After the war between Russia and Ukraine, western countries not only launched a financial nuclear bomb and kicked Russia out of swift (Global Interbank Financial Telecommunications Association), but also launched a high-tech choke to comprehensively restrict Russia's import of computers, electronic products and a series of goods. Some voices believe that this is another reminder to China that it is impossible not to be self reliant and have their own original scientific and technological ability. China is promoting the construction of an innovative country. This year, it has made it clear to take scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement as the strategic support for national development. "You must take the road that others have not taken, and you can't always follow behind others, so you can never do pioneering work." Lu Ruqian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Netease science and technology that scientific research should not be complacent, but should dare to think, try and challenge. Academician Lu Ruqian, 87, is one of the pioneers and pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence in China. He is the first winner of the "Wu Wenjun highest achievement award of artificial intelligence", the highest award of artificial intelligence in China. He follows the famous mathematician Mr. Hua Luogeng. Lu Ruqian took the lead in studying heterogeneous distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) in the world, introduced machine debate into AI, designed and presided over the application of distributed logic reasoning and urban traffic management software based on distributed reasoning. In terms of big knowledge engineering, it also has scientific research achievements recognized by the international academic community. It gives the preliminary definition and life cycle model of big knowledge and big knowledge engineering, and guides the realization of the whole life cycle big knowledge map support platform. In the field of artificial intelligence, China is one of the countries with the largest investment. According to the national three-step strategy of artificial intelligence, by 2025, China will achieve major breakthroughs in the basic theory of artificial intelligence, and some technologies and applications will reach the world leading level. By 2030, China will achieve the overall world leading level in the theory, technology and application of artificial intelligence, Become the world's major AI innovation center. Lu Ruqian, who has been studying in the field of artificial intelligence for 40 years, has experienced the low tide of artificial intelligence and seen the current upsurge of artificial intelligence. He told Netease Technology Master of science that the application of artificial intelligence is the focus of international competition. Whoever can take the lead in realizing commercial application can lead. But for scientists, they should not follow the trend and join the fun. They should respect the laws of science. At the same time, he also reminded those who are chasing round after round of tuyeres to be rational and have the ability of scientific identification to avoid falling into a scam. 1. Artificial intelligence theory is original in the West, But Chinese scientists are not doing nothing Master of Science: our country has proposed to strengthen the original and leading scientific and technological research, and has explored in scientific research for a lifetime. What is your own experience and what are the methods in scientific research innovation? Lu Ruqian: for me, doing research is not blindly following the trend of the society. One important driving force is personal interest. Generally speaking, not everyone agrees with this. For example, one of the research I am most interested in is the automatic generation of computer animation, which is a touchstone of artificial intelligence. Whether artificial intelligence has the ability to solve problems, you can try it, because the new technologies needed are infinite, and there are countless innovative points for us to develop. So my feeling is that you must be interested in scientific research from your heart, otherwise you won't have the determination to sit on the bench for a long time. Of course, on this basis, innovation can not be done behind closed doors. You also have to pay close attention to the trend and frontier of world scientific development, especially the development trend of this major, and new gaps will be found. In addition, according to the urgent needs of the country, take the initiative to meet the response, so that scientific research can solve practical problems. At the same time, you must also comply with the laws of scientific research, neither complacent nor whimsical. You should move forward step by step in a down-to-earth manner. In the middle, there should also be a kind of courage that newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, dare to think, try and challenge, We should have the ambition of sacrificing ourselves to others. Innovation is like this. I used to assign questions to students. Some students first said that no one had done this problem, or that no one had tried this method. I don't like this statement the most. Can't you try it if no one has tried it? Can't you do it first? Someone must have done it before you do it? Others have done it. What else do you want? Master of Science: there is a saying that the basic theories of artificial intelligence are original in the West. Can we Chinese scientists reconstruct one? Lu Ruqian: it is true that modern artificial intelligence originated in the west, but as a science, artificial intelligence is developing continuously. Many countries have made contributions, and China is no exception. However, it is not to rebuild a set, but to innovate constantly. For example, Academician Wu Wenjun (member of the academic department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955, famous mathematician and winner of the national highest science and Technology Award), his theory of mathematical mechanization is original. I remember that there is one of the most representative and authoritative artificial intelligence magazines abroad, called artificial intelligence, which devoted one issue of special topics to discuss his theory, which is not easy, It shows that Chinese scientists have also made pioneering contributions in the field of artificial intelligence. Mr. Wu began to study mathematical mechanization in the 1970s and published his first article in this regard. At