288: Chapter 287 The Mysterious Mr. Yu

General Manager Yu Tongguang followed Xu Kexin out of the reception room. Xu Kexin, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped, turned around, and handed General Manager Yu Tongguang something.

He lowered his head to take a look; it was a small Bluetooth headset.

Xu Kexin pursed her lips at General Manager Yu Tongguang, signaling him to put it on.

Although somewhat puzzled, General Manager Yu Tongguang still put the headset on his ear.

"Welcome, Mr. General Manager Yu Tongguang."

Hearing the voice coming from the headset, General Manager Yu Tongguang's gaze paused slightly.

"I am the Central Artificial Intelligence of Frontier Technology. You may call me — Zero."

General Manager Yu Tongguang couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. It was truly a childish mindset to come up with a title like Central Artificial Intelligence. However, he had to admit, it really sounded the part.

If only the environment here could be changed.

The modern decoration style really didn't match such a high-level title as Central Artificial Intelligence; it gave people the feeling of a second-hand Alto car with a modern center console screen installed—a sense of disconnect.

"Mr. General Manager Yu Tongguang, as arranged by Mr. Wang Shuo, Zero will now take you on a tour of the Frontier Technology headquarters."

"Due to equipment defects, you are temporarily unable to experience visual guidance. Please allow Zero to provide you with audio guidance under the lead of the guiding personnel."

General Manager Yu Tongguang nodded slightly.

In his heart, his evaluation of this Zero rose slightly.

But only slightly. Having experienced big scenes, he had seen far more things than the average person could imagine. This little thing was not enough to surprise him.

He continued to follow Xu Kexin forward.

As he walked, he said indifferently, "Since you call yourself a Central Artificial Intelligence, what can you bring to your company?"

This was originally a joke, but what General Manager Yu Tongguang didn't expect was that Zero actually answered.

"Many things, sir."

General Manager Yu Tongguang paused his steps and said calmly, "What specific aspects does that include?"

"It includes many things, sir."

Zero responded, its voice still the unchanging neutral male tone: "Mr. Wang Shuo has designed many responsibilities for Zero, and Zero is currently familiarizing itself with and perfecting these responsibilities."

As it spoke, Zero's voice paused slightly, then continued: "Please watch your step, Mr. General Manager Yu Tongguang."

General Manager Yu Tongguang brought his attention back to his feet, only to discover that at some point he had already walked to the top of the stairs. Under his feet was a transition step; because the bricks used were the same color and the height difference was small, it was truly hard to notice if one didn't look carefully.

Thinking of the prompt just now, General Manager Yu Tongguang turned around with some surprise and asked, "You can see me?"

This sentence was very vague, but Zero answered as always.

"Of course I can, Mr. General Manager Yu Tongguang. Mr. Wang Shuo designed an advanced image recognition algorithm for Zero. Zero can recognize approximately 99 percent of daily objects and distinguish between them, and of course, that includes humans."

General Manager Yu Tongguang was truly surprised now.

An image recognition algorithm capable of accurate identification and real-time tracking, and more importantly, this image recognition algorithm had also been integrated into the Artificial Intelligence by Mr. Wang Shuo.

Through He Chenguang's zero egg, General Manager Yu Tongguang already knew that Zero possessed powerful voice recognition capabilities; this voice recognition performance was already almost the best in the industry.

Now, he had discovered another implicit technology of Zero.

This level was undoubtedly also the best in the industry.

General Manager Yu Tongguang had, after all, been exposed to advanced technology; he was very clear about what was being demonstrated behind this.

This was a terrifying data processing capability.

Computers are, after all, different from humans.

Humans see a dog and know it is a dog because of its shape, but computers are different. They cannot see in the substantive sense, nor can they understand things like shape. At their level of understanding, everything is expressed using the most essential things: 0s and 1s.

How do you distinguish whether this thing is a human or a dog through a pile of 0s and 1s?

Clever humans invented something called encoding.

