But someone has to do it." A member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council missed his teacher: "It is difficult to be original. I have followed Tang Xiaoou for 8 years.
The news of teacher Tang Xiaoou's unfortunate death was confirmed at noon on December 16. I was so shocked that I couldn't say a word for a long time. My mind was blank and I asked my friends in Shanghai: Is it cold there? My friend said: It’s extremely cold, minus 2 degrees Celsius.
It was the most comfortable season in Hong Kong when I met Teacher Tang, and it has been almost 8 years. I still remember the first time I met Teacher Tang in the faculty restaurant of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the spring of 2016. Dr. Xu Li helped me arrange a private meeting with Teacher Tang. I ordered a steamed fish and two vegetarian dishes for lunch. We talked from noon until the sun went down. The fish probably didn’t move much.
The most profound impression from that chat was that Teacher Tang was prepared to take a difficult road, because he said that when it comes to artificial intelligence, we must not plagiarize. We must be original. Of course, the cost of originality is also very high. For example, if you spend It cost 100 yuan to make, but someone else might just spend 1 yuan and steal it. And who are we competing with? They are all giants. They may have 1,000 times more resources than us, so what should we do? It can only accelerate originality! It’s hard to be original, but someone has to do it.
Before 2016, there was an environment that advocated international division of labor. Some model innovators used the slogan "Copy to China" to copy foreign innovative technologies, products, and models in the Chinese market, and they really made a lot of money. At that time, few people mentioned originality. Teacher Tang was the first scholar I met who regarded originality as a belief. To be honest, I really didn’t dare to imagine that Mr. Tang and SenseTime could become unicorns or listed companies at the time. Just like in 2017, SenseTime set the goal of “insisting on originality and letting artificial intelligence lead human progress” as a company less than 3 years old. When presented with the vision of a “small” company, everyone had the same surprised expression.
Teacher Tang’s persistence and love for originality are at the level of faith. In the summer of 2017, the State Council issued an outline of the artificial intelligence development plan, and also pointed out the problem: the lack of talents will restrict the development of artificial intelligence in our country. I still remember that I proposed to Teacher Tang: "By 2030, most of the people in SenseTime will be old, and the backbone of them at that time will still be studying in middle schools. How about we publish a set of teaching materials to cover the topics of artificial intelligence?" Teaching cutting-edge knowledge to today’s primary and secondary school students.” Teacher Tang was very happy after hearing this and said that this is your original work and no one else has done it before. Then go and discuss it with the company’s research department.
At that time, SenseTime's business had just started and it was still exploring the market. The research institute was working on a number of algorithms. I asked around but no one responded. When I felt a little discouraged, Teacher Tang asked me to find his student, Professor Lin Dahua, who was then the Multimedia Laboratory of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Unexpectedly, I hit it off with this idea, and Teacher Tang took us to start planning to write a book. As a result, professors and doctors were busy for two or three months, and the content they wrote was taken to middle schools for testing, but was quickly returned. The feedback was that the teachers could not teach it at all and the students did not understand it at all.
Everyone understands that it is impossible to work behind closed doors. Since it is a teaching material, it must be combined with educators and directly oriented to the knowledge level of the vast majority of students. Teacher Tang guided us to talk to first-line middle school teachers and education experts. We contacted Professor Chen Yukun, a senior education expert at East China Normal University through the Commercial Press, and asked Professor Chen to organize middle school computer teachers from many middle schools in Shanghai to participate. After repeated efforts by artificial intelligence expert professors and front-line teachers, the compilation of textbooks is on the right track.
On April 28, 2018, the launch ceremony of "Artificial Intelligence Basics High School Edition" was held at East China Normal University in Shanghai. Before the release, Teacher Tang was very excited and solemnly asked me to call the entire editing team together for a meeting to discuss it. We have made a detailed analysis of the significance of publishing textbooks, and encourage everyone to continue planning a junior high school version so that students can have a knowledge connection when learning artificial intelligence.
"Artificial Intelligence Basics High School Edition" has been reprinted since its release. According to feedback from the publisher, 200,000 copies were sold in half a year, and major platforms have been waiting for long-term pre-sales. By 2020, more than 6,000 teachers have been trained across the country, serving the needs of nearly 100,000 students in learning artificial intelligence. The teaching materials have also become gifts from SenseTime to the ministers of Singapore and the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, which have become a legend.
At the end of 2018, Teacher Tang sent me a message saying that you had done a good job in promoting the production of teaching materials for students. At that moment, I was very moved, because nowadays, publications are not profitable, so many scientists put their energy into producing teaching materials instead of producing commercial products. In the final analysis, it is because Teacher Tang is essentially a teacher, and a teacher is love. student's.