that time, the research of artificial intelligence had not risen in China. In addition, Academician Wang Xianghao of Jilin University (academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and famous mathematician) studied theorem machine proof very early and organized a national artificial intelligence seminar in 1979. I also attended that meeting and learned a lot, which is also an important key point to promote me to engage in artificial intelligence. He also promoted knowledge engineering research, organized students to develop some expert systems very early, supported national construction and trained a large number of talents. This shows that Chinese scientists have foresight and vision, and can stand at the forefront of scientific development and lead the development of science. Master of Science: the foundation is owned by others. Do we have another way to go? Lu Ruqian: as I said, the foundation is not all owned by others. It can be said that there is no ultimate basis for its development. For example, Professor Zhong Yixin of Beijing Post recently proposed to pay attention to the basic research of artificial intelligence, advocated the integration of various artificial intelligence research mechanisms in history, and called this concept mechanism. I think it makes sense. If you say you want to take "another way", maybe this also counts? In fact, the "road" is right in front of us. But the road is not ready-made, but pioneered by explorers. Overcoming scientific problems is the way; Facing the needs of the country is the way. In this regard, there is a special requirement for scientists, that is, science must be able to take a road that others have not taken. It must be so. You can't always add flowers and grass on the way others walk, so you will never achieve groundbreaking results. 2. It's important to publish papers But it is not the only measure of innovation Master of Science: to measure a country's AI research level, high impact papers (referring to the number of citations and Publications) are an important dimension. You are the editorial board of several academic journals. How are the high impact papers in the field performing in recent years? Lu Ruqian: I think it is reasonable and necessary to pay attention to the number of highly influential papers and the number of citations, because the more citations, the higher your attention to your research, but I don't think it should be too extreme. Because it is likely that some important innovative ideas are not noticed in the early stage. If you only take the citation rate of the paper as the only guide, it may be misleading and even miss the opportunity of innovation. At present, it has been proposed in China not to rely only on SCI citation and high impact factors; In addition, the assessment of units only requires individuals to provide a small number of representative papers, which does not count. It is aimed at over quantifying the indicators of papers. To take the most extreme example, Professor Feng Carmen, the tutor of Mr. Qian Xuesen, is a very famous scientist in the world. Feng Carmen had a pioneering paper, which was not adopted by famous scientific journals at first, but later published in a very ordinary magazine. Many important papers of the famous German scientist Petrie are published in the form of technical reports, but they are regarded as classics by the academic community. There is a folk proverb in China: "heroes don't ask about their origin", and they should not ask about their origin for academic papers. Master of Science: last year, Nature magazine reported that 370 manuscripts related to the paper factory were withdrawn from international scientific journals in 2021, and most of the problem papers came from China, especially hospitals. What do you think of such a large number of withdrawals? Lu Ruqian: the paper is an important basis for our talent evaluation, but if we emphasize it one sidedly, this problem will occur. The root cause is that we do not emphasize academic honesty or preciseness enough, and we do not do enough to create an atmosphere in academic ethics, so it is impossible to prevent this kind of thing. According to my usual observation, the main problem papers are not students, mainly in-service researchers. If the paper is regarded as the only assessment standard for promoting the professional title or job promotion, there will be problems. Therefore, it is not only necessary to strengthen the education and publicity of academic ethics, but also to reform the employment assessment mechanism, so as to reduce this phenomenon. As for the withdrawal of medical manuscripts you mentioned, there are profound social reasons. Due to the shortage of medical resources, clinicians often work overload, but at the same time, some units require them to publish high-quality papers, otherwise there is no hope of professional title promotion. This phenomenon is easy to occur under heavy pressure. This situation is used by speculative forces in society to make ill gotten gains. I think we should reform the title evaluation system and crack down on social speculation at the same time in order to solve this problem. In 2018, academician Lu Ruqian (second from right) and his family attended the award ceremony of "Wu Wenjun highest achievement award of artificial intelligence", the highest honor of China's artificial intelligence/ Pictures provided by respondents 3. International competition of artificial intelligence Whoever put into application first will seize the commanding height Master of Science: what is the focus or focus of international competition in AI research? Lu Ruqian: AI competition is mainly in application, that is, whoever can develop some applications first will occupy the highland of AI. For example, military applications, such as modern wars, will use UAVs. How to confront the mixed formation of UAVs and UAVs may be a very important issue and have a huge impact, because the future air war is likely to be a war in which the mixed formation of UAVs and UAVs compete with each other. The lesson of history is that once a new technology or new idea appears in science, the Conservative Party must lose. So will AI. Of course, some countries may have mastered advanced AI technology, but it is not necessarily open, and it is impossible to post articles for discussion. It will be used only when something happens. In fact, the challenge to us is even more severe. Our research in this field must not lag behind and need to be paid close attention to. 4. Artificial intelligence large scale