October 17th, Monday.
Pei Qian came to the company as usual and sat for a while, but no one came to see him.
He casually browsed some web pages when suddenly he remembered something and quickly took out his phone to check Ma Yang’s Weibo.
To his surprise, Old Ma hadn’t updated his Weibo all weekend!
Pei Qian was puzzled. What did this mean? Had Old Ma forgotten?
Had he gone out to have fun all weekend? Or had he simply not logged into Weibo?
But that seemed unlikely. Although Ma Yang typically had only three minutes of enthusiasm for anything he did, this time the period was too short—it hadn’t even been three minutes yet. There was no reason for Ma Yang to give up so quickly.
So why hadn’t he posted any new Weibo messages for two days over the weekend?
Worried that something fishy was going on, Pei Qian quickly called Old Ma.
“Hello? Qian Bro?” Ma Yang’s voice came from the other end, fully awake, not sounding like he was sleeping.
Pei Qian knew very well that Ma Yang wasn’t one to sleep in. Even in the dead of winter, he could successfully get up for morning classes.
Ma Yang was a diligent slacker, so not posting a second Weibo all weekend was certainly suspicious.
With Ma Yang, Pei Qian didn’t bother with any roundabout talk and asked directly: “How much money have you given out so far?”
Ma Yang: “Not a single cent.”
Pei Qian was taken aback. “Why not?”
Ma Yang replied as if it were the most natural thing: “This is the Dream Fund that I worked hard to win—it’s your recognition of my hard work, Qian Bro! I have to see truly dream-worthy comments or reposts before I give out money. I can’t just give it away randomly!”
Pei Qian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
So that was the reason!
After posting on Weibo, Ma Yang had been constantly monitoring the comments and reposts. Once he saw a particularly dream-worthy comment, he would consider giving money.
But his Weibo had so few followers that not many people saw it, and those who did see it didn’t believe him, thinking he was trying to scam them. Even those who half-believed didn’t write about their dreams seriously.
So none of these comments met Old Ma’s standards, and he hadn’t given a single cent to any of these people.
Since he wasn’t giving out money, others became even more convinced this was a scammer’s gimmick, and they became even less likely to write serious comments.
And thus the entire weekend passed by.
Pei Qian couldn’t help but marvel: As expected of Old Ma, you’re truly something!
Pei Qian asked curiously, “Then why didn’t you emphasize to everyone that they should write more dream-worthy comments?”
Ma Yang: “That won’t do! I’m an officially verified Tenda internal employee—I can’t lose my dignity! Besides, I’m the one giving money. If I post another Weibo emphasizing this, wouldn’t it seem like I’m kneeling to give them money? That’s not acceptable!”
“They can believe it or not. I’ll just wait and see who the first lucky person will be.”
Pei Qian silently gave a thumbs up and said, “Well done. In ancient times, Shang Yang moved a wooden stake to establish trust; today, Ma Yang throws money on Weibo. Both are heroes among men.”
When Shang Yang moved the wooden stake to establish trust, many people gathered to watch, but no one did anything because no one believed it.
Somehow, these two instances had a certain similarity in their approach.
Of course, Pei Qian couldn’t tell whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.
While it was good that Old Ma couldn’t become an internet celebrity, as there would be no risk, the money wasn’t being spent either!
So Pei Qian didn’t know whether he should support or oppose this behavior.
After some thought, he decided to let Old Ma make his own decision!
“Hmm, you’re doing the right thing. Keep following your ideas!”
After hanging up, Pei Qian checked the time and prepared to visit Outu Technology.
In the previous cycle, Pei Qian had poured a lot of money into Outu Technology, mainly spent on the newly established imaging and software laboratories.
In this cycle, Outu Technology’s previous research had to result in products, otherwise, it would violate the system’s rules.
Considering that this cycle was quite tight on time, Pei Qian felt he should go check it out to ensure there would be products ready to launch, but not too profitable.
…
Outu Technology, meeting room.
Chang You and the core employees of Outu Technology were all present, ready to report on their work.
“Mr. Pei, according to your previous work arrangement, we have two main tasks until January next year.”
“First is to update Otto OS with a feature-rich version, which includes many practical system functions, especially the camera system tuning from the imaging laboratory.”
“For the new camera system, we’ve prepared some optimization algorithms, including beautification effects for users when taking selfies, among other things.”
“Moreover, we’ve reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Xun Ke Technology to develop our intelligent voice assistant based on their artificial intelligence voice assistant. It should be updated to the new Otto OS in time!”
“Keep in mind that currently only Pineapple’s flagship phones have this feature. If we can be the first to update it to the Otto E1 phone, it will be very beneficial for enhancing our brand value!”