Some people say that Teacher Tang is an entrepreneur with a net worth of tens of billions. In my opinion, Teacher Tang is a simple teacher. He said that there are two reasons for starting a business. One is to give students studying artificial intelligence a way out; Another is to have more resources for scientific research.
Teacher Tang has always cared about students. After assuming the new directorship of the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he planned to design a fully functional working environment suitable for artificial intelligence research so that students can conduct scientific research with peace of mind. Teacher Tang is famous all over the world. Whether in the United States, Australia, or the United Kingdom, everyone whom Teacher Tang can contact will maintain a certain frequency of contact. After the establishment of SenseTime and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, many of Teacher Tang’s students have After returning to China to work, some returned to universities, some joined SenseTime, and some joined laboratories. Most of them insisted on the development of artificial intelligence and struggled on the front line of deep learning to large models.
Teacher Tang loves his students and cares for all the students he can help. Just a few days before Mr. Tang’s unfortunate death, my colleagues from SenseTime’s Social Responsibility Department and I were still discussing donating scholarships to Qinghai Province in 2023. This public welfare student aid activity initiated by me in 2017 helps poor high school students in Xining City, Huangzhong County, Huangyuan County, and Datong County. It has been donated seven times in seven consecutive years, with an amount of more than 1.5 million yuan. It is a initiative of SenseTime people. Fund-raising, each fund-raising and the needs of needy students are more or less different. At this time, Teacher Tang must have firmly said that I will take care of it. Teacher Tang’s assistant and I reviewed the donations over the years on November 23. Teacher Tang donated 360,904 yuan, nearly a quarter, and is the main supporter of this public welfare undertaking.
During non-epidemic periods, SenseTime has invited donated high school students from Qinghai to Beijing and Shanghai for many years to visit Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, encouraging them to work hard towards their ideal universities, and also inviting these children to attend SenseTime Technology’s seminars At the annual meeting, many poor children in mountainous areas took a plane or a train for the first time. They said at SenseTime’s annual meeting that SenseTime opened a window in front of me. If there are still shadows in front of my eyes, That's because there is sunshine behind me.
Mr. Tang has spared no effort in donating funds for students and supporting the development of artificial intelligence in more than ten university laboratories around the world. However, no one may have imagined that his life is extremely simple. During the entrepreneurial period, I joined SenseTime and worked hard with Mr. Tang, Xu Li and others. During our business trips at that time, we always stayed in two-star hotels with double rooms, so we had several late-night conversations with Teacher Tang. I still remember that because we had Hong Kong return permits, we once went on a business trip to a certain city in the west. The Jinjiang Inn refused to accept us, saying that we were foreign guests. Teacher Tang smiled and said, let’s change to a luxurious hotel. We dragged our luggage to the 7 Days Hotel not far away.
Indeed, Mr. Tang is very economical in his life, even to the point of being stingy. For example, SenseTime chooses locations for its companies in many places in the mainland, either in local science and technology parks or close to universities. A large The difficulty is that it is difficult to take a taxi, especially during the morning and evening rush hours. Some colleagues will choose to hitchhike or carpool. In the SenseTime group, new SenseTime employees often post selfies and say that they met Mr. Tang while carpooling today. The employee curiously asked Mr. Tang, our company is so big, don’t we have a car? Teacher Tang replied with a smile: Of course there are, and there are quite a few of them. However, they are all used for self-driving training, and the company management does not have any cars.
I opened the WeChat conversation with Teacher Tang and it stayed on December 8. On that day, I accompanied Professor Xue Lan and other experts to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to hold the 2023 International Forum on Artificial Intelligence Cooperation and Governance, because Teacher Tang could not attend the meeting in person but was very concerned about it. , I sent him a brief summary of the business situation and had a brief exchange. Unexpectedly, this was the last conversation.
December 19th is the day of Teacher Tang’s memorial service. I would like to thank the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park for agreeing to use the conference hall. When I presented my wreath, I thought, what should I write in the elegiac couplet? After thinking for a long time, I wrote: "In life, in work, in knowledge, as gentle as jade, in professors, students, and old friends all over the world, in innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation, with extraordinary courage and vision, as a Confucian businessman bravely shouldering heavy responsibilities."
When I opened the circle of friends, a post by Teacher Wang Xiaogang in memory of Teacher Tang popped up: You ignited the dreams of countless people, but you are destined to be lonely.
I often remember Teacher Tang telling me, Hai Long, you have to think about it this way, everything has two sides, one side is good and the other side is better!
