I Really Didn’t Want to be a Savior

With a new topic, and it was the new imaging technology that he was most interested in, James no longer talked about the script with Chen Feng, but started talking about the new technology that Chen Feng mentioned.

Chen Feng didn't brag, he almost faithfully described the performance of the first-generation self-taming engine from memory.

"Diaz, have you seen the quantum computing programming ideas I mentioned in "Madman's Conjectures 2.0"?"

"Seen."

"The core framework of the so-called self-taming engine is based on quantum programming. Diaz, you are not a practitioner in the field of artificial intelligence, so I can't explain it to you in detail. You just need to know that the core of the program I built is exactly like The DNA of our human body. Data is its nutrition. It can automatically capture the required data, continuously copy around the core and perform directional calculation splitting to obtain stronger and stronger simulation rendering capabilities. The virtual reality structured by this engine will become more and more powerful. The more fake it is, the more real it is.”

James Diaz carefully tasted Chen Feng's words and felt inexplicably creepy.

After all, he is a giant in science fiction movies, and his masterpieces include the theme of artificial intelligence rebellion such as "The Ultimate". He immediately asked: "Wouldn't this give birth to a super artificial intelligence with self-awareness? Wouldn't this be... too dangerous? ?”

Chen Feng shook his head with a smile, opened his eyes and told lies, saying half truthfully and half falsely: "Data is data after all, and chips and CPUs are chips after all. Artificial intelligence operations are based on the always regular computer operation core, and its randomness can never catch up with humans. Quantum collapse of the brain. Artificial intelligence will not produce truly free thoughts, so your worries are unnecessary."

James: "But there's always some risk?"

Seeing that he couldn't get over it, Chen Feng simply said: "The flames may burn people to death, burn down houses, and cause forest fires, but if primitive people did not take the initiative to control the flames, could the average life span of human beings exceed twenty years? There is a Chinese saying , we cannot hide illnesses and avoid medical treatment. Risks will always exist, but can we give up progress because we are afraid of risks? Another example is nuclear bombs. Now, do you think nuclear bombs have brought regression or progress to our civilization?"

James was stopped by this question, "If an out-of-control war does not break out, the meaning of the existence of nuclear bombs is actually progress."

"That's right." Chen Feng spread his hands, "Have you ever had an illusion? Why were there so many great scientists in the early 20th century? In the 21st century, although technology is still progressing, we are still able to A group of people have won the Nobel Prize, but we can clearly feel that there are fewer people who can bring qualitative changes to the world. Scientists who are admired by the world seem to have become scarce items, just like Einstein and Fermi back then. There are fewer and fewer academic idols like , von Neumann, and Qian Xuesen. Is it really just because ordinary people are exposed to too much entertainment culture and their pursuit of academics has weakened? "

James thought for a while, "There are certain reasons, but the essential problem is still that the things created by scientists are, firstly, too far away from ordinary people's lives, and secondly, they cannot be the same as before. Every time they move forward, they can change the world visibly." , changing humankind’s scientific outlook.”

Chen Feng nodded, "Yes, do you want to know the reason? Do you know?"

James Diaz took a heavy sip of coffee, "It's because as humans explore more and more deeply into the mysteries of the universe, the amount of calculations that need to be completed every time we move forward is increasing, and the progress of our computing power has been delayed. The hindrance of our thoughts. So we can no longer create qualitative changes easily, but can only use quantitative changes little by little to accumulate into qualitative changes?"

Chen Feng smiled, "Yes."

"But the problem was solved this year. Mr. Chen, you are changing the world."

Chen Feng: "Don't worry about those details. There is no comparison between me and ordinary scientists."

"Yes, you may not copy."

"Ahem." Chen Feng blushed slightly, "In short, we know that artificial intelligence may be poison, it may be a poison to quench thirst, or it may bring about the future doomsday such as intelligent war. But if humans don't want to wait until the resources in the solar system are exhausted. Slowly and desperately trapped under the stars, humans must personally create artificial intelligence that can complete a large number of calculations on our behalf, regard it as our sub-civilization, and cooperate with it.”

"Let me give you an example. If our spacecraft wants to fly across the open space between the solar system and the nearby galaxy, it needs to travel a distance of four light years. Assuming that we can build a spacecraft that can reach one-tenth the speed of light in a hundred years, in fact not enough."

"You should know how powerful a tiny particle of dust in the universe is when it hits the spacecraft at such a high speed? We can't even safely cross the Kuiper asteroid belt. Therefore, in addition to precise control of the engine, adjust at any time In addition to making perfect advance calculations on the direction of travel, we must also build a strong enough inverse magnetic field shield at the front of the ship to protect our spacecraft."

"A spacecraft that can fly out of the solar system at high speed and safely requires at least 10,000 times the computing power of all human supercomputers combined. If we don't rely on quantum computing and artificial intelligence, what else can we rely on? We use humans. Brain? Impossible."

James Diaz gradually understood Chen Feng's intention, "So your self-taming special effects rendering engine, on the surface, seems to be for the new era of movie special effects, but in fact it is to truly set off the future of artificial intelligence and big data algorithms? You are Want to change the world?”