“Secondly, we plan to create a smart speaker product for the new intelligent voice assistant. Currently, this field is still blank in the domestic market. If we can seize the first-mover advantage, it would be good news for enriching our product line!”
A question mark slowly appeared above Pei Qian’s head.
?
Artificial intelligence voice assistant?
That shouldn’t have been in the previous development plan, right?
And shouldn’t this thing appear much later in the domestic market?
Pineapple’s latest flagship phone was able to use a voice assistant because Pineapple directly spent $200 million to acquire an artificial intelligence company primarily focused on text chat services, and then cooperated with the world’s largest voice recognition manufacturer to implement voice recognition functionality.
And this had just happened this year.
Due to language differences, Pei Qian had originally estimated that similar artificial intelligence voice assistants wouldn’t appear domestically for at least another five years.
But from Chang You’s description, this company called Xun Ke Technology seemed to have been researching this area for some time and already had a relatively mature Chinese intelligent voice assistant. With some modifications, it could be directly put to use!
Pei Qian suddenly felt a sense of crisis, thinking of the special reward at the time of settlement.
Could this be the random technological breakthrough mentioned by the system?
Had domestic technology in this area advanced a full five years ahead of schedule? Had it directly caught up with top international companies?
Pei Qian suddenly felt a bit panicked, but after thinking calmly, he felt things weren’t that bad yet.
These artificial intelligence voice assistants were quite stupid when they first came out. Calling them artificial intelligence was flattering—they were more like artificial stupidity.
It would take at least another three to five years for the technology to mature, so there was no need to be too nervous.
Of course, Pei Qian didn’t dare to be careless either.
This was, after all, a newly emerging trend. Although it was artificial stupidity, it would still be very attractive to consumers who hadn’t seen much of the world. They might go on a crazy buying spree.
With this in mind, Pei Qian probed: “So, the original development plan didn’t include an artificial intelligence voice assistant? It was temporarily decided to add it after seeing the technological breakthrough at Xun Ke Technology?”
“If that’s the case, I think it’s better to slow down a bit.”
“There’s still a lot of work in other areas. I’m afraid you won’t have enough time, or it might affect the completion of other work.”
Chang You smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Pei, it definitely won’t!”
“Before, we were planning to develop both software and hardware together, wanting to release a new phone. But you said at that time to focus only on software, and that phones should ideally be released once a year, so we cut all hardware development plans.”
“As a result, we’ve freed up some time! Using it to develop this artificial intelligence voice assistant for Otto OS is very appropriate!”
“So your thinking was correct, Mr. Pei. Development work needs some buffer, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to seize opportunities like this!”
Pei Qian: “…”
This was very awkward.
Could it be my fault again?
Every time Pei Qian encountered this situation, he wanted to travel back to the previous cycle and beat himself up, but time travel wasn’t possible.
It seemed that making this artificial intelligence voice assistant was unavoidable.
So it was time to move on to the next topic.
He needed to find a way to prevent it from succeeding!
In the current market environment, smart home devices exist. For example, when Pei Qian had Liang Qianfan renovate Sloth Apartments, the lighting, glass, and other elements could all be intelligently adjusted through LCD panels.
But these things were actually quite rare because they were costly and many people found them impractical, so they were seldom installed in home decorations.
If Pei Qian hadn’t been trying to raise the rent for Sloth Apartments, he wouldn’t have thought of installing these things.
The artificial intelligence voice assistant on phones was similar. It wasn’t common—only flagship phones from a few manufacturers like Pineapple had it. It was an emerging trend.
If they were to release a smart speaker as well, it might sell a lot!
Pei Qian carefully considered and came up with a countermeasure.
But… where to start?
Let’s start with its name!
Pei Qian pondered for a moment and asked, “So… does this artificial intelligence voice system have a name yet?”
Chang You was taken aback: “Oh, not yet. Why don’t you give it one, Mr. Pei?”
“I think the names you come up with are always particularly insightful!”
Pei Qian nodded: “Then let’s call it: Ai Yi Si.”
“The English name is AEEIS.”
“Ai Yi Si…” Chang You repeated it twice. “Is there any deeper meaning?”
Pei Qian explained: “It’s the abbreviation of ‘An Efficient and Effortless Intelligent System’—A.E.E.I.S.”
Chang You realized: “‘An efficient and effortless intelligent system’? Great name! Very fitting!”
“As an intelligent voice assistant, its purpose is to help us save time and effort, improving efficiency. This name is perfect!”
Pei Qian smiled slightly.
The deeper meaning of this name was the abbreviation of “An Elegant and Easygoing Intelligent System”—in other words, “a refined and easy-going intelligent system.”
What “refined and easy-going” meant, those who knew understood.
As for why he chose this name, it was because Pei Qian had already figured out how to arrange it.