When You Forget, I'll Remember, Chapter 8

Night in the wee room in October, the tall sash window on the back wall black, a few far harbour lights low in it, rain beads on the glass. The reading lamp on the shelf is off; the only light is the soft glow of the pale-blue phone. Xiaoyu, fifteen, in her sky-blue hoodie, sits cross-legged on the bed under the red-and-green tartan blanket, holding her phone in both hands in front of her the ordinary way, its screen facing HER and its back to us, the glow on her face. She is smiling at it, a small, private, shy smile, one loose strand of hair by her cheek. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The dark window and the dark ceiling above are the quiet area for the title.

Chapter 8第八章The Next Word下一个字

Saturday morning, twenty to eight, grey October light just coming up over the slate roofs and the grey sea in the tall window, rain on the glass. Xiaoyu lies curled in the bed on the LEFT under the tartan blanket, half asleep, one arm out reaching for her pale-blue phone, which has just lit up on the chair beside the bed. Her face in three-quarter in the middle band. The grey sky in the window above is the quiet area.

Edinburgh, October 2030. I was fifteen. On a Saturday morning, a message came from Grandpa.2030年10月，爱丁堡。那年我十五岁。星期六早上，外公发来一条消息。

Grey morning light. Xiaoyu's hand holds the pale-blue phone the ordinary way, her black watch on her LEFT wrist at the edge. On the screen a chat: one long pale-grey message bubble on the left, the top of it. NO letters painted; the words are lettered in afterwards.

Xiaoyu, the willows by the lake have gone yellow. Old Wu still can't beat me.小雨，湖边的柳树黄了。老吴还是下不过我。

Grey morning light. The same screen, her thumb at its edge scrolling the long pale-grey bubble up to show its end. NO letters painted.

Your grandma beat me in eleven moves, the first morning. Wear more. It's cold where you are.头一回下棋，你外婆十一步就赢了我。你那边冷，多穿点。

Grey morning, the light a little stronger. Xiaoyu sits up against the wall with the blanket round her, holding the phone up close in both hands, its screen to HER; she is wide awake and smiling, her eyes shining, reading it again. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle of the panel, turned a little left. The pale wall and window on the right are the quiet area.

Every word in the right place. Just like before.字字妥帖，跟从前一模一样。

Grey morning. Mama in her oatmeal jumper and grey slippers stands in the doorway on the LEFT with a mug of tea, leaning to look at the phone Xiaoyu holds out to her. Xiaoyu on the bed on the RIGHT, still smiling, turns the screen towards Mama. Mama's face goes still and puzzled. Two faces in the middle band. The cream wall above them is the quiet area.

He wrote that? Xiaoyu, he can't write any more.他写的？小雨，你外公早就写不了字了。

Saturday morning, grey light in the tall sash window, the sea grey, rain. Mama sits at the round pale wooden table on the LEFT with her tea in both hands, looking down into it. Xiaoyu stands on the RIGHT in her sky-blue hoodie, holding her phone, looking at Mama. Two faces in the middle band. The grey sky in the window is the quiet area.

Not since the spring. The words won't come out through his hand. Auntie Zhang says he holds the pen and just looks at it.开春就不行了。心里有，手写不出来。张阿姨说，他拿着笔，就那么干看着。

Grey morning light from the window on one side of her face. Xiaoyu looks LEFT at Mama off panel, the phone held against her chest, her brows drawn. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her hoodie below is the quiet area.

Then who wrote this?那这是谁写的？

Grey morning light. Mama looks down and to the RIGHT, into her tea, not quite at Xiaoyu, a small closed smile. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her jumper and the mug below are the quiet area.

Ask Haoran. He did something to the phone.问浩然。他在手机上捣鼓了点东西。

Saturday morning, grey light from the tall window. Over Xiaoyu's LEFT shoulder: she sits on the bed on the LEFT with her dark grey laptop open on her knees, its screen facing HER and us behind her: a video call with two squares, her own small face in the corner and the big square plain BLACK, no face, no icon. She looks at the black square, a little sad. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The window and pale wall on the right are the quiet area.

Haoran had kept his camera off since the spring. He said his room was a mess.从春天起，浩然跟我视频就一直关着摄像头，说他屋里太乱。

Did you teach Grandpa's phone to write?是你教外公手机写字的？

Sort of. He says a few words. It writes the rest, the way he talks.算是吧。他说几个词，剩下的它照他的口气写。

Then which words were his?那哪些话才是他自己的？

Bridge City, Saturday afternoon, half past two, mild golden October sun, the lake willows turning yellow, a few yellow leaves on the stone table and the chessboard. Grandpa Chen sits at the square stone table on the LEFT in his grey cardigan, holding his phone in its dark green flip cover close in front of his mouth in both hands, its screen towards HIM, speaking slowly into it, his eyes on the lake. Haoran, sixteen, in his navy tracksuit, crouches beside the table on the RIGHT, forearms on his knees, listening, his one white earbud in his LEFT ear (on the viewer's right as he faces us). Two faces in the middle band. The calm lake and yellow willows above are the quiet area.

