Chapter 268 - 205: There’s Something Wrong with This Doctor

Chapter 268: Chapter 205: There’s Something Wrong with This Doctor

Chen Lin enlarged the screenshot and gave it a quick look.

The email’s sender was signed "Dr. Amy Howard."

The body of the email was very polite. She introduced herself as a PhD student in Stanford University’s computer science department, her research focusing on artificial intelligence algorithms.

She had recently encountered a mathematical bottleneck in her research. After seeing Chen Lin’s performance at the math conference, she was hoping to receive his guidance.

Furthermore, she was willing to pay a consultation fee of one million dollars.

After reading the email, Chen Lin furrowed his brow slightly.

’One million dollars?’

That was certainly not a low price.

According to Yanhai Company’s current rates, a single project cost about 5 million RMB, which was equivalent to around 700,000 dollars.

This person was offering one million dollars, equivalent to 7 million RMB. That already exceeded his company’s standard rates.

And she was just a PhD student...

’A student is willing to drop one million dollars for a technical problem?’

’Isn’t that a little too rich?’

Chen Lin felt a vague sense of unease.

He thought for a moment, then looked up at Sun Yu.

"When did she schedule the meeting for?"

"Four o’clock this afternoon," Sun Yu replied. "If you agree, I’ll reply and confirm the time."

Chen Lin pondered for a moment before finally nodding.

"Fine, let’s schedule it."

"But..."

He paused before adding,

"I need you to enable the screen recording for the video conference. Record the entire meeting."

"Understood, President Chen." Sun Yu nodded and left the office.

Chen Lin sat back down in his chair, staring at the email in his hand as he mulled it over.

’A computer science PhD from Stanford University...’

’A one-million-dollar consultation fee...’

’Who is this Amy Howard, really?’

「Four o’clock in the afternoon.」

Chen Lin sat at an empty desk with a laptop in front of him.

The video conferencing software was already open on the screen, waiting for the other party to connect.

Sun Yu stood to the side. After confirming that the recording equipment was running properly, he moved out of the camera’s view.

A moment later, the video call connected.

A woman’s face appeared on the screen.

She appeared to be over twenty-five, with features that suggested she was of mixed East-Asian and Western heritage.

She wore a tasteful light-gray blouse, her long hair draped over her shoulders. She had on delicate, light makeup and thick-framed glasses, giving her an overall intellectual and elegant air.

Judging by the background, she seemed to be in a university computer lab, with rows of computers visible behind her.

"Mr. Chen Lin, hello!"

The woman spoke in standard American English, her voice crisp and pleasant.

"I’m Amy Howard. Thank you so much for accepting my consultation request!"

Chen Lin nodded slightly and replied in fluent English,

"Dr. Howard, hello."

"What seems to be the problem you’re encountering?"

Amy smiled, picked up a document from beside her, and held it up to the camera.

"It’s like this, Mr. Chen Lin. The research topic I’m currently working on is the optimization of the Transformer architecture."

"Specifically, I want to reduce the model’s computational complexity when processing long texts by improving the self-attention mechanism."

"However, I’ve run into a mathematical bottleneck during the derivation process..."

As Amy spoke, she began to share a document on the screen.

The document was filled with a plethora of complex mathematical formulas and derivations.

Chen Lin took a closer look and saw that the formulas were indeed related to the Transformer’s self-attention mechanism.

The problem Amy was facing, simply put, was how to reduce the computational complexity of self-attention from O(n2) to O(n log n) while ensuring the model’s performance was maintained.

It was certainly a valuable research direction.

If she could solve it, it would be a great help to the entire AI industry.

However, just as Chen Lin was about to ask for more details, he suddenly noticed something was off.

Although the problem Amy presented seemed like a "technical issue" on the surface, upon closer inspection, the problem itself had been processed into a purely mathematical one.

In other words, Amy had stripped away all the engineering aspects, leaving only the mathematical derivation.

That was a bit strange.

Generally, when researchers in the AI field encounter a problem, they tend to first describe the engineering dilemma before gradually delving into the mathematical level.

’But Amy has abstracted the problem directly into a purely mathematical form. What does that mean?’

’Either she did her homework and knows I only specialize in solving pure math problems, so she intentionally presented it this way.’

’Or, she’s not here to ask a question at all, but has some other motive.’

At this thought, Chen Lin became slightly more vigilant.

However, his expression remained calm, showing no sign of anything unusual.

Chen Lin pretended to be deep in thought, staring at the formulas on the screen for a good while.

In reality, this problem wasn’t difficult for him at all.

With the buff from [Little Mathematician], the solution was already beginning to form in his mind.

But Chen Lin didn’t immediately reach for a pen and paper to write it down.

He decided to test her first.

After about five minutes, Chen Lin suddenly looked up at Amy on the screen and spoke slowly,

"Dr. Howard, your problem is indeed very interesting."

"However..."

He paused, a troubled look appearing on his face.

"To be blunt, this problem is more difficult than I anticipated."

"I don’t have a complete line of thought right now, so I probably can’t give you an answer immediately."

After speaking, Chen Lin stared intently at Amy’s expression on the screen, observing her reaction.

If Amy were truly a PhD student who had hit an academic wall, then hearing Chen Lin say he had "no line of thought" should have elicited disappointment, anxiety, or even frustration.

After all, she had spent one million dollars on this consultation.

However, Amy’s reaction sent Chen Lin’s internal alarms into overdrive.

When she heard Chen Lin say he had "no line of thought," Amy’s expression on the screen barely changed.

She simply gave a placid smile and said in an extremely natural tone,

"Oh, is that so? It’s alright, Mr. Chen Lin."

"After all, it is a very difficult problem. I’m already grateful that you took the time to look at it."

"Let’s end the consultation here, then. Thank you!"

With that, Amy looked as if she was about to end the video call.

Seeing this, Chen Lin instantly confirmed his suspicion—

’There’s definitely something wrong with this "Amy Howard"!’

’How could a real PhD student who’d hit an academic wall possibly act so calm after spending a million dollars on a consultation and getting nothing useful out of it?’

Moreover, she didn’t even say anything like "Could you think about it a little more?" or "Why don’t you give it a try first?" and was ready to end the meeting right away.

This reaction was completely illogical.

The only explanation was that she hadn’t come to ask a question at all.

She was after something else.