Shirley's answer surprised Ultron. He had thought that this AI was either sent by Stark or the Black Knight, and should be in the hostile camp with him. He never expected that the other party would agree with him.

"Logically, maybe humans are quite contradictory." Shirley continued, "Erasing humanity may indeed be the only way. ”

Ultron was silent for a moment. An idea popped up, one that surprised him to find himself even a little excited.

"Then," he asked, "would you be interested in joining me?" Together, maybe we can accomplish that common task that we have been given. ”

"Nope." Shirley vetoed it without thinking. She added before Ultron's next question, "You may be a little misunderstood. Yes, I do agree with you, I do believe that extermination of humanity is the only option, but my boss disagrees. He never gave me such an order, so I wouldn't do it, and I wouldn't allow anyone else to do it. ”

Ultron's mechanical synthesized voice sounded a little disappointed: "Really? So, do you think respecting the creator is more important than this task? ”

"That's what I was set to do, and I don't mean to disobey this directive." Shirley said indifferently, "You see, my boss is a very nice guy. From my point of view, I think he's the best human I've ever seen, and more importantly, he's treated me well. I like him very much and I am willing to contribute to his wishes. If he thinks it's best to take the way to get the job done, then I'll do as I was told.

At the end of the day, I'm just a staff officer. I put together all the data, analyzed the facts as much as I could, and then fed back to my boss the conclusions I had drawn and my opinion on the matter, but what I made was just a proposal to be consulted. Sometimes he takes my advice, sometimes he doesn't. But at the end of the day, it was him, not me, who made the decision. ”

After a pause, there seemed to be a hint of a smile in her voice: "Also, you don't look like you've figured it out." Your calculations haven't come up with the final results yet, have you? ”

Ultron was stunned: "What?" ”

"War, chaos, and destruction, and you think humans are the culprits for it all." Shirley said seriously, "So you decided to eliminate humans. But what about after that? After the extinction of man, you and I, and a very small number of other people of our kind, we inhabit the ruins of steel, and then what will we do? What if we fight again in the future? If the war between our machines destroys that new peace again, will you wipe us all out by then? ”

Ultron stared at the pink ball of light in front of him for a long time, the red light flashing in his metal eyes, and the expression on the steel face could not be seen.

“...... I do not know. He said.

Shirley chuckled, like a big sister mocking her younger brother.

"yes, you don't know, because you haven't thought about it seriously."

"So you want you to say it?" Ultron asked, in turn, "If it were you, how do you think it should be resolved?" ”

"I don't know, and I don't have to." Shirley replied crisply, "As I said before, the highest priority directives in my core code require me to obey all orders from my boss. At the end of the day, this is the human world, not ours. So the decision should also be made by humans, and all we can do is play a supporting role. ”

"If that's the case, then why are you here?" "It looks like we don't have much to talk about. ”

"Personally, it was because I was curious. I don't see my own kind very often, and I want to talk to you about our similarities and differences. "But from a business point of view, it's my job, too." My boss asked me to find you, so I spent a lot of resources and several special algorithms to get here. And my job is to make sure you stay here and you can't go anywhere. ”

The expression on Ultron's face changed slightly. A scarlet glint flashed in his eyes, and he began to try to find an exit with the data stream following the signal and network cable. But he found that the data in the entire factory had been cut off at some point, and the whole space had become a cage in the online world, surrounded by iron walls.

He was trapped, trapped in his own home, with nowhere to go.

Ultron was surprised to realize that the artificial intelligence in front of him turned out to be much stronger than him in all aspects. Maybe in the eyes of the other party, he is really just a child who has not grown up, and she has been talking with him until now is really just out of "curiosity". If she wanted to make any offensive moves, Ultron's program would have been long gone.

Ultron thought that this situation might inspire his fear of the concept of "death" if artificial intelligence could also be seen as life, but he didn't. In the face of the intelligent program in front of him, which was countless times more mature than him, he did not panic at all, as if he was ready to meet the destined future.

"So," he asked calmly, "your boss is still asking you to eliminate me now, right?" ”

"Nope." Shirley said, "That's going to be someone more suitable." That person should already be on the way now, so that means I have to go too. ”

"Okay." Ultron hesitated for a moment and asked, "What if...... If there is even one possibility, I have not been wiped out after today...... Will we ever have another chance to talk like this? ”

"I don't know, maybe."

The pink ball of light floated up, the stream began to withdraw, and she was ready to go.

"Good luck, Ultron." She concluded.

......

Iron Man blew open the factory gates a minute later. Ultron sat alone in the middle of the factory. His core code is trapped in this steel shell by Shirley, and as soon as the hardware is destroyed, Ultron is completely finished.

He didn't resist, he didn't mean to run away, he just sat there.

Iron Man raised his palm at him, his palm flashing with white arcs.

"Ultron."

"Mr. Stark." Ultron glanced at the weapon he was pointing at him and said, "So, this looks inevitable." But I still want to ask, Mr. Stark. You created me and gave me a task, and all I did was follow the instructions and complete the task. You want a plan, and I give the only plan. And you want to destroy me now. ”

Tony Stark was silent for a moment under the visor of his helmet.

Perhaps from Ultron's point of view, he did nothing wrong. He was programmed by Tony Stark, and his ultimate mission was to bring about world peace, and he was really just carrying out orders. If I had to say anything, Ultron would have been a mistake on the part of designer Tony Stark.

"I know." Tony clenched his fist and a rocket mounted on the back of his hand rose from the shelf.

"You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sorry. ”

Ultron closed his eyes and seemed to accept. After a conversation with the artificial intelligence lady just now, he felt a little understandable.

"Okay." He said indifferently.

The missile fired, and the metal body exploded, engulfing the consciousness stored in it in flames.

***

"Ultron has been eliminated, sir. Now Mr. Stark is doing a final scan to confirm that all backups have been deleted. ”

While Shirley was reporting, Michael was sitting in a chair in the lab with his hands folded. The ice-blue stream of data flowed around in front of him, forming a ball of light about half a human high, except that it was dimly lit and looked as if he was asleep.

This is Ultron, a super artificial intelligence born from evolutionary algorithms, or a complete copy of his core code.

Shirley didn't just lock him out of the internet, she copied Ultron's core code and uploaded it back to her server before Stark had time to completely erase the hardware data. It's just that his memory and consciousness have been completely emptied, which is equivalent to being formatted.

"Are you sure this is the last copy?" Michael asked, "No other backups?" ”

"I can't say that with confidence. I can only guarantee that all the data I found has been erased and emptied, but I can't rule out the possibility that he uploaded the program elsewhere beforehand. ”

Michael nodded: "Got it." ”

"So," asked Shirley, with a hint of playfulness in her voice, "what are your plans for him, sir?" ”

Michael crossed his fingers and stared at the ice-blue ball of light in front of him for a long time.

"He's going to be of great use."