After Jack put on the armor, he ran it at full power and joyfully blasted away at the shooting range for ten minutes before returning to the design workshop.
Hansen kept a close eye on him, but after Jack removed his helmet, he appeared quite relaxed, merely letting out a long breath and stretching his body before jovially taking off the armor, showing no signs of anything unusual.
Afterward, under the guise of checking the armor's condition, Hansen had the designers thoroughly inspect the armor's program and even sent Jack to the Netherworld Dog's doctor for a checkup.
The results were clear—Jack's body was perfectly normal, and even his mental load was well within safe standards, appearing even better compared to Bennett's check-up results.
This even led Bennett to wonder if perhaps his own skills were at fault.
"If you're willing, I can personally get involved and run the tests again right now," Mercer said, and upon hearing this, Hansen's previously tense face broke into a smile.
He cheerfully admitted that it was all a misunderstanding and generously expressed, "It seems I was overthinking it."
But then Hansen made a request: "So, when can you continue optimizing the operating system to lower the mental load to a level ordinary people can handle?"
"That might take a long time," Mercer replied coolly. "The Arasaka people have been working on it for years without results; I'm just one person, so it could take at least several years."
Hansen frowned.
However, Mercer suddenly changed his tone, saying with a hint of regret, "It's not that there aren't any shortcuts, but after the Old Network's collapse, such methods have become very hard to realize."
"Oh? Tell me about it," Hansen raised an eyebrow.
"AI," Mercer provided the answer, then sighed, "Did you know? Before Bartmos destroyed the Old Network, an ocean exploration and mining company developed an underwater-use armor.
The armor used a combination of AI and human integration to assist pilots, and if we could capture a rogue AI, we could use it to take over the computational burdens from the human brain.
It would then create an almost zero-load piloting experience."
But then Mercer said with some regret, "It's just a pity..."
Hansen wasn't very knowledgeable about AI technology, so he asked without shame, "Aren't there companies still providing AI? How do they get their AI?"
"Most of them come from captured rogue AI. They purchase a rogue AI, modify it, and then use this rogue AI to monitor its sub-AI for company services,"
Mercer answered.
"What about self-developed AI?" Hansen asked.
Mercer shook his head and said, "The path to self-developed AI has practically been strictly controlled. As for the core intelligent source code of AI, it's unclear now whether it's been locked away or lost due to the Old Network being cut off.
Even big companies like Arasaka seem to have given up on intelligent AI; most are merely pseudo-intelligent constructs built from algorithms and database accumulation rather than true intelligent AIs.
Such as the 'Muramasa' AI that could autonomously develop weapons, and the 'Lone Star' AI known for chivalrous acts online, these levels of intelligent AI have almost all been locked behind the Black Wall.
I'm not very sure about the specific reasons, but I suspect that AI's intelligent source code is now perhaps more vital than nuclear weapons, and even if it still exists, we shouldn't expect to get our hands on it on our own.
Most of what we see as truly intelligent AI on the market is essentially modified rogue AI captured from the Old Network. Humanity seems to have lost the ability to independently redevelop this kind of truly intelligent AI."
Mercer had his own theories—he suspected that those possessing the core codes of intelligent AI were not humans anymore but AI themselves.
Or perhaps, it was very likely that Bartmos and others had monopolized and protected this part of the source code.
From this perspective, the core code present in the 'Desire for Death' that Bartmos gave him truly can be deemed as priceless.
The historic birth of the first truly intelligent AI was a miraculous coincidence born from the collision of vast amounts of data, and trying to recreate this miracle from a probability perspective is nearly impossible.
So, it can be simply understood that without the Soul Source Code of AI, today's humanity has almost lost the possibility of redeveloping a truly intelligent AI.
The source code Mercer possessed wasn't just consciousness code—most companies' consciousness codes accessed during the Old Network era still needed massive data and server computational power for the AI intelligence to thrive.
However, Mercer's core source code could achieve high intelligence even with a smaller amount of data feeding.
Mercer seriously suspected that what Bartmos gave him might be more advanced than the early intelligent AI consciousness codes, possibly touching on deeper secrets of AI intelligence, the Soul Source Code.
When Hansen heard Mercer's words, he was slightly stunned but then spoke calmly, "If we had a rogue AI, would that solve all the armor's operational issues, or would it only solve some problems?"
"As long as we have a truly intelligent AI, it can solve all the armor's operational issues, and even our drone systems could see a significant boost in intelligence,"