"Yes, but creating a new thing from scratch cannot be created out of thin air. It requires the support of the industry chain. Because researching and promoting new technologies requires money and investment. The more important the newer the technology, the more funds are needed. The volume becomes larger. Therefore, technology cannot exist apart from reality. Artificial intelligence ultimately exists to serve human computing needs."

"So I chose to start from the field of film special effects, which is currently relatively broad and allows ordinary people to quickly realize the changes it has made to the times. Diaz, come on, join me in using new technology to change the future of film , and change the future of mankind. Isn’t this what you want to do most?”

Although Chen Feng doesn't like politics and never calls himself a politician, his speeches are quite inflammatory.

James' emotions were slowly aroused.

"So, Mr. Chen, what kind of effect can your engine achieve?"

Chen Feng clicked on a blockbuster film that has been famous for its special effects in the past two years and said: "If we have to use data to measure the accuracy, realism, and expressiveness of the picture, I can at least achieve three times this level. As for the rendering speed, It should reach the current highest level...well, 10 times. In addition, the difficulty of modification will also be reduced a lot. You can even directly generate a simulation environment based on the original painting, and then fine-tune it as you want."

After James Diaz heard this, he thought about it for a moment, got angry, and proposed another thing.

Only then did Chen Feng realize what he was worrying about just now.

It was the post-production special effects of the film he was filming.

James Diaz built a large and professional technical team based on his own needs many years ago, and maintained in-depth cooperation with a number of large-scale post-production special effects teams around the world.

In terms of the technical level of the postmodern film industry, he considers himself second, and few people dare to claim to be first.

But even so, his desire to do better was never satisfied.

He remains ever critical and dissatisfied.

This time there were some details that stumped him.

Anyone else would have been willing to muddle through, but he refused.

If he wanted to achieve the perfect effect he desired, in addition to an additional investment of more than 50 million US dollars, after completion, it would take about four months to add to the production cycle.

But according to the film's release plan, there was no time.

After listening to James' needs, Chen Feng personally made the decision and decided to take the job at a price of 20 million U.S. dollars and shorten the delivery cycle to within one month.

Although Director Zhan had absolute trust in Chen Feng's ability, Chen Feng still made huge concessions on the payment model out of commercial considerations.

After all, the Light and Shadow Studio has just built a framework, and there are only a few employees.

The order for this first business was as high as 20 million US dollars. The contract was too harsh and unfair to others.

Chen Feng stated that no deposit or advance payment was required until the finished product was produced and fully approved by the investor team, production team and director team led by Director Zhan for the film.

Of course, he is not afraid that others are obviously satisfied and deliberately pretend to be dissatisfied and play tricks with him.

With Chen Feng's huge influence in hand, he also has an even bigger industry behind him that can control the direction of technological development in the next few decades. Unless others take the wrong medicine, they will have a stalemate with him over the 20 million yuan.

The two also signed a letter of intent.

If the new technology described by Chen Feng can really solve James' current predicament perfectly, and the content produced by Xingfeng Lighting Studio appears in the final film, then James Diaz will direct "Across the Stars" and will no longer try to add Enter any personal thoughts.

He will completely follow the script, and even the storyboards will fully meet Chen Feng's needs.

He will only faithfully act as an executor who transforms the script into pictures - commonly known as the tool man squatting in the director's position.

If this news gets out, I don’t know how many people’s jaws will be shocked.

God Zhan fell and surrendered to reality.

The business was almost done and it was time to chat. Chen Feng went to the filming site at the invitation of James.

It took nearly ten minutes to get from the office building to the large studio. Chen Feng saw many real-life shooting scenes along the way.

James explained each one very proudly.

Which hillock was he dug out? In order to make the vegetation on the hillock logical, he even spent a lot of money to buy a large number of plants and plant them on it. In order to take care of these plants, he also hired many gardeners and so on.

During the actual filming process, this hill will be the main setting for the actors to promote the plot, and a large green screen will rise behind the hill to facilitate post-production.

Chen Feng expressed his admiration for this.

No wonder other people's A-level blockbusters have such strong picture quality that they are really willing to spend money on them.

Arriving at the studio where the set was being set up, the scene looked lively.

The huge workshop has been built with more than ten rooms of various types and colors according to the needs of the plot, representing various functional sections in the spaceship.

At this time, there are more than 400 various staff here.

In some mid- to low-cost science fiction dramas, similar sets are often rented and then appropriately renovated. Therefore, careful viewers can easily find that the scenes in a certain film are similar to those in another drama when watching the drama.

This is not an illusion, it is a fact.

But how could James, who was picky and wealthy, tolerate other people's scenes appearing in his film.

Of course he had to design it himself and strictly control it.

In addition to personally deciding on the theme and inviting well-known artists to serve as visual art directors responsible for the artistic sense, he also recruited nearly two dozen PhD graduates and PhD students from the University of California, Berkeley, to serve as scientific consultants.

In order not to delay the studies of these students, the cunning James also jointly established a research group with Berkeley based on his own film. The project is called "How to perfectly apply strict science to science fiction movies."

