Free Web NovelChapter 128: Chapter 121: It’s Good I Wasn’t Duped!
Lin Xiaoqing was ’angry’ again, she hadn’t spoken to Zhao Yi all day.
After the evening self-study session ended, she pulled Zhao Linlin and rushed out of the classroom. It seemed like she was in a hurry to leave, but even Zhao Linlin could tell that she was deliberately avoiding Zhao Yi. "Xiaoqing, Zhao Yi didn’t follow us!"
"What’s it got to do with him!"
"You’re saying it has nothing to do with him? You didn’t talk or even look at him all day."
"It has nothing to do with him!"
Zhao Yi walked out of the classroom leisurely, feeling somewhat baffled.
What did he do?
Was it because he made a tiny flirtatious move to earn Study Coins?
At the time, Lin Xiaoqing even chuckled shyly.
Then, it was like this.
Zhao Yi didn’t take it to heart. Little girls often have bad moods, or physical reasons, or perhaps it was the anxiety from academic pressure.
Anyway, it didn’t matter.
He originally thought everything would be fine the next day but Lin Xiaoqing’s behaviour remained the same. She left 10 minutes early on her bike in the morning, as if afraid to bump into Zhao Yi. At school, she ignored him, treating him like an average classmate whenever their paths crossed.
Like Wang Jian, for example?
"Is there a problem?", "I don’t know.", "Go ask someone else!"
This was how Lin Xiaoqing conversed with Wang Jian.
Zhao Yi felt weird. He couldn’t figure out what he did to warrant this sort of reaction.
"Could it be because of Zhao Linlin?"
"Is she jealous?"
"Or is there some other reason?" He couldn’t understand it at all and decided not to overthink it. It was best to concentrate on his studies.
The reason why Lin Xiaoqing was avoiding Zhao Yi was simple: she realised she was seriously affected by him.
In the morning.
"Is he waiting for me downstairs?"
At school.
"Why is he so close with Linlin? What is he saying!"
"He’s so annoying when he talks!"
"Shameless!"
"Did he really reject First Middle School and a few thousand in scholarship money for my sake?"
In the evening.
"Has he gone to bed? The light is still on. Why does he always sleep so late!"
"Should I send him a text to ask?"
"I wonder what he thinks about when he goes to sleep?"
"..."
Since she was young, Lin Xiaoqing had always been the ’boss’, and she had never really liked any boys. She didn’t even know what falling in love felt like.
But now she’s certain that she likes Zhao Yi.
Liking someone feels very sweet, but it also fills her with worry and fear.
She’s in her final year of high school and the College Entrance Examination was approaching. She should concentrate solely on her studies.
She’s not even eighteen years old yet. It’s too early for her to be dating.
When she spends a long time thinking about a boy, she feels like she isn’t herself, like everything revolves around him.
Her heart has changed.
The feel of her life has changed.
These changes might be good or bad, but Lin Xiaoqing is worried. "Does Zhao Yi like me? Would he think that I’m not ladylike, too tomboyish, and always fighting?"
"Maybe he likes Linlin. Linlin is quirky and likable, and she knows how to act cute."
"It’s still early. Even if he likes me now, will he like someone else in the future?"
"Ah~~~"
Lin Xiaoqing felt like she was going crazy!
She decided not to pay any attention to Zhao Yi, to at least maintain outward calm. "As time passes and I get used to it, I’ll go back to normal. Everything will be just like before!"
...
Zhao Yi felt a bit awkward being ignored by Lin Xiaoqing, but he didn’t have time to appease a young girl.
He had more troubling matters at hand.
After the formal publication of his paper, in just a few days, amongst all the media reports, he received all kinds of invitations. There were invitations from computer conferences with ’impressive names he had never heard of’ and also invitations for lectures from various domestic universities.
And so on.
Zhao Yi found it a bit overwhelming.
He knew why he was getting these invitations. As the other members in the ’Computer Technology Exchange Group’ said, his paper’s proof for the ’filter method’ was not complete. Based on the paper’s content, it was hard for others to understand the ’filter method’.
Not to mention others who only started reading his paper, even his mentor Professor Liu, who guided him through his paper, didn’t completely understand it and wanted to discuss the filter method with him in person.
Zhao Yi had a voice call with Professor Liu, and received a piece of advice, "You should attend an academic conference, or accept an invitation to give a lecture at a university."
"Do I have to go?"
Zhao Yi hesitated a little. He enjoyed his high school life, and didn’t want to take leave because of the paper.
Professor Liu sighed, "Others would jump at the chance to give lectures. There are so many people interested in your filter method. It’s also a validation of your research."
Zhao Yi nodded in agreement.
Indeed, it was a big problem if no one could understand his paper after it was written. He needed to use these lectures to confirm to everyone that his ’filter method’ was correct.
The two then began discussing professional matters.
Professor Liu spoke about his research; he is currently doing research on evolutionary algorithms, suggesting that Zhao Yi’s "Screening Method" may have a critical impact on his research. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
"What kind of algorithm is it?" Zhao Yi asked with keen interest.
"Intelligent autonomous learning," Professor Liu explained.
To give a simple example, there are many ’similar’ things in the real world which are very hard to distinguish by AI.
Take dogs for instance.
There are so many different types of dogs, with significant differences in shape and appearance. The teddy dog looks like a little toy while the Tibetan Mastiff is as strong as any tiger or leopard.
The AI can be made to recognize all dog breeds by entering specific information, but this is not how the ’human brain’ works.
