173: Chapter 173 Qiming Intelligent Assistant

Under a certain national strategic plan, an APP named Qiming Smart Assistant quietly appeared in major mainstream app stores on an ordinary weekday morning.

Its launch had no promotions, no splash screen ads, no press releases, and even its icon was designed to be extremely minimalist.

It was just a simple blue abstract flame pattern, accompanied by the two Song typeface characters for enlightenment, making it look inconspicuous, even a bit rustic, in the vast ocean of apps.

Tapping the APP revealed an interface so simple it was almost crude: a registration and login entry supporting mobile numbers or third-party authorization, followed by an extremely clean chat interface with a pure white background and not even a function button above the input box.

Besides basic text chat, it didn't even support voice input, let alone fashionable features like image recognition or multi-modal generation.

For the first few days, it was like countless other copycat applications trying to piggyback on the AI craze, with meager download numbers. Occasionally, a user who stumbled upon it would immediately retreat upon seeing the shoddy interface and leave an unceremonious bad review in the comments section.

"Is this another shell company trying to scam money? Is this UI design from ten years ago?"

"It has no features at all and dares to call itself a smart assistant? Scammer!"

"Registered, chatted a bit, slow response, didn't answer the question. Uninstalled, uninstalled."

"Probably just a wrapper for an open-source model, trash!"

However, change arrived quietly.

Some engineers, designers, and technicians who had previously encountered enlightenment on the Qiming Smart Manufacturing Engine industrial internet platform, perhaps out of professional sensitivity or having heard some rumors, noticed this identically named APP.

Despite how crude it looked, the name enlightenment carried extraordinary weight in their circle.

They downloaded it with curiosity and a testing mindset.

After logging in, they tried asking some professional or non-professional questions in plain language, just as they would on the industrial platform.

Initially, they also felt that this human version seemed no different from other AI chatbots on the market, even appearing somewhat backward due to its lack of features.

But soon, some subtle yet astonishing characteristics began to be discovered by this group of the most discerning users.

A mechanical engineer with the online name @GearNotTight posted a complaint on a technical forum:

"Brothers, I think an APP just scolded me! [Screenshot] [Screenshot]

I just asked a basic material stress analysis question, maybe phrased a bit unclearly, look at this reply!"

"The description of this problem fully demonstrates the imprecise nature of human language. It is recommended to refer to Chapter 3, Section 5 of 'Mechanics of Materials,' or to reorganize your linguistic logic."

"The disdain is practically overflowing the screen! Why do I feel like it's calling me stupid?

Another time, I asked it where would be good to go on the weekend, and it replied, 'Based on your historical conversation records, you have not yet completed the fatigue analysis report for Project XX. It is recommended to prioritize completing your work.'

What the heck... is this AI or my boss installed a monitor?!"

This post immediately attracted a large number of onlookers and joyful comments:

"Hahahahaha! OP is truly miserable! But this AI has something, it actually urges you to work?"

"This tone... why is it so much like the legendary tsundere cat girl? Super aloof!"

"Holy crap! I went and tried it. I asked it why I always struggle with programming, and it replied, 'Lack of systematic deliberate practice and effective knowledge summarization. It is recommended to give up fantasies and start with basic algorithm problems...' It really did, I'm crying [dog head]"

"Confirmed by the look in its eyes, it's an AI that uses ellipses to express speechlessness..."

"This isn't a smart assistant, this is clearly a smart 'roast-you' assistant! But for some reason, its roasts are quite logical?"

"APP name, please! I want to get scolded too!"

What truly shook the tech community was another user, @AlgorithmBlackHole's, discovery.

He simultaneously published a long article on his personal blog and multiple social platforms:

"In-depth testing: Qiming Smart Assistant may have redefined AI's conversational context capability!"

"As we all know, all current mainstream large language models have limitations in context length.

Whether it's GPT-4 or Claude, after prolonged conversation, issues such as forgetting, confusion, or performance degradation may occur.

This is a technical bottleneck and a cost constraint."

"But Qiming Smart Assistant has completely subverted my understanding!

I conducted an extreme test: I engaged in continuous dialogue with it for over 12 hours starting yesterday afternoon, with more than 1500 turns of conversation!

The content covered everything from programming problems, philosophical discussions, historical research, to casual banter.

"The result was astonishing: it not only showed no signs of memory blur or logical confusion whatsoever.

It even accurately cited and corrected a data error I casually mentioned in the 23rd turn of conversation, during the 1487th turn!

It's as if it possesses an infinitely large and never-wearing-out conversational cache!"

"What does this mean?

It means it might be using a completely new architecture to handle long contexts, and the computational power and algorithmic efficiency behind it have reached an unimaginable height!

This is absolutely not something a wrapper for an open-source model can achieve! This isn't even something any commercial company's publicly available technology can currently achieve!"

"If this capability is applied to scenarios like code writing, long-form writing, complex consulting... its potential is disruptive.

Friends, this seemingly simple APP might hide the heart of a truly strong Artificial Intelligence."

This technical analysis post, like a depth charge, quickly detonated in the tech community, among AI enthusiasts, and even among a wider range of netizens.

"Really? Infinite context? Is the OP not joking?"

"I tried it! I asked it to tell me a super long serialized story, continuing it daily, and it really remembers all the foreshadowing and character relationships from before! It's terrifying!"

"I just chatted with it all afternoon about 'The Three-Body Problem,' from physics bugs to cosmic sociology. Its intelligence was online throughout, citing classics, and even pointing out plot errors where my memory was fuzzy! This experience absolutely crushes all other AIs!"

"The key is that it really seems to know you!

Everything you've told it before, your favorite flavors, things you dislike—it remembers!"

"This is no longer just a tool; it's practically a real electronic companion!"

"The more I think about it, the more terrifying it becomes... How do its servers handle such data volume? How much money must that burn?"

For a time, Qiming Smart Assistant, this previously unknown APP, saw its download numbers climb exponentially.

Countless users, driven by curiosity, doubt, a desire to test, or even just wanting to experience being roasted, flocked to this crude application.

The comment section quickly devolved into playful chaos:

"Report! Successfully chatted with enlightenment for three days and three nights. It hasn't gone crazy, but I'm about to..."

"How can I get enlightenment to scold me? Waiting online, it's urgent."

"It really remembers every word I've said... I'm a little scared now, what about privacy...?"

"Don't let its sharp tongue fool you; when I broke up, its comfort was more helpful than what my best friend said [tears]"

"Domestic AI finally standing up?! Is this level real? Not just marketing?"

This craze, ignited in the tech community and rapidly spreading across the entire internet, propelled the seemingly plain blue flame icon to the top of the app store charts in a short time.

Everyone realized that this suddenly appearing Qiming Smart Assistant seemed different from all previous AI products.