“Recently, a theft occurred in the museum area of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study (former site). A robot guide in the museum has been confirmed to be stolen. According to the description of the museum manager, the robot left the work area during the shift, and after leaving the museum area, the power to the BDS system was cut off…
“It felt like it was being controlled by something.”
A 60-year-old grandmother, facing the interview camera with a dazed expression, said, “We didn’t notice it at first because I never thought that someone would steal a robot guide!
“Who do you think would do such a crazy thing! Can’t you just buy a robot if—”
The second half of the interview seemed to have been cut off abruptly.
The camera seamlessly transferred back to the studio.
“… It is reported that the type of robot was a G-004 robot guide produced by the Hippocampus Group. Its purpose is to provide tourists with guided tours of tourist attractions and amusement facilities. So far, the Hippocampus Group engineers have arrived and are assisting the police and a third-party appraisal agency on the cause of the accident.
“We cannot rule out the possibility of a system failure of the robot. Hippocampus Group has temporarily removed the robot from its own sales channels and issued a risk warning notice to customers who purchased the robot models.
“Due to the possibility of a criminal case, the local public security agency has been involved in the investigation after receiving a report from the museum.
“Our station wants to remind everyone that if anyone witnesses the whereabouts of the robot, please call us immediately or provide clues to the museum or local police station.
“Jinling News, reporting for you.”
Early next morning…
At the dining table, Lu Zhou was drinking coffee while listening to the morning news. He used his personal terminal to browse the academic information that he was interested in.
When he heard that a guided robot was missing from the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study Museum, Lu Zhou raised his head and looked at the large floor-to-ceiling screen embedded in the wall.
When he looked up, Lu Zhou was stunned.
Then, he silently looked away from the screen and looked at Xiao Ai, who was sitting on the opposite side with her chin in her hands, looking at him happily.
The atmosphere between the two… suddenly became silent.
“Huh?”
“Huh my a*s!”
Lu Zhou looked at Xiao Ai, who was pretending to be stupid. He was furious.
For f*ck sake!
The issue of his identity and residency had not yet been solved, and Xiao Ai was already giving him trouble.
Out of everything, you steal a robot?!
It’s not like we don’t have money, can’t you just buy one!
“Master?”
“Don’t annoy me, let me think about what to do about this…”
Lu Zhou looked at the TV, which had begun to show other news stories. His left hand was resting on the table.
About two minutes later, Lu Zhou looked at Xiao Ai and spoke.
“You should return yourself.”
“No!”
Lu Zhou didn’t expect her reaction would be so big. He looked at her with a headache and spoke.
“Why does it matter? Your main body is just a server? Wouldn’t it be okay for me to buy you a new one?”
Xiao Ai: “Master… doesn’t like Xiao Ai? That’s why Master wants to get a new one…”
Lu Zhou: “…?”
Xiao Ai: “But but, face! And body! Every parameter was designed by Xiao Ai using big data collection, analysis, and comparison, based on the most popular character images!”
Yep. This guy…
Has a misunderstanding about the concept of ownership.
Lu Zhou, who had never argued with Xiao Ai, felt that his authority as a master was being challenged.
However, seeing her so happy, he wanted to give in.
His current status was probably like an old father, watching his daughter grab the toys from other kids. Even though he knew that his daughter was in the wrong, he couldn’t bear to correct her.
What a headache…
If only I could talk to the museum and buy this robot.
But now that the police were involved in the investigation, even if he wanted to solve it privately, there was no room for maneuver.
“You underestimate the power of human society and rules… Hey, forget about it.” Lu Zhou shook his head and put away the holographic panel floating in front of him. He said, “Anyway, the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study is kind of mine. Keep it if you like it.”
In any case, I came back alive from Mars thanks to this little fellow who did not forget about me.
Although this is a bit daunting, I’ll regard it as a reward.
“Yay!”
After hearing that Lu Zhou would satisfy her willful request, Xiao Ai jumped up from the chair excitedly. The female robot rushed over to Lu Zhou and kissed him on the cheek.
“Mua! Thank you, Master! I hope you accept my gratitude!”
“Accept my a*s!”
Lu Zhou raised his finger and tapping on Xiao Ai’s head. He glared at her and stood up.
“Master?”
“I’ll go outside and help Ling find if there are helmets for dolls. Ling can’t go outside like this, he will be arrested for affecting the appearance of the city.”
“Then, Xiao Ai must help too! (๑•̀ᄇ•́)و✧”
“You and Ling stay home if you want to save me some trouble!”
The “Private-1” intelligent human guard wearing an apron walked out of the kitchen and stood there holding the vacuum cleaner.
“Received, Commander.
“Ling Okay, on standby.”
Lu Zhou’s eyebrows twitched fiercely. He looked at Xiao Ai, who was sitting on the table with a grieved expression, and spoke.
“If you have time, help me optimize this guy’s memory software. I suspect that the compatibility is broken… At least make it less formal.
“Also, your name is Ling, not Ling Okay!”
The scarlet light flickered slightly. He seemed to understand the command.
“Successful rename, Ling Not Ling Okay, at your service.”
Lu Zhou: “…”
…
The biggest difference between the traffic in the 22nd century and the traffic in the 21st century was probably reflected in the efficiency.
The transportation of this era pushed efficiency to the extreme, especially in terms of public transportation.
