Artificial intelligence research

Artificial intelligence research is the field around which Rong Jinzhen’s most ambitious mathematical work takes shape: he treats human intelligence as something that might be described mathematically, while arguing that its irreducible element of confusion places a limit on what machines can reproduce. The promise and vulnerability of this approach are inseparable. Its conclusions are daring, but rest on a premise about π that remains unproved; the work nonetheless helps lead Young Lillie to establish a dedicated research unit at N University and later makes Jan Liseiwicz’s distress at Jinzhen’s departure from the field especially sharp.

A field and a proposed opportunity

In a letter to Young Lillie written on Christmas Eve, Jan Liseiwicz reported that Princeton University had combined several independent research units into an institute devoted to artificial intelligence, directed by the mathematician Paul Samuelson. Liseiwicz understood this development as evidence that the field’s importance was becoming visible beyond his own circle. He hoped that Jinzhen, who had by then almost completely recovered from his illness, would be able to undertake research in it as well.

The letter was also an argument about where that work could happen. Liseiwicz believed that if Jinzhen could not pursue artificial intelligence in China, he should be able to leave for somewhere better equipped to support him. He urged Young Lillie not to let short-term difficulties or advantages obstruct Jinzhen’s potential, and invoked the proverb about not using a fine sword to chop firewood. The image made his claim plain: Jinzhen’s abilities required the right conditions, not merely a place to work. Liseiwicz named Princeton University as a setting with both facilities and room for Jinzhen to continue.

Liseiwicz described Jinzhen as having been sent by God to study the subject, but his appeal was not only an expression of faith in one person. He worried that Jinzhen might otherwise lack the surroundings and support needed to persist through difficulty. The letter therefore frames artificial intelligence research as a question of intellectual possibility and material circumstance: an exceptional idea still needs an institution able to sustain it.

Jinzhen’s thesis and its premise

Jinzhen’s graduation thesis developed Georg Weinacht’s binary theory, beginning from the mathematical constant π and attempting to turn that theory into a pure-mathematics solution to a major problem in artificial intelligence. Its central proposal was that human intelligence could be regarded as a mathematical constant and an irrational number that never comes to an end. The thesis then drew on the second part of Weinacht’s theory to address the problem of creating artificial intelligence.

The argument depended on a distinction between what can be specified and what cannot be fully known. Jinzhen’s account treated confusion as an element of human intelligence that is indefinable: it marks what cannot be completely known and therefore cannot be replicated. On that basis, he argued that, under present conditions, artificial means could approach human intelligence but could not entirely reproduce it. The conclusion was not presented as a simple rejection of machine intelligence. Rather, it made the limits of reproduction part of the problem the field had to confront.

The thesis’s force was also its weakness. Its proofs treated π as a constant, yet that status had not been conclusively proved. If the assumption failed, the structure built upon it would fail with it; if accepted, the work’s consequences for artificial intelligence appeared striking. The account compares the thesis to a castle on uncertain foundations: its mathematical construction could be compelling without its starting point being secure. Its value therefore remained conditional, and its daring did not resolve the evidentiary gap at its base.

Authorship, reception, and institutional consequence

Young Lillie found the first draft’s thinking incisive and logical, but thought some proofs unnecessarily complicated. He helped simplify their presentation, and after revisions the thesis was reduced from 20,000 characters to just over 10,000. It was published in Popular Mathematics and attracted attention in Chinese mathematical circles. Yet the improvements that made the argument clearer also helped provoke suspicion: some readers found it difficult to believe that an undergraduate had written such advanced work independently.

In an interview, Master Rong insisted that Jinzhen had written the thesis himself. According to her account, Young Lillie had recommended a couple of reference books and written the introduction, but had not contributed to the mathematical contents. That distinction matters because the thesis’s reception threatened to obscure the very achievement it displayed. The account judges that its immediate success was less a change in Jinzhen’s circumstances than a demonstration of his intelligence and daring; it also observes that the work altered the final years of Young Lillie’s life.

Not long after publication, Young Lillie travelled to Beijing without explaining his purpose. About a month later, decisions from the central authorities permitted him to resign as chancellor, provided money to found the N University computer research unit, and made him responsible for establishing it. After interviewing prospective applicants, he selected Jinzhen as its first recruit. The account says that no other candidate met Jinzhen’s standard and that the other hires became, in effect, assistants handling day-to-day tasks. This concentration of responsibility gave the unit an exceptional focus, but also prompted gossip that an internationally regarded research institution had been monopolized by the Rong family.

Departure from the field and the return of the question

Jinzhen did not remain with artificial intelligence research. When Jan Liseiwicz returned to C City, the political hostility between China and X Country meant he was barred from N University and had to meet Young Lillie at a hotel under close surveillance. Liseiwicz had wanted to see Jinzhen; learning that Jinzhen had left the university and moved on to other work, he reacted with shock and anger. He called the decision appalling and argued that Jinzhen’s research had already reached international standards, with still greater breakthroughs possible if he continued.

The account does not make this later work a continuation of the thesis. Jinzhen’s work in cryptography follows a different path, shaped by the demands of decipherment: Unit 701 describes the task as making use of every second and every inch, and contrasts the caution that followed its success against PURPLE with Jinzhen’s inability to find errors in BLACK. He ultimately deciphered BLACK when he recognized that its key was zero, an opening associated with his leather attaché case. These episodes do not establish a technical link between cryptography and artificial intelligence; instead, they mark the distance between the field Liseiwicz urged Jinzhen to pursue and the work that came to occupy him.

Significance

Artificial intelligence research in Jinzhen’s story is at once a mathematical problem, an institutional undertaking, and a path that can be interrupted. The thesis asks whether intelligence can be formalized without erasing the confusion that makes it human, but its answer remains suspended on the unproved status of π. The research unit gives that question a practical home and makes Jinzhen’s singular talent the basis of an institutional project, while the doubts about authorship and the gossip surrounding recruitment complicate the recognition he receives.

Liseiwicz’s later protest returns the story to its original stakes: not simply whether Jinzhen’s work was promising, but whether he would be allowed to continue it. His departure does not settle the thesis’s mathematical question. It leaves the proposed limits of artificial intelligence alongside an equally unresolved human consequence: a field that might have benefited from Jinzhen’s further work instead becomes, in the narrative, the measure of an opportunity lost.