In a set room, two young people and an old man with long hair were holding surveying instruments to measure an image on the wall.

The image appears to be a galaxy simulation of a binary star system.

Master Chen glanced at him, his super-powerful brain making calculations habitually.

This star chart is too much.

There are so many golden ratios. How severe is the obsessive-compulsive disorder of the person who designed this picture?

What's even more frustrating is that the combination of these tangent lines, which respectively represent the gravitational field, the planet's orbit, and the equatorial plane, is full of artistic sense.

The most disappointing thing is that Chen Feng has actually "seen" a galaxy that is exactly the same as this one.

The home planet of the Lost Clan.

According to the description of the Mi clan remnants, the Mi clan home planet is indeed such a binary star system.

However, with the scientific level of mankind in the 21st century, it is simply impossible to clearly see the Mysterious parent star located in the horizon isolation zone behind the galactic center and a distance of 100,000 light-years.

Seeing that Chen Feng was interested in this painting, James said proudly: "This is the binary star system of the Bonute tribe's home planet set in my film. How do you like it? Is it beautiful?"

"Very beautiful. What kind of race are the Bonutes?"

"A kind-hearted and gentle cyborg lifeform. In my story, he is a close partner of the human race on Earth."

"I remember seeing in the news that this script is your own original work, Diaz?"

"Yes, but it was also a collaborative effort between the writing team and me."

Chen Feng silently gave a thumbs up, "What a great job, you guys did an incredible job."

"This is my visual art director Martin, who designed the star map art concept." James pointed at the long-haired old man and introduced.

"These two... are young scientists from the University of Berkeley. They are responsible for improving the scientific evidence for this galaxy map."

James wanted to introduce two other young people, but he couldn't remember their names.

Chen Feng was sharp-eyed and saw the work badges of these two people.

The blond white young man is named Smith Aslan, and the black-haired young man with some Asian features is named Kader Ivanov Liu.

Well, a mixed race of Chinese and Russian descent, and if I guessed correctly, his father’s surname is Liu.

Wait...that name.

Chen Feng's head thumped.

He remembered a profile.

Kader Ivanov Liu was born in May 1995 in the San Francisco Bay Area of ​​Chinese and Russian descent.

Obtained a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2025, and has since worked at NASA in theoretical calculations.

It seems ordinary here, but the next sentence immediately changes.

In 2043, at the age of 48, Liucard resigned from NASA, went to teach at Berkeley University, and wrote science fiction novels in his spare time.

Liucard's interest in science fiction stems from his work as a scientific consultant on the set of director James Diaz while he was a PhD student.

Between 2020 and 2025, he joined James' screenwriting team many times.

James planted the seeds of science fiction in his heart and told him the meaning of using scientific thinking to imagine the future.

After creating many unsatisfactory works, he began to create the "The Spark" series in 2065.

In this masterpiece, he fully utilized his personal imagination of the universe, and perfectly integrated the profound and comprehensive knowledge gained from his long-term professional work into the novel.

In his story, he describes how after humans became the masters of the galaxy, they ran out of the galaxy with all their strength, fought wits and courage with various powerful hostile races that existed in compliance with the rules of the universe, and finally defeated many powerful enemies and obtained The qualification to stand in the universe, the grand story of immortality.

His story is logical, gripping, and wonderful.

And most of the theories he imagined in the book can find sufficient scientific basis in the 21st century.

Until the 31st century, scientists were even more amazed to discover that at least more than 50% of his descriptions of future technology were accurate.

He is one of the best science fiction writers of the 21st century, and perhaps one of the best science fiction writers after the 21st century.

His "Catching Fire" was adapted into a famous film series, the first of which was titled "Across the Stars" and was released in 2115.

Brief introduction of this character. Since the sixth timeline, he has not appeared in the seventh or eighth timeline.

Why?

Of course, since then, Master Chen himself has started copying the "Catching Fire" series of movies, and each time "Across the Stars" was filmed in advance and released in 2025!

Chen Feng thinks so.

Didn't Liu Card often work for James before 2023?

Maybe in the sixth, seventh and eighth timelines, this main character was actually part of James' team, and had early participated in the scientific advisory work during the filming of "Across the Stars".

No wonder every time I shot before, the feel was so good, the lens was so amazing, and the combination of fantasy and reality was so close. Master Chen thought it was all due to his role as a consultant in controlling the picture. Now that he thinks about it, Liu Card, the real owner, is also there. In your own team!

Xiao Liu must have particularly admired the script of "Across the Starry Sky".

But I just don’t know how he would feel if he knew that the original author of this script was himself.

In the later timeline, Liu Card's name did not appear at all in the historical materials of science fiction works. It was probably after this man's creativity was removed that Jiang Lang was exhausted and failed to write anything hard, so he was lost in history. .

well.

Master Chen, who had always been so "insensitive" as a copycat, suddenly blushed a little.

He had the illusion of going to the fields and stealing melons, but was caught by his master.

What's even more sad is that at this moment, Liu Card was looking at him like he was looking at a god.