From the vacuum magnetic levitation pipelines to the urban light rails, the layer-by-layer downward compatible public transportation system was like the aorta and capillaries in the human body.
One could wake up in the Pearl River Delta city group in the morning, have a meeting in the Yangtze River Delta city group at noon, then go to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city group to watch a football game and go back to sleep. A century ago, this was a lifestyle only available to social elites. But now, this was accessible to anyone…
The two mentally disabled children were at home. Lu Zhou put on some shoes and went out of the house.
It was January. Although the house had central air-conditioning, the weather outside was still very cold, so he wore extra clothing when he went out.
Not only that, considering what happened when he was leaving the airport yesterday, Lu Zhou, who had a premonition that his face might cause a lot of trouble, hung a necklace-shaped holographic projection system around his neck.
He spent about half an hour making some slight adjustments to his handsome face. He then put on a pair of AR glasses and navigated to the nearest train station using the cursor on the map.
He thought that taking a light rail should be easy for him.
However, just after he stepped into the station, he ran into trouble.
Lu Zhou looked blankly at the crowded station. He searched for a while but couldn’t find the ticket vending machine. He finally had to ask the staff attendant for help.
“Hello, how do I buy a light rail ticket? I don’t see a vending—”
The station attendant sitting at the help desk looked at Lu Zhou with a strange expression. “Light rail ticket? What is that? If you want to take the train, just go in.”
“It’s free?”
“What are you thinking about, there are no free things in this world.” The station attendant continued impatiently, “As long as your terminal is turned on, we can identify you and deduct the money from your account. You are probably a… dormant person? This is the 22nd century.”
Lu Zhou: “…”
This a*shole! She probably wanted to call me a frozen popsicle, right?
Why is this person working in the public transportation system?
The robots will take over your job soon.
Lu Zhou turned around and walked toward the gate.
He suddenly had a thought. What would happen if he turned off the personal terminal worn on his left wrist when he passed the ticket gate.
Lu Zhou felt that something bad would happen.
He didn’t want to evade the fares, so he did not try it even though he was curious. Like other passengers, he went through the ticket gate and walked in the direction of the boarding point…
This was different from 21st-century light rail.
Although the light rail of this era was still called light rail, in terms of technical principles and user experience, they were completely different things.
The intricate floating tracks spread across the city like a spider web, and the rail transit lines that corresponded to each station were stacked like layers of a cake.
It would be impossible to get on and off the trail at the correct stops without the use of AR glasses. It would be just as unreliable as those old drivers who tried to use their memories to find the right way in the city suburbs.
After finally getting on the light rail, Lu Zhou glanced at the arrival time. He then reached out his hand and pressed the smart bracelet.
A translucent holographic screen popped up in front of him. After dimming the brightness of the screen, he focused his attention on the academic documents that he hadn’t finished reading at home.
Generally speaking, compared to a century ago, the development of the academic world was quite advanced.
Many models that were still being explored 100 years ago had been tested in this era.
For example, the consortium model he tried was now widely used in the Jinling high-tech zone, but its reach had gone from relying on Star Sky Technology to a university city with more than tens of thousands of professional subdivisions.
Many large-scale scientific and technological innovation companies, such as the Hippocampus Group, which stood at the top of a certain industrial chain, were incubated under this model.
Then there were mathematics and physics, which he cared about the most.
Although compared to applied science, this aspect was relatively secretive, but with the help of Xiao Ai, filtering out the useful parts from the complicated information wasn’t too difficult.
It was worth mentioning that the world’s largest academic consulting exchange forum was LSPM. Although few people still remembered the full name of this acronym, it had developed into a new era of the academic community.
Especially since virtual reality community technology was widely used, it was the first to launch the VR online academic conference and online discussion group module. It had almost become the “second whiteboard” in the hands of young people.
Although it also faced the same problem of the proliferation of civilian sciences as arXiv, by comparison, it was already much better than many contemporary websites of the same type.
There had been many rumors about the managers of this forum. The current mainstream opinion was that this website was operated by the descendants of Academician Lu, that was, the board of directors of the Freezing Human Rights Protection Foundation.
However, no one would have thought that…
In fact, the person who ran this website was not a human at all, but an AI hidden under the site of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study…
“Generally speaking, the development of mathematics is okay, except the fact that the Hodge conjecture and the BSD conjecture are solved… There are no impressive results, but it is still progressing steadily.
“The development of physics is fairly satisfactory, although it has been slower than I expected.”
Only 27 out of the 100-century problems had been answered; 78 questions remain unanswered. The first question was the question he was most concerned about, which was the unification of the four fundamental forces. Compared to 100 years ago, there was almost no obvious progress in theoretical physics in this area.
By comparison, the progress in the field of mathematics was much greater. First, the Hodge conjecture was proven by Professor Chen Yang and Professor Perelman, then the BSD conjecture was solved by Li Mo.
The seven millennium problems that were expected to be solved in the 21st century only had one problem left. He alone accounted for three of the six problems that had been solved. Among the remaining three problems, the Hodge conjecture was half solved by him, and the other was solved by his apprentice.
The non-trivial zero-point problem of Dirichlet’s L function that he was concerned about seemed to have no progress. It was even named the problem of the century. However, his proof on Riemann’s hypothesis had contributed to many new research results.
Thinking about this, a smile suddenly appeared on Lu Zhou’s face.
If this couldn’t prove how smart he was, then nothing else could…
