Chapter 76 - 57: Competition Rules
"Oh? That’s great!" Qu Chengfeng’s eyes lit up. "As it happens, Principal Chang and Professor Gu from the School of Mathematics will also be here today. When you get a chance later, you can take the initiative to talk to them about this. Although transferring from liberal arts to a science major can be a difficult process, rules are rigid, but people are flexible. As long as you’re skilled enough, none of that will be a problem."
Chen Lin nodded in thanks. He thought for a moment, then asked, "Teacher Qu, what did you mean by ’violation’ earlier?"
Qu Chengfeng glanced at him and asked with a smile, "What, Chen, have you not paid much attention to our mathematical modeling competition before?"
Chen Lin nodded honestly. "I really haven’t."
"Alright, then let me explain it to you from the beginning." Qu Chengfeng’s tone was easygoing, as if he were teaching a fun elective. "Until a couple of years ago, the rules for this competition were extremely strict."
He held up three fingers. "There was one core requirement: within 72 hours of the problem being released, a team had to independently complete all the modeling, programming, and paper writing. Note, *independently*."
Qu Chengfeng deliberately emphasized the word.
"What does ’independently’ mean? It means that during the competition, any form of communication between participating teams was forbidden, as was communication between contestants and their advisors. You could go online to look up information and download literature, but you were absolutely forbidden from using the internet to discuss the problem with anyone."
He seemed to recall something and gave an example. "Something like this happened a few years ago. There was a team from a 985 university whose paper was of exceptionally high quality—they were a shoo-in for a National First Prize. But then someone reported them, saying they were in a math competition QQ group during the event. Even though those students never said a single word from start to finish, because other people in the group were discussing the competition problem, the organizing committee investigated, confirmed it, and directly disqualified them. Unfair, wouldn’t you say?"
Hearing this, Chen Lin couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows and remark, "That rule only stops honest people, not scoundrels. If someone really wanted to cheat, they could just ask for help secretly. The committee doesn’t have the resources to investigate every single person, right?"
"You’re not wrong," Qu Chengfeng nodded. "In reality, the rule was never enforced that strictly. It was quite common, especially at lower-ranked schools, for advisors to help students find materials or even point them in the right direction. But it was rare for anyone to directly help them solve the problem."
He smiled and added, "After all, this competition is co-sponsored by the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education and the China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Top universities like our Yannan, or Huaqing and Yanbei, make a point of holding meetings to remind their faculty to strictly follow the rules and protect their reputations. As for some of the lesser schools..."
Qu Chengfeng paused meaningfully. "Whether the teachers’ skills are even better than the students’ is another question entirely..."
"However," Qu Chengfeng’s tone shifted, and his expression grew subtle, "things started to change last year."
He glanced at Chen Lin, inviting him to guess.
’What kind of change could it be?’
Chen Lin’s mind raced.
He replayed Qu Chengfeng’s words in his head and almost instantly seized on the key points: the internet, looking up information, independent completion...
He asked tentatively, "Is it because of large AI models?"
He connected this to what he’d learned over the summer. Besides studying Python programming, he had also taken the time to understand the latest trends in cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
He knew that current AI, both domestic and international, was already far superior to humans in programming, and the same went for writing papers.
And from what Chen Lin understood, even in mathematical modeling, the top-tier, paid large models from foreign companies already had research capabilities that could match or even surpass an average human PhD.
Since the rules Qu Chengfeng had just described didn’t mention anything about AI, it wasn’t a difficult guess for Chen Lin to make.
Qu Chengfeng opened his water bottle and took a sip. "It’s so easy talking to smart people."
He continued to explain, "Exactly, it’s because of AI. During last year’s competition, the committee judges noticed that the overall quality of the submitted papers—whether in terms of formatting standards, fluency of writing, or the quality of the mathematical models and accompanying code—was a huge leap above previous years! If it weren’t for the large-scale use of AI, not even a ghost would believe it."
"At first, there was some debate within the committee about whether to explicitly ban the use of AI. But then everyone realized that AI assisting human learning and work is an irreversible trend, and there was no point in fighting against the tide of the times."
"So, the committee simply changed their approach." A hint of admiration was in Qu Chengfeng’s voice. "For this year’s competition, they drastically increased the difficulty of the problems. Take Problem A, the one Shen Yan’s team worked on: ’Modeling Problems Related to the SEIR Metapopulation Model on a Multi-Regional Network and the Transmission Dynamics of Environmental Pathogens.’ A few years ago, a problem of this difficulty would never have appeared in an undergraduate-level competition."
"But at the same time, the committee also relaxed the rules."
"First, the team size limit was increased from three people to four. Second, and most importantly, they got rid of the rule that ’prohibited teams from communicating with others.’"
"However," Qu Chengfeng added, "the new requirement is that if a team uses AI tools in their problem-solving process, they must state it in the corresponding section of their paper. Furthermore, they have to attach a detailed supplementary document at the end of the paper, clearly stating the name and version of the AI used, the specific stages where it was applied, and include key interaction logs—that is, the ’prompts’ and the AI’s responses."
"Similarly, if a team adopts ideas or suggestions from another person during the modeling process, and that person is a professor or teacher at the university, they must also clearly credit them in the paper to reflect fairness and rigor."
Hearing this, Chen Lin understood.
Because he wasn’t a teacher or professor at the university, Shen Yan’s team hadn’t violated any rules by directly using the optimization algorithm he’d taught them—especially not under this year’s new regulations.
Not to mention, Shen Yan had also added his name to the special acknowledgments at the end of the paper.
At this thought, Chen Lin’s mood brightened immensely.
Since there were no issues with the rules, and with his help, they were guaranteed to pass the expert interview.
That meant the 6,000 yuan prize money Shen Yan had promised to split with him was pretty much in the bag!
’6,000 yuan...’
To others, this might just be a nice bit of prize money.
Almost subconsciously, Chen Lin did a quick calculation in his head.
’With the enhanced "Little Financial Planner" and its 20% monthly compound interest, after one year, 6,000 yuan would become... 6,000 * (1.2)^12 ≈ 53,502 yuan.’
’After three years...’
’Over 4.25 million!’