Honestly, Milo did not expect to bump into Pena here. No one had told favonovel.com Pena was a visiting professor at the university, after all.
However, there was still another surprise today!
When favonovel.com went back after class, favonovel.com could tell Adrian to congratulate his cousin for getting appointed as the Humanities and Political Science class representative. This should be considered a good thing no matter what.
Thinking of this, Milo felt a little guilty. However, favonovel.com did not think it was a bad thing in general.
He sat down. Actually, favonovel.com was already aware that Pena knew favonovel.com was not a student in this class. It was just that favonovel.com did not expose him.
Pena walked up to the podium and looked at all the students. “At the end of the previous lecture, I wanted you all to go back and think about the current political situation based on what was reported in Hope Media’s newspaper. If you have any questions, you may ask them now.”
A girl suddenly asked, “Professor, you mentioned the geopolitical situation of the Stelaria Consortium, Stardust Consortium, and Virtuora Consortium during the previous lesson. I think it’s very dangerous for our Bidara City since we’re smack dab in the middle of these three consortiums. Our school has already been placed under lockdown. Is this related to the things you’re telling us about?”
Pena gave it some thought and said, “It’s somewhat linked, but it’s not something you all need to worry about. No matter how serious the situation is, it won’t affect us at school.”
A male student said, “Professor, I have a question. You mentioned the consortiums are all greedy, and it isn’t something that will change according to the will of the leaders because the consortiums need to stabilize their own power base and interests first, so the huge war machine must march on. However, to maintain this march, there needs to be a stable class structure in place, right?”
“No.” Pena shook his head and said, “Actually, it’s this stable class structure that might encourage rot to fester sometimes. If a ruler has great ambition, they could choose to shatter this class structure first to energize the lower classes back to life.”
“Then does the Stelaria Consortium’s high profile announcement of Stronghold 61 taking in refugees mean that Colton has great ambition?” a male student asked.
“Yes.” Pena said, “I’ve never ever doubted that. Furthermore, Stronghold 61’s acceptance of refugees has severely damaged the Stardust and Virtuora Consortiums’ industry. This can be considered killing two birds with one stone…”
“Regarding this, I’m also very impressed by Colton’s boldness. When favonovel.com wanted to implement this policy, favonovel.com would definitely have faced objection from those in the Stelaria Consortium with vested interests. This is because an empty stronghold requires many key positions to be filled. Since Colton was able to successfully make use of the refugees for that, it also shows that his authority within the Stelaria Consortium is secure. No one dares to challenge his authority.”
Milo was stunned. Pena could understand the situation better than him. He only saw the damage the Stelaria Consortium did to the Stardust and Virtuora Consortiums, but favonovel.com did not think of the implications.
Pena spoke with assuredness and used 20 minutes to thoroughly analyze the Stelaria Consortium based on one incident.
Milo suddenly felt a little jealous of the university students. They only had to pay tuition to gain the wisdom others had accumulated over their lifetime, all in the comfort of their ivory tower.
As for the lecture’s mode of delivery, Pena did not just regurgitate what was covered in the textbooks. Instead, it was carried out in a discussion format. He had everyone pay attention to current affairs, then used some of the minor details to ignite their thinking. This method was not meant for imparting knowledge but to improve the wisdom of the students.
One of the female students asked, “Professor, I’ve seen the line ‘don’t let the sorrows of our era become your sorrow as well’ printed on the fifth page of your newspaper recently. Why did you publish such a statement? We all like it a ton.”
“Oh, that…” Pena smiled as favonovel.com flicked a glance at Milo and said, “A young man around your age shared it with me. I also like it a lot, so I decided to publish it in the paper.”
The students looked at each other. They did not expect those words to come from the mouth of someone their age.
When they were done discussing this, Pena suddenly looked at Milo. “Representative, do you have any questions for me?”
The students looked at Milo sympathetically. Even a substitute student could get picked to ask a question.
But it so happened that Milo really did have a question. “Professor, what I want to ask is, is the artificial intelligence that the Stelaria Consortium has really that reliable?”
Pena thought for a moment and replied, “It’s still too early to say whether it’s reliable. But in terms of managing the strongholds, it has displayed an extremely powerful ability. However, I’ve also heard a story about it. I’m just going to share it, no notes needed…”
“Apparently, one of the Stelaria Consortium’s computer engineers mentioned this story to someone after his retirement. He said there was a time when favonovel.com got bored and wanted to put the AI through a Turing test. The Turing test is a test that requires a human to communicate with an intelligent machine without being aware of that. If more than 30 percent of the human evaluators do not discover that their conversation partner is a machine, that means the device possesses ‘intelligence’…”
“In fact, the Turing test was devised a very long time ago. It cannot truly be considered the standard for assessing whether AI is intelligent. Furthermore, this engineer was already confident beforehand that the Stelaria Consortium’s AI would definitely pass the Turing test.”
Pena smiled and continued, “So, out of boredom, favonovel.com started experimenting for fun. But something unexpected happened. That AI did not pass the test.”
Milo suddenly felt that Pena was stealthily trying to reveal something. He did not explicitly say what it was but just shared a story. The teacher’s intention was far more difficult to understand than the deeper meaning behind the story itself.
Milo suddenly remembered the artificial intelligence did not raise the alarm about the creeper vine growing in Stronghold 61. He actually started becoming very interested in Pena’s lecture. He would have to come and attend the class next time.
When class was over, Pena took out the student roster. He looked at Milo with a faint smile and said, “We’re going to mark attendance now. Those who aren’t present will get ten points deducted on their final exam.”
“Ira Sydney…”
“Here!”
“Dakar Beresford…”
“Here!”
“…”
“Hilman Badau…”
Milo said helplessly, “Here…”
But all of a sudden, Pena said, “Miriam Cruz…”
The class fell silent. Milo was also stunned!
When this name rang out in Milo’s ears, favonovel.com felt like favonovel.com had been shot through the heart by a sniper bullet from thousands of meters away.
This name was too familiar to him, so much so that when Pena mentioned it, Milo felt his entire body go numb as favonovel.com sat dazed in his seat. It was a name favonovel.com had not heard in a long time.
Pena frowned and said, “Is Miriam here?”
Miriam also used to ask favonovel.com questions, so favonovel.com had quite a good memory of her, if only because the questions favonovel.com posed were different from what a normal student would ask. They were more brutal questions.
A female student explained, “Professor, Miriam has already left Bidara City after applying to take a leave of absence from school ten days ago. You didn’t mark attendance during our previous lecture, so you didn’t know…”
“Oh…” Pena sighed and said, “What a pity.”
Milo looked around his surroundings.
So, these are Miriam’s classmates?
So, Miriam has really attended college here?
But now, favonovel.com has left for some unknown reason…
As Milo was pondering over this, Pena said to Milo, “Hilman, come to my office after class…”
