Chapter 66: Storm at the Assembly

In the morning, Zhou Yun wore a neatly tailored suit and took a deep breath in front of the mirror.

After a few minutes, he let out a long sigh, picked up his laptop, and turned to leave the room.

He was scheduled as the second presenter of the morning, and by the time he arrived at the venue, the first speaker was just about to take the stage.

The first presenter was a female scholar named Rosalie, a professor from MIT. Zhou Yun had always held profound respect for female scholars, let alone one hailing from a premier institution like MIT.

Her research focus was 'Affective Computing', a novel interdisciplinary field that he had hardly heard of before, which sparked his keen interest.

Events soon proved that she was indeed highly competent, explaining complex concepts in a simple and accessible manner. Just when everyone assumed the opening presentation was going to conclude on a high note, a new slide triggered whispered discussions among the scholars present.

Ordinarily, the audience remained completely silent while a speaker was presenting, out of respect for the presenter.

However, when Zhou Yun saw the content on the slide, even he could not help but feel a surge of emotion. It was only due to his rigorous self-regulation that he managed to remain sufficiently restrained.

Several scholars with less forgiving tempers were already beginning to grow restless.

For the slide displayed on the screen was as follows:

On the left was an AI-generated image. Leaving aside whatever message it intended to convey, the English text on the right was starkly direct.

【I did it to make my paper results look better. Nobody at my school taught us morals or values.
——Excuse given by ‘HuaGuo’ student who is now expelled from top university.】
NOTE: Most ‘HuaGuo’ who I know are honest and morally upright.

Translated into Chinese, it meant:

【“I did this just to make the data of my paper results look better. Nobody at my school ever taught us morals or values.”
——The defense offered by a HuaGuo student who was subsequently expelled from a top university.】

This particular slide caused a gentleman in the front row to involuntarily frown.

In principle, there was nothing inherently wrong with this; academic misconduct was an intolerable offense within the academic community, and students expelled for it had only themselves to blame. The crux of the problem, however, lay in the fact that Professor Rosalie had explicitly pointed out the student's nationality.

She had even appended the remark, "Not all HuaGuo international students are like this; the majority possess a very strong sense of morality."

What difference was there between such a disclaimer and the idiom of burying three hundred taels of silver and claiming the neighbor didn't do it?

Such a blanket, generalized attack naturally infuriated the HuaGuo attendees in the room, especially since nearly half of the audience was of Chinese descent.

It was akin to playing an online game where your teammates are terrible while you carry the entire match, only for the opponents to type in global chat: "The other team is full of noobs."

Even though the incident had nothing to do with the vast majority of HuaGuo individuals present, being subjected to such an inexplicable attack naturally provoked a sense of grievance.

And this was taking place at an international conference like NeurIPS, the influence of which far surpassed that of any video game.

Perhaps because each speaker's time was strictly limited, Rosalie did not pause. Instead, she continued, "This student's statement prompted our research team to reflect deeply on academic and cultural differences."

Her tone was utterly calm.

Since the presentation was not yet over, the audience, no matter how indignant, would not directly interrupt. Even so, most of them had lost all interest in continuing to listen.

Ten minutes later, Rosalie’s presentation concluded.

When the Q&A session began, almost instantaneously, dozens of hands shot into the air—the vast majority of them belonging to Asian faces.

A fleeting look of panic flashed across Rosalie’s eyes. She deliberately chose a young woman who appeared relatively gentle.

The selected woman stood up, accepted the microphone, and gave a slight nod before speaking in fluent English: "Thank you, Professor, for a most wonderful presentation. Your findings on the cross-cultural representation of emotion are truly impressive."

Anyone familiar with HuaGuo people knows that in such major settings, even when one intends to deliver a scathing critique, a certain degree of restraint is maintained. Praising first and criticizing later was a customary approach.

True to form, after offering these polite pleasantries, the young woman launched her counterattack.

"As a researcher, I naturally harbor deep detestation for academic misconduct. But why did you find it necessary to specify nationality in your presentation slide?

May I ask why this particular detail was so crucial that it warranted special emphasis from you? Does your subconscious operate in such a way that the improper behavior of a single individual is sufficient for you to form a generalized impression of an entire group?

Or perhaps, precisely because the overwhelming majority of HuaGuo scholars strictly adhere to academic integrity, this single exception appeared so 'conspicuous' that you felt compelled to highlight it to demonstrate 'fairness'?"

Many of the HuaGuo attendees nodded repeatedly in approval of the young woman's question.

Professor Rosalie was clearly caught off guard. She adjusted the microphone, her eyes flickering slightly: "Thank you for your question. I did not mean to cause any offense; this was merely a single case used to illustrate a point. My original intention was to discuss differences in academic culture, and I did note that most HuaGuo people are very honest."

However, such a vague response could not brush the young woman aside. She picked up the microphone once more: "Professor, I understand that you may have meant no malice.

Yet, as one of the HuaGuo individuals present today, I and many of my compatriots did indeed feel offended.

Unnecessarily linking individual behavior to nationality inherently fosters stereotypes, to say nothing of doing so at an international conference such as this.

Therefore, speaking purely on my own behalf, I kindly request that you remove the nationality label from this slide. I believe that academic criticism should focus on the issue rather than the individual, and it certainly should not target any specific country or group!"

A brief silence enveloped the room.

Professor Rosalie’s expression turned somewhat grim. However, whether yielding to pressure or other considerations, she spoke into the microphone: "Thank you for the correction. I apologize if my slide caused such a misunderstanding. I promise to remove the problematic phrasing from the presentation slides."

The young woman bowed slightly: "Thank you."

Immediately afterward, a burst of enthusiastic applause erupted throughout the venue.

Zhou Yun joined in the applause from his seat. He had been among those who raised their hands earlier, though if he had been the one to speak, he doubted he could have handled the situation as impeccably as this young woman.

As for the issue of academic misconduct, it certainly existed back home, and perhaps the numbers were genuinely higher than abroad.

But! Just how massive was the population back home?

In a forest large enough, all sorts of birds could be found. This phenomenon was not unique to HuaGuo; it was simply that the sheer size of HuaGuo's population magnified the phenomenon.

At the very least, among the people around him—whether in his past life or the present, whether teachers or students—could there be supervisors lacking in basic ethics? Yes!

But to elevate it to the level of academic misconduct? To his knowledge, there were none.

At worst, certain supervisors might have a slightly lower sense of research ethics, but that had zero relationship with academic misconduct.