An unexpected success

After Gu Xuan left, Lin Yuan felt a bit lost, as he clearly saw that Professor Zhang was suppressing his anger.

"You must be very curious."

Lin Yuan was, of course, curious about what had happened, "What's wrong, Teacher?"

"Gu Xuan suddenly came today asking me for a project. Logically, since he is a first-year graduate student, he wouldn't usually be assigned a topic."

Professor Zhang's expression was a bit weary, "But considering he graduated from Zijin University and is from the mathematics department, I was originally happy to see him being proactive.

However, the topic he wanted wasn't one I had."

"Not one you had? Why?" Lin Yuan was a bit confused.

"Because the topics I oversee are more geared towards engineering applications and involve more collaborations with companies. The topic he wanted was '3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition,' which is quite novel and convenient for him to publish papers on."

"3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition? What's that for? I've only heard of facial recognition."

"You can think of it as an advanced version of facial recognition. Currently, most facial recognition on the market is based on 2D planar data, but our human face is clearly a 3D object. So, 3D structured light essentially builds a 3D model for the human face, and its recognition accuracy will certainly be much higher."

Lin Yuan felt a bit unknowledgeable, "Gu Xuan is indeed from Zijin University; he's researching such profound things right away. I'm still working on food delivery."

"You don't need to belittle yourself. That 3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition indeed requires a higher level of mathematical knowledge and involves a lot of modeling calculations. But mathematics is just a tool, and people don't do things centered around tools. Not everyone has to win a Fields Medal."

"Teacher, are you not very supportive of him?"

"Of course I'm not supportive. Haven't you figured it out yet? He's just aiming to publish papers. At such a young age, why learn bad habits? He's self-taught in the ways of academic rogue."

Professor Zhang looked heartbroken.

"At first, I thought he was reluctant to give up his advantage in mathematics, and I spent a lot of effort persuading him. When studying for a master's or Ph.D., you can't just pick something you're currently good at; you need a long-term plan.

Hmph, then you saw what happened.

By the end of our conversation, I realized I was the only one enthusiastic; he wanted to publish SCI papers early."

SCI? That's so unfamiliar to Lin Yuan. He almost forgot, it seems all top students publish SCI?

"Teacher, are SCI papers very impressive?"

"Impressive my foot! What's impressive is always the paper itself, not some SCI.

Look at the students nowadays," Professor Zhang couldn't help but point towards the door, "They haven't even officially started school yet, and they're already thinking such crooked thoughts. Why do you publish papers? Isn't it for iterating technology and engineering applications? And what's the purpose of iterating technology? Isn't it to promote the development of productivity? But this academic atmosphere now, sigh, how did publishing papers become the goal?

If I had known he was like this, I wouldn't have wanted to take him in."

Lin Yuan was initially worried that if Gu Xuan, this chameleon, gained favor with his advisor, he might stir up trouble and make things difficult for him. Now it seems the other party has exposed himself prematurely, which has relieved him of a worry.

Lin Yuan didn't like to hit someone when they were down, even though he disliked Gu Xuan. "3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition, even if it's for publishing papers, it's still a help in improving the accuracy of facial recognition, isn't it?"

"Sigh, why do I say he's publishing papers for the sake of publishing papers? It's because this 3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition is just a storytelling gimmick. This is a very common tactic used by academic rogues."

When it came to such topics, Lin Yuan became interested. He pulled up a stool and sat opposite his teacher's desk, like a primary school student listening to a teacher's lecture.

"3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition, you can't say it's useless, but it's simply not practical. Any recognition needs to consider a fault tolerance rate. Once the fault tolerance rate reaches a certain height, it's meaningless to excessively improve it."

Lin Yuan immediately understood, "I get it. Teacher means that making 99% pure gold into three nines or four nines doesn't really mean much."

"Hey," Professor Zhang's eyes lit up, "Your summaries are always so spot-on." Professor Zhang naturally recalled Lin Yuan's previous summary of the "North America jungle route."

"Excessive purification of gold jewelry is purely a marketing gimmick. I hate it when people in technology act like marketers. Tell me, how much significance can the ultimate recognition accuracy of something like 3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition have?"

Lin Yuan thought for a moment, "It's like single-crystal silicon purification; first, there must be a demand for it, then there's a need for purification. It's because if we don't purify silicon wafers to high purity, we can't etch chips. But for facial recognition, if extremely high recognition accuracy is truly required, then why even use facial recognition? Why not just have a person monitor it?"

Professor Zhang slammed the table, "Exactly! Every technology has its applicable scenario. If you make facial recognition so complicated, why don't I just have a person stand there? No matter how strong 3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition is, it's not stronger than X-rays. It's still based on light reflection technology to build a 3D facial model. If a spy wears a mask, it's still useless."

Upon hearing the word "spy," Lin Yuan didn't know why he felt a bit sensitive.

Lin Yuan took over, "And I see that the currently widespread facial payment, is clearly also based on the conventional facial recognition algorithm of dual-camera, at most with added IR infrared liveness detection. A big company like Alipay wouldn't be so foolish on such an issue. I think their model should have comprehensively considered the risk factor, and then relied on mobile phone positioning and spending limits to achieve effective risk control."

The spending limit is easy to understand. As long as a maximum limit is added to facial payment, even if an error occurs, as long as the error probability is not too absurd, the overall loss will be very small. Because potential loss = probability X limit. By controlling the limit, one can control the maximum value of potential loss.

As for what to do if users have a need to exceed the limit? Paying tens of thousands by face scan, you ask people to do it, and they wouldn't be willing. Facial payment is not suitable for large-amount payment scenarios. So, why pursue extremely high accuracy?

Lin Yuan continued, "The equipment supporting 3D Structured Light for Facial Recognition shouldn't be cheap, right?"

"Of course not," Professor Zhang replied grumpily.

"I thought so too. The commercial behavior of commercial companies is the most honest. Otherwise, payment platforms would have adopted this system long ago."

"You are more down-to-earth; I didn't misjudge you."

Lin Yuan was surprised by his advisor's sudden praise. It seemed he hadn't done anything, yet he had soundly defeated Gu Xuan in front of his advisor. Was this the legendary "God helps those who help themselves"?

"Using research funds, under the guise of research, yet the research itself is not simple, leaving people speechless..."

Professor Zhang was still complaining, and Lin Yuan had already grown accustomed to his advisor's old-man demeanor.

He actually understood his advisor very well. Because market acceptance has no fixed standard, if someone goes to research something, you can't stop them on the grounds that it doesn't meet market demand.

"Don't you learn from him," Professor Zhang added at the end.

"I know, I definitely won't learn from him."

To put it bluntly, Gu Xuan, even before enrolling, was eager to tackle a somewhat complex, paper-friendly, but commercially unpromising topic. This is what incurred Professor Zhang's displeasure.

"Oh, right, let's talk about your main business."

"Alright, Teacher, I'm done."