By digitizing information such as pixel distribution, texture, and color in an image, and encoding it according to certain rules to turn it into regular 0s and 1s, the encoded shape of a human becomes different from the encoded shape of a dog. What the computer recognizes are precisely these "tiny" differences that seem insignificant to humans.

So, the question arises.

After converting an entire photo into 0s and 1s for digital storage, how do you convert it back to its original appearance on other devices?

It's very simple: fix the conversion steps, organize them into a manual, make it a "format," and pre-install it on all devices.

Just like a codebook during World War II, the sender converts the password according to the codebook, and the person receiving the password uses the codebook to reverse it. This can basically ensure that the information does not lose fidelity.

At this point, the brilliant digital world was officially presented to the world.

And just when people were running confidently in the field of image recognition, the biggest problem arrived.

A single, simplest photo requires at least about 24 million pixels.

The data volume after completely converting it isn't much; according to the speed of a general computer, this little bit of data is easily handled.

But this is just one. What if it's a hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? Or even... hundreds of millions?

This is not to mention that, developing to this day, there are dozens of image and video formats, and these formats are constantly being updated.

How to handle this?

All Artificial Intelligence and data processing companies are looking for a path, some for decades.

Some study algorithms, some study encoding, and some even take unconventional paths, forcibly stacking hardware, hoping to achieve the goal through distributed graphics processors.

The investment is very high, but the gain... can almost be said to be negligible.

Regardless of the method, there are unavoidable flaws.

But today, General Manager Yu Tongguang felt that he had seen the standard answer here.

"Zero," General Manager Yu Tongguang asked in a slightly deep voice, "You just said you can recognize 99 percent of scenes. Let me ask you..."

General Manager Yu Tongguang extended his thumb, index finger, and little finger. "What number is this?"

Around him, the people from the Huaneng Group were all looking at their own boss in confusion, not knowing what he was doing.

In General Manager Yu Tongguang's anticipation, Zero replied, "Three, Mr. General Manager Yu Tongguang. You do not need to play such childish games with Zero; it is an action without any benefit."

General Manager Yu Tongguang did not answer, nor was he discouraged. He changed the shape of his fingers, extending his index finger in a bent shape, intentionally facing his fingernail directly at the camera, and asked, "What number is this?"

Zero did not pause and replied directly, "According to the rules of Huaxia, it is nine, Mr. General Manager Yu Tongguang."

Xu Kexin looked at General Manager Yu Tongguang, a trace of disdain appearing in her eyes. She had already played this kind of game I don't know how many times.

Teasing Zero and such was the most fun.

However, in the last two days, she found that she couldn't tease Zero anymore because no matter what she said, Zero's reply would always leave her unable to respond, and even some of her own secret matters would be blurted out by Zero unexpectedly.

This made her feel a bit shy while also feeling some disbelief.

Other things aside, how could Zero possibly know something like her still wetting the bed at ten years old?

Silently pondering, Xu Kexin didn't want to speak for a moment.

General Manager Yu Tongguang lowered his fingers, a glimmer of light appearing in his eyes. He glanced at the crowd and said in a deep voice, "You all follow Ms. Xu first for the tour; I am going to meet Mr. Wang Shuo."

As he spoke, he walked toward the reception room without looking back, leaving the crowd behind looking at each other.

"Xiao Ye," young man looked at his companion beside him and asked, puzzled, "What is wrong with... General Manager Yu?"

No one answered. Everyone had a bewildered expression; they didn't even know why they were here.

They said it was a tour, but the Female Assistant in front of them only gave General Manager Yu a headset and didn't say a word the whole time. It was all General Manager Yu talking to himself, and then... things suddenly turned out like this.

"Let's go, everyone." Watching General Manager Yu Tongguang walk away, Xu Kexin clapped her hands and ignored him. With Zero there, he couldn't run anywhere.

"Our company is not big; we will finish looking around soon. After we finish, I still have to go to work, so let's hurry up."