When Luo Ming and Chen Sichu walked in, the people in the tech department all turned to look at them in unison.
Although they were all at Huayue Entertainment, it was rare for a celebrity to come into the tech department.
Usually the ones who came were managers or assistants—a star like Lin Shuwen was a rare sight.
After a group of technicians pushed the task around among themselves, a slightly chubby man wearing black-framed glasses and a plaid shirt reluctantly walked over: “Miss Lin, you’re looking for—”
“Miss Lin, you’re finally here!” The man hadn’t even finished speaking when Wang Hongyu interrupted, coming out of his office.
“Sorry, Director Wang. I just misread the floor when I got off the elevator and wandered around the 8th floor for quite a while.”
“That’s normal. In our line of work, it’s easy to get dizzy looking at things. I’ve done the same thing. Miss Lin, shall we talk in my office?”
“Sure! Is it okay if my assistant comes along?”
“Of course, no problem.”
With that, Wang Hongyu made a “please” gesture and led Luo Ming and Chen Sichu to his office.
Once inside Wang Hongyu’s office, Luo Ming noticed there was another man there.
He looked about 24 or 25, wearing casual clothes with his hair parted down the middle. At first glance, he somewhat resembled an “old acquaintance” of Luo Ming’s from his past life.
“Miss Lin, let me introduce you. This is Director Tong’s son, Tong Mingwei.”
This guy was actually Tong Qifeng’s son? Luo Ming was a little surprised.
Tong Qifeng held a large number of shares in Huayue Entertainment and had veto power at shareholder meetings. In a sense, this guy could be considered the crown prince of Huayue Entertainment.
Tong Mingwei seemed to read Luo Ming’s thoughts. He said with a hint of helplessness, “Miss Lin, you don’t need to treat me like some crown prince of Huayue Entertainment. I have zero interest in inheriting the company, and I don’t want to be a star either. I only like AI technology.”
Luo Ming’s expression turned a little strange at that. With Tong Mingwei’s looks, he’d be perfectly suited for singing, dancing, rap, and basketball—or at the very least, he could make a living off his face.
But he actually had no interest in being a star or inheriting the company. Instead, he liked AI. How interesting.
“Miss Lin, Brother Wang said your skills are really impressive. I was wondering if you know anything about AI?”
Luo Ming smiled slightly. He actually did know about it.
In his past life, Luo Ming had three jobs. His first job after graduating was at a small game workshop, mainly doing localization for foreign games.
His second job had him running back and forth between Shanghai and the capital, mainly doing game outsourcing. He even had a bit of a working relationship with Penguin—several major games from TiMi and MoFang had more or less involved partial production from the company Luo Ming worked at.
Unfortunately, in 2020, due to the pandemic, the company asked employees to voluntarily take pay cuts, so Luo Ming chose to jump ship.
His last job was related to artificial intelligence—specifically, developing intelligent voice assistants.
That company had some connection to Rice. A senior executive at Rice was a major shareholder, and the company’s main business direction was upgrading and updating Rice’s voice assistant, Xiao Ai, to make it more compatible with Rice cars.
To be fair, CEO Lei paid well, but the work pressure was intense—mainly because the schedule was too rushed.
Luo Ming worked overtime night after night, and then he transmigrated.
Just based on that third job experience alone, Luo Ming’s understanding of artificial intelligence couldn’t have been deeper.
So Luo Ming said confidently, “I’d say I know a fair amount about artificial intelligence.”
“Great! Miss Lin, please sit. Let’s have a good chat.”
Luo Ming nodded and sat down on the guest sofa.
“What do you two think about artificial intelligence?” Luo Ming asked tentatively first. He wanted to see their attitudes toward AI before deciding how to approach the conversation.
A tech exchange wasn’t like cultivators debating the Dao—what mattered most was that everyone enjoyed the conversation.
“I think AI is the future of the internet,” Tong Mingwei answered first.
Wang Hongyu shook his head. “Miss Lin, to be honest, I don’t have a very good impression of artificial intelligence.
I even find it a bit scary. At this stage, AI is still very primitive. But what if one day AI develops self-awareness—or even without self-awareness, what if it simply reaches the level of strong AI? For humanity, that would probably be a huge disaster, wouldn’t it?
Strong AI in the world of the internet would be like a god. It could do anything it or its master wanted.
That would inevitably cause panic among certain people and forces. In the end, it could lead some countries to stop using the internet entirely to cut off AI’s intrusion, or even start wars to eliminate AI. That would throw the whole world into chaos.”
“Brother Wang, you’re being paranoid. Current AI can’t possibly reach the level of strong AI. Even breaking through to intermediate AI is very difficult. You don’t think something like Siri on an iPhone—that artificial idiot—could break through to strong AI, do you?”
Wang Hongyu scratched his head and didn’t reply. Clearly, he also felt his own thoughts were a bit excessive.
Perhaps because he’d seen too much sci-fi about this topic, Wang Hongyu always felt AI wasn’t such a good thing.
Luo Ming didn’t think Wang Hongyu was being paranoid. The birth of anything has both pros and cons.
Take the AI “Moss” from the movie The Wandering Earth that Luo Ming had seen in his past life. It did so many things, caused a lot of destruction, and led to many sacrifices. It should count as a villain—but this villain’s ultimate goal was to let humanity survive.
Of course, Luo Ming also didn’t believe that with humanity’s current level of technology, they had the ability to create strong AI.
So Luo Ming smiled and said, “Director Wang’s worries are indeed a bit excessive, but they’re not entirely unfounded. I think the development of AI also needs checks and balances.
Let me give you the simplest example. AI growth requires learning from large amounts of data samples. The more data samples it learns from, the faster it grows.
After learning a certain amount of data samples, couldn’t AI—given how familiar it is with those samples—easily create fakes?
For example, take me and make a video of me charging onto a battlefield with a gun, only to get shot dead.
But in reality, I’ve never been to a battlefield. AI could make this video because it’s learned too many of my videos and photos. This kind of technology is already possible at this stage, isn’t it?”
Tong Mingwei nodded. As far as he knew, AI technology for processing videos and photos had already begun practical application in China.
Being able to process videos and photos meant it was possible to do what “Lin Shuwen” had described.
“Mr. Tong, think about it again. Making a fake video of me might at most stir up a small wave of attention domestically. But what if someone made fake videos of the leaders of certain countries?
When fake videos reach the point of being indistinguishable from reality, what kind of situation would that be?”
Hearing this, Tong Mingwei couldn’t help but shudder.
