Chapter 1 Professor Kong's Invitation

Professor Kong Zhemin carefully considered it and asked, "Can this be understood as an easily accessible popular science textbook for the general public?"

Yu Ping'an nodded, "Yes, that's a fair understanding."

"We'll use the internet to allow more people to see this content and provide a more efficient search method."

"At the same time, we'll strive to ensure that the content isn't too profound or professional for ordinary people to understand, nor too empty or vulgar to be of any use."

"That's why I'm here to ask you to take on this task."

"You're not only a leading expert in the field but also a professor beloved by students and have extensive experience in writing textbooks. With you overseeing this content, there's absolutely no room for error."

Professor Kong Zhemin looked slightly surprised.

"It sounds like a great undertaking that will benefit generations to come."

"However, this seems to be a very large project."

"Just the various courses in Chinese Studies, such as ancient literature, modern literature, foreign literature, and so on, have a large number of monographs. Even after整理 and simplifying them into an encyclopedia, the content would be more than one can imagine."

"What's more, the expandable content in the Q&A section is infinite. This isn't something that can be completed in ten or eight years."

"I also have to supervise graduate students, so I'm afraid I don't have that much time."

"If many people work together to do this, will they be paid? How will the costs be covered? Have you considered these issues, President Yu?"

Yu Ping'an was prepared and quickly explained, "Don't worry, Professor Kong, we've already considered these issues."

"This project was initiated by President Pei of Tenda Group, who can mobilize all the resources of the entire group to support it."

"I also asked President Pei about the workload. President Pei's answer was: The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, and the next best time is now. Because it's a huge project, we can't delay it. If we keep delaying, nothing will get done."

"Even if the content isn't complete in the early stages, as long as the information inside is useful, it'll attract users."

"You don't have to worry about manpower. You'll be the overall head of this professional field, only doing overall planning and the highest level of supervision. We'll also invite some young scholars, professors, and outstanding graduate students to participate in these projects, each responsible for different tasks."

"We'll fully protect the intellectual property rights of creators and form a legal team to combat plagiarism and protect the rights of creators."

"Creators will receive corresponding remuneration each month based on their star rating and workload."

"As for the distribution of remuneration, all members of the 'Useful App' will have to pay to browse, based on usage time and number of views. We'll deduct 10% of this revenue as operating costs, and the remaining 90% will be returned to the creators in proportion."

"Of course, considering that there aren't enough paying members in the early stages, we'll provide all creators with a guaranteed remuneration. As long as the content approved each month exceeds 10,000 words, they'll receive a subsidy of two thousand yuan."

Professor Kong Zhemin was stunned for a moment, "This subsidy doesn't change with the number of words?"

Yu Ping'an nodded, "Yes."

"Because this is 精简 knowledge, if the remuneration is linked to the number of words, there may be a slight increase in filler content."

"This subsidy is just a basic living guarantee, so that creators don't work in vain in the early stages."

"Of course, this isn't to encourage everyone to eat from the same pot or coast along."

"Once the 'Useful App' has enough members, the income will definitely increase. We'll use a more complex algorithm to determine the revenue weight of each department and each creator, including: creator star rating, number of views of written or modified content, initial creation of new entries, number and proportion of content likes, etc., to calculate the revenue share earned by each section and each creator."

"This part of the income is incentivized."

Professor Kong Zhemin nodded slightly, "That's also reasonable."

Professors in China should be considered one of the groups with the largest income variance, but more than 90% of professors don't have much additional income other than their salary and basic performance pay.

Lecturers at Handong University earn less than 100,000 yuan per year in salary alone, and associate professors earn less than 130,000 yuan per year in salary alone.

Especially some professors in liberal arts majors who focus on academic research are quite poor.

Although a subsidy of two thousand yuan isn't much, it's still quite attractive to be able to receive it every month as long as they produce 10,000 words for the Useful App. After all, it's not as difficult as writing a paper, mainly整理 existing knowledge.

Moreover, the content must pass the review to be considered valid. There won't be unlimited filler, so there won't be a phenomenon of "spending money to buy garbage."

Professor Kong Zhemin considered it carefully, "President Yu, I trust Tenda Group, and the various conditions are very sincere."

"Moreover, this is a good thing that will benefit generations to come. I've been in education my whole life, and I'd be happy to do some popular science on the internet within my capabilities."

"But I want to ask..."

"It must be difficult for your company to make money from this project, right? Is this some kind of public welfare project or some kind of new business model?"

Professor Kong's eyes were filled with confusion.

Indeed, the conditions in all aspects were quite good.

But the problem is that these conditions seem to be too good. Good for content creators, good for users, but not good for the company.

Only leaving 10% for operating expenses would be a big loss, wouldn't it?

Even if it's a public welfare project to enhance the company's reputation, there should be an emphasis on efficiency, right?

