This time, he had no difficulty reaching into the screen. In an instant, his arm seemed to have entered a pool of clear water as a clear ring of ripples was formed on the screen…

Chen Chen could feel his fingertips touching a slightly prickly tiny object. He used two of his fingertips to lightly pinch the object and extracted it.

A delicately designed chip appeared in Chen Chen’s palms.

The chip was shaped like a rectangle. Its dimensions were about 8x5mm and measured about 3mm in thickness. It was densely covered with dense microcircuits.

Apart from that, eight ports extended out both sides of the chip. From the outside, it looked like a cockroach with sixteen legs.

By referencing the functionalities of the chip in the movie, he should be able to analyze its structure and concept.

Of course, to completely replicate the chip, he would have to reverse engineer it.

Without any hesitation, Chen Chen used a thin blade to pry along the gap of the chip.

With a sharp click, the chip was split in half. Countless electrodes and circuit boards packed densely together like a city map were exposed.

“Is this the processor of the chip?”

Chen Chen inspected the central section of the pried open chip. A black crystal-like object was etched in the middle. It was shaped like a perfect Metatron’s Cube structure.

It was an extremely intricate mechanical brain.

When Chen Chen beheld this, he understood why the chip was called STEM.

STEM was an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Not only did the chip represent the pioneering scientific and engineering advancement, the Metatron cubic structure which was also known as the sacred geometry also stood as a symbolic representation of ancient Greek philosophy.

Apart from that, there was nothing else that stood out.

“Is there no storage device?” Chen Chen frowned. He dismantled the chip into thinner layers. In the end, he ended up dismantling it into nine separate pieces.

All nine of these pieces consisted of tightly packed circuits. Just the size of these circuits alone was unachievable by today’s manufacturing standards.

Perhaps the most advanced laboratories in a leading technological facility could be able to get somewhat close to this level of manufacturing.

Safe to say that the most crucial component of the chip was the strange-looking, indistinguishable black crystal.

In the end, Chen Chen directly extracted the black crystal.

Although he did not notice any form of storage device, he had reasons to believe that the black crystal came with storage capability along with its core processing abilities.

The structure of the crystal object was extremely compact.

As for its powering method, Chen Chen turned his attention to its sixteen limbs. He figured that these antennas which doubled as ports could prod into the spine and convert the nutrients in the blood to energy for it to perform its task of receiving and sending neuron signals.

Which was to say, the human body only served as a battery farm for the chip.

Uhmmm…

Chen Chen rubbed his chin. He got himself a hammer and viciously slammed it down on the black crystal!

“Bang!”

Followed by a dull crash, the sesame seed-sized black crystal was instantly shattered into countless pieces.

After that, Chen Chen gathered up the powder remnants to begin inspecting the components of the black crystal.