Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 620 - 264 This Place Cannot Slide

Chapter 620: Chapter 264 This Place Cannot Slide

Lu Xuanyu received a notification the day before his next surgery, instructing him to visit a certain meeting room at the medical center alone.

When Lu Xuanyu arrived, he saw Xiang Shan standing there.

"Mr. Xiang?" Lu Xuanyu was somewhat surprised, "Did you specifically want to see me about something?"

While waiting for Lu Xuanyu, Xiang Shan’s hands moved in front of him, seemingly using AR smart glasses to handle some affairs. After Lu Xuanyu entered, he waved his right hand dramatically, hiding all the interfaces, then looked at Lu Xuanyu.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Xiang Shan asked, "So, Lu, there’s been a little problem recently."

Speaking, he took out a small stack of documents from his side: "These experimental reports show that you have been involved in projects related to tactile feedback and motion signals for a long time, including operating and connecting with non-humanoid prosthetic bodies and sensory prosthetics, right?"

Lu Xuanyu took them, flipped through a few pages, and confirmed, "Yes, that’s true."

"So... this ’volunteer show signs of discomfort’ record, it hasn’t been exaggerated? Or is there any concealment?"

Lu checked and realized that his embarrassing incident of spraying out his lunch due to operating the tactile prosthetic was also recorded. Feeling somewhat embarrassed, he said, "This is an accurate record."

Xiang Shan sighed, "Actually... Look, you could have refused, really."

At this moment, Lu Xuanyu caught the implication, "You mean, Director Chen... his actions are not quite appropriate?"

"Not exactly inappropriate," Xiang Shan explained: "I believe Director Chen has good intentions, and he indeed thinks, based on the records of animal experiments, theoretically these projects won’t bring any long-term, irreversible negative effects. However, different scientists perceive the world differently. And the perception of scientists is only closer to ’reality’ than non-academic personnel, after all, it is not reality..."

Lu Xuanyu said, "Wait, can you simplify that a bit?"

"Put it this way, Yawgmoth, when performing the first genetic surgery on Homo sapiens to Benchmark Man, estimated the surgery as ’no big problem,’" Xiang Shan explained: "In the end, to save his life, I can’t tell you how many grey areas I had to navigate, and Niyaguti even staked her career on it. Scientists are not gods, and scientists can also make deviations—even within their own expertise."

"Director Chen is the same. Even if he, based on animal experiments, believes there is no risk of persistent injury, the reality still cannot eliminate the possibility of problems arising."

Lu Xuanyu scratched his head: "Did you receive some sort of whistleblower report or something...?"

Xiang Shan shook his head: "During internal meetings these past few days, Doctor Tao compiled his report, and then pointed out some issues to me."

"This..."

Xiang Shan burst into a wry smile: "Lu, I’m the one concerned about your life safety here, how come you think I’m not loyal enough to Director Chen?"

"This..." Lu Xuanyu felt a bit embarrassed, "Well, a bit. These projects were approved by me, and I do think they are really meaningful... or more like Director Chen said they were meaningful."

"I don’t deny that. But the problem is not there," Xiang Shan rubbed his temples: "Human life is priceless, and all lives are equal. Scientists should not actively sacrifice the few to accomplish ’meaningful great deeds.’"

Lu Xuanyu laughed and then stopped: "Wait a minute, just dizziness and nausea, right? What kind of sacrifice is that? Those of us in martial arts can bear such small hardships."

Xiang Shan looked deeply at Lu Xuanyu, changing the subject: "You know? Director Chen started with visual processing, so when we first developed the Prosthetic Eye, we let him propose ideas first. But his idea was also the first to be rejected. Why? He thought we could directly feed the computer-generated image data from CCD collection into the middle and higher-level cortex."

"If done so, we could bypass many difficult problems such as simulation, localization, and also skip the bandwidth limitations of artificial visual nerves, directly achieving superhuman vision. And theoretically, this is also feasible. Human visual processing mechanisms have strong plasticity. Give a person glasses that invert vision upside down, this person will feel uncomfortable for a few days, but after a few more days, it will seem as if the glasses don’t exist at all, and the world they see will become normal."

"Yet, to this day, we are still honestly working on artificial retinas and artificial visual nerves."

Lu Xuanyu couldn’t help asking, "Why?"

"If, just if, your field of view was filled with various indescribable lights and shadows for a long time... their shapes and colors completely different from any objects you have seen before, and you were unable to link them with the tactile and olfactory signals you are simultaneously experiencing. How do you think you would feel after maintaining such a state for several days?"

Lu Xuanyu shook his head: "I don’t know."

Xiang Shan spread his hands: "I don’t know either. But at that time, Doctor Tao told him, ’If it triggers epilepsy, then I have absolutely no grounds to defend you in front of the Ethical Committee.’"

"Humans are the only creatures with full higher cognitive activities. In this regard, humans are indeed special. Projects involving human perception and psyche cannot be fully understood just from the results of animal experiments."

"And we have not completely rejected his ideas. At least, we can still continue to gather data on monkeys. The same goes for artificial color vision. We just oppose testing these types of projects on adult human volunteers at this stage."

"I want to emphasize again, Director Chen indeed has no malice towards you. His deductions from the results of animal experiments are indeed logical. We can indeed assume that his experiments won’t mostly cause long-term adverse effects. But he still has the possibility of making estimation errors. Understanding this, you can selectively refuse some of his requests."

Lu Xuanyu looked at Xiang Shan as if he was seeing him anew. He looked at Xiang Shan and said, "Mr. Xiang, I’ve always thought that you were among the radicals of the radicals... advocating for universal genetic modification, human cyberization, and all that..."

"I’ll take that as a compliment."

"But I see now you also have a conservative side..."

Xiang Shan’s mouth twitched downward: "That’s why my company is so big. We can’t afford a single mistake before achieving phased victories."

With that, Xiang Shan patted Lu Xuanyu’s shoulder: "Prepare well for the surgery."

It was just a minor episode. The next day, Lu Xuanyu entered the operating room again.