The current "Useful App" takes a long time to develop, burns a lot of money, and is slow to show results. It won't have much influence until it truly achieves something. So what's the point?

Even if we consider the best-case scenario, that it'll become popular in a few years or even a dozen years, who can consider things that far ahead?

That's why Professor Kong was confused, feeling that something was a little strange.

Yu Ping'an was silent for a moment, then said, "Professor Kong, I asked President Pei about this question as well."

"President Pei said that some things always have to be done by someone."

"He wants to create a clean land on the internet with no garbage."

Professor Kong Zhemin was silent for a moment, then nodded, "Okay, I agree."

"This matter... whether it makes money or not isn't important, whether it's successful or not isn't important either."

"The significance of the matter itself is very important."

Yu Ping'an's eyes lit up, "Thank you so much, Professor Kong! With you here, many things will be much easier!"

Kong Zhemin smiled, "There's no need to thank me, I should thank you. There really aren't many companies like Tenda with a strong sense of social responsibility."

"President Pei is truly an extraordinary entrepreneur."

Yu Ping'an couldn't help but sigh. As expected, President Pei's personal charm is really too powerful!

It was obvious that President Pei's words deeply moved Professor Kong.

A big shot like him has long been in a state of indifference to the world, having achieved fame and success, teaching classes and doing research every day. If it's something he's not interested in, you can't get him to do it even if you pay him.

But President Pei's words moved Professor Kong!

Professor Kong Zhemin's joining not only added a big shot to the literary section of the Useful App, ensuring the professionalism and quality of various content, but more importantly, it will be easier to invite more big shots when the Useful App expands to other fields in the future.

When various big shots in different fields gather together, it will form a cluster effect, with more and more high-quality content, more and more excellent producers, and naturally more and more users.

It can be said that it's a good start!

…

…

October 26th, Wednesday.

Otto Technology.

The Aeeis development team is working hard on research and development.

The current artificial intelligence assistant technology can be simply divided into two parts: the front-end and the back-end.

The front-end mainly consists of speech recognition and speech synthesis technology, which converts users' spoken language into text and then converts the returned text results into speech output.

The back-end uses programs to process user requests and return the most matching results.

In general, the current artificial intelligence assistants on mobile phones are mainly responsible for four dimensions: device control and system function calls, third-party application support, dialogue and intelligence level, and skill-learning ability.

The initial technology for the artificial intelligence assistant was provided by iFlytek, and various manufacturers are simply updating and optimizing it on this basis.

But whether an intelligent assistant is easy to use depends on the extent to which the manufacturer has optimized these four dimensions.

Chang You decided that during this research and development cycle, he would focus all his efforts mainly on system function calls and dialogue and intelligence level.

Although third-party application support and skill-learning ability are also important, these two require more content to be created, and only a portion of users may have similar needs, so they will be prioritized later.

The so-called system function calls are when users use voice to control the mobile phone system functions.

For example, if a user says "weather," the intelligent assistant will automatically display the weather page on the screen and verbally recite tomorrow's weather conditions and temperature changes.

Similarly, the intelligent assistant can control calculator, calendar, notepad, phone calls, text messages, and other content, which will bring a certain amount of convenience to users.

Dialogue and intelligence level refer to how the intelligent assistant will react when users ask some more personalized questions.

For example, if you ask "Who is your father?" some intelligent assistants will answer "My father is the product manager in the development department," while other artificial intelligence assistants will answer "A group of innovative and intelligent people."

Strictly speaking, this point doesn't have much practical significance, but it will make Aeeis more recognizable.

Because according to President Pei's requirements, Aeeis is an artificial intelligence with no emotions, so while other voice assistants all use anthropomorphic voices, Aeeis will use an emotionless mechanical voice.

Since the "persona" is already in place, it must be established, and other aspects must also be well-coordinated.

Only by doing these personalized customizations well, in coordination with Aeeis's personality and voice, can the product appear to be very complete.

Previously, the day after the name Aeeis was finalized, director Zhu Xiaoce found Chang You to solicit a name for an artificial intelligence, which would be used in the film and game.

The two departments had previously collaborated on *A Beautiful Tomorrow*, so they naturally thought of each other this time. Chang You told Zhu Xiaoce about what he was doing with Aeeis, and Zhu Xiaoce readily agreed to take the name for the film and game.

At that time, they can also use the popularity of the film or game to promote Aeeis. Why not?

Chang You came out of the conference room, having just finished discussing some key functions with several key members.

After drinking some tea, Chang You discovered that the department head's private group had refreshed with a few messages, one of which was sent by Yu Ping'an.

This group is not used for chatting, but for each department to simply share any developments.

Yu Ping'an: "'Useful App' has successfully invited Professor Kong Zhemin!"

Chang You put down his teacup, feeling a little curious.

Useful App?

What is that?