Humans don’t need to remember information about every single dog breed, yet they can judge whether an animal is a ’canine’ simply through observation.
This judgement is based on appearance, habits, and other knowledge. Of course, humans can also make mistakes, for example, some dog breeds are occasionally mistaken for wolves.
This can pose great challenges to AI as well.
Professor Liu’s research proposes that the AI should record learning data autonomously, promoting cognitive enhancement. At the very start, the AI could only recognize one dog breed. As new breeds were introduced, it would automatically analyze common points. When it met a new and unrecognized breed, it could identify it through these common points. Even after being pointed out for mistakes, the AI would automatically correct them, and independently add new information to make the recognition process more identical to that of humans, rather than merely relying on data input.
There are many difficulties in this process. The biggest contribution the ’Screening Method’ could make is to enable AI to automatically eliminate wrong information, just like humans correcting their errors.
Amazing!
Both Zhao Yi and Professor Liu felt an urge to collaborate right away and bring the research to completion. Most importantly, they wanted to apply their research results to Zhao’s robot.
He looked at the robot next to him.
The robot was already assembled. It looked like a cute and chubby toy spinning top with two high-tech arms. To describe it as hideous would be an exaggeration, but it was certainly not handsome.
Of course.
Its functionality is far more important for an experimental robot.
The robot has some basic functions; for instance, it can be controlled to walk through simple instructions, it has simple obstacle-avoidance capabilities while moving, its mechanical arms can grab things, and it can read aloud the text that is input, and so forth.
Zhao Yi was quite pleased.
The only frustration was the battery. The battery that came with the robot was just a bit stronger than a regular laptop battery. As soon as it was unplugged, the battery was immediately drained.
It could last less than twelve hours on standby state and only one to two hours under continuous command test.
The battery is an unavoidable problem, but there’s one thing that must be solved.
Simple functions can be implemented by inputting simple instructions into the robot, but it won’t work for more complex functions.
If he wanted to converse with the robot, it simply wasn’t feasible, as robots don’t have the ability to recognize speeches. Speech recognition is a highly complex procedure and wouldn’t be possible for him to code it all by himself.
The robot needs an operating system installed to support coding for advanced functionality.
At this point, Zhao Yi felt hoodwinked by Zhang Zhen.
Zhang Zhen definitely knew the drawbacks of an empty robot. An empty robot can’t do much by itself. It’s impossible for him to code an operating system or any code necessary to enable speech recognition or other functions on his own.
All of these are essential.
"So, this guy wanted me to go through the trouble all the way to the Capital?" Zhao Yi looked at the message from Zhang Zhen asking "Is the robot useful?", and felt as if he wanted to curse loudly.
"You won!"
Zhao Yi responded with three words.
Zhang Zhen was perplexed. After some pondering, he replied, "God Zhao, what’s going on? I don’t get it..."
Zhao Yi laughed.
It was good as long as Zhang Zhen didn’t do it on purpose!
Of course.
The underlying operating system needed to be installed, along with functions such as speech recognition. Once the basic functionalities are set up, he would have the confidence to complete the coding continually, allowing the robot to have a variety of functions to suit himself.
For instance, brewing a cup of coffee.
Alternatively, helping to clean the floor with a mop.
Or gradually achieving daily conversation functionality.
And more.
"I might as well make that trip to the Capital," Zhao Yi considered.
Zhao Yi needed to give an academic lecture, and universities in the capital were relatively suitable venues. He also wanted to check out Zhang Zhen’s company.
Zhang Zhen’s company specialized in intelligent development, so they should be able to install the robot’s operating system as well as a basic voice recognition framework.
One morning.
While Zhao Yi was drowsily sleeping, his phone started buzzing non-stop. Noticing a strange number from the capital, he picked it up.
An enthusiastic voice from the other end sounded like an energetic middle-aged man, "Hello, is this Zhao Yi? I’m Luo Zhijin, the Deputy Dean of the Computer and Information School of Yanhua University."
"Hello, Dean Luo!" Zhao Yi sat up immediately.
He had received calls from several universities before, all from specific external departments. They felt like the schools’ ’customer service’, inviting him over to give lectures. This was the first time he received a call from someone at a dean’s level.
"Sorry to bother you, Zhao Yi. Shouldn’t you be heading to school soon? If I call a little later, I’m afraid you would be in class," Luo Zhijin explained the reason before swiftly getting to the point, "I’ve read your ’Screening Method’ paper. It’s very innovative and insightful. Thus I would like to invite you to Yanhua University to give a lecture. Besides, after the lecture, you could visit our school and the newly built Intelligent and Automation Laboratory."
Luo Zhijin said a lot, but his intention was pretty clear: inviting Zhao Yi for a lecture and a possible tour of the school’s Laboratory.
If that call had come just one day earlier, Zhao Yi would likely have declined, saying, "Let me think about it." Now things were different.
Zhao Yi considered that Yanhua University in the Capital was a top university in the nation. Since he had to find a venue for his lecture anyway, receiving a call from the Deputy Dean of the School of Information displayed their sincerity. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
He quickly agreed, saying, "Okay, I’ll make time, probably over the weekend."
"We at Yanhua University..." Luo Zhijin was taken aback. He was introducing the school when he stopped abruptly and surprisedly asked, "You agreed?"
"Yes?"
Luo Zhijin took a deep breath, clearly surprised at Zhao Yi’s agreement. Then he said enthusiastically, "Good, good. Zhao Yi, it depends on your schedule. Yanhua University welcomes you at any time!"