At the lake it was half past two in the afternoon.湖边那时是下午两点半。

‹Lake... willows... yellow.›湖……柳树……黄了。

Golden afternoon light. Over Grandpa's RIGHT shoulder, his big old hands hold the phone in its dark green cover, screen towards him and us: a plain pale message box filling up with a few lines of grey, and a small round microphone button at the bottom. NO letters painted.

The willows by the lake have gone yellow.湖边的柳树黄了。

Golden afternoon, the yellow willows soft behind him. Haoran crouches and looks up and LEFT at Grandpa off panel, kind and coaxing, a gentle grin; his earbud in his LEFT ear, on the viewer's right. His face in the middle of the panel. His tracksuit below is the quiet area.

‹And Grandma Chen? The chess?›陈奶奶呢？下棋那回？

Edinburgh, Saturday morning, grey light from the tall window behind her. Xiaoyu sits on the bed with the laptop on her knees, its back towards us, listening hard, her chin on her fist. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the lower middle of the panel. The grey window and the pale wall above are the quiet area for the box.

It learned from his calls and your recordings. He says three words, it guesses the rest.它学了他的电话录音，还有你的录音。他说三个词，剩下的它来猜。

THE NEXT WORD. A language model learns from a mountain of writing to do one job, guess the next word. It adds that word, then guesses again.下一个字。语言模型从海量文字里学，只学一件事，就是猜下一个字。猜出一个，接上，再猜下一个。

Bridge City, evening, the high window deep blue, the bulb on the landing ceiling ON with a small warm glow. Grandpa stands inside his open dark green security gate on the LEFT in his grey cardigan, handing his phone in its dark green flip cover across to Haoran, who takes it in one hand on the RIGHT, by his own family's door. Grandpa smiles, easy, waving it off. Haoran's earbud in his LEFT ear. Two faces in the middle band. The high window and pale wall above are the quiet area.

He told me he took Grandpa's phone home every night to charge it. Grandpa always forgot.他说外公老忘充电，所以每天晚上，他把外公的手机拿回家充。

Night in Edinburgh, ten o'clock, the tall window black with a few far harbour lights, the reading lamp on the shelf on with a small warm glow. Xiaoyu lies on her front on the bed under the tartan blanket's edge, the laptop open in front of her, its back half to us, the glow of its black call square on her face; she is laughing at something, one hand over her mouth. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The black window and dark ceiling above are the quiet area.

Every night at ten we talked. At the lake it was five in the morning, and he got up to study.每晚十点，我们都会聊一会儿。湖边那时是早上五点，他起来念书。

Night, lamplight at the edge. The laptop screen: the big call square plain BLACK, no face, no icon, and Xiaoyu's own small face in the corner, laughing. NO letters painted.

Basically, the whole test is...基本上，这卷子考的全是……

Night, warm lamplight on her face. Xiaoyu lies with her chin on her stacked hands, looking LEFT at the laptop off panel, grinning, finishing his sentence. Her face in the middle of the panel. The tartan blanket below is the quiet area.

...stuff we did in March. I know.……三月份学的。我知道啦。

Monday morning, half past seven, grey light, rain on the tall window, the kettle steaming on the LEFT worktop. Mama sits at the round table on the LEFT with her tea, eyebrows up, half amused. Xiaoyu on the RIGHT stands pulling on her school jumper over her white shirt and striped tie, a slice of toast in her mouth. Two faces in the middle band. The window and grey sky above are the quiet area.

I'm basically not hungry.我基本上不饿。

Since when do you say "basically"?你什么时候开始说“基本上”了？

Monday morning, grey light from the kitchen behind her. Xiaoyu in her school uniform, her dark blue backpack on one shoulder, turns away at the door, her cheeks pink, a small private smile she hides by looking down. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in three-quarter in the middle of the panel. The dim hall wall above is the quiet area.

Since Haoran.跟浩然学的。

I didn't have a name for it yet.那时候，我还说不上来这是什么。

A weekday morning in October, half past seven, grey light, the sea grey and the white ferry at its berth. Mama sits at the round table on the LEFT holding her phone close, reading, her other hand still on her tea, a soft smile. Papa in his navy jumper stands at the worktop on the RIGHT buttering toast, glancing at her, fond. Two faces in the middle band. The window and grey sky above are the quiet area.

Now a message came every morning. Mama read each one twice.后来每天早上都来一条。妈妈每条都看两遍。

Grey morning light. Mama's hand holds her phone, her thin silver watch at the edge. On the screen one pale-grey message bubble on the left. NO letters painted.

Huihui, the osmanthus is out downstairs. You loved it when you were small.慧慧，楼下的桂花开了。你小时候最喜欢。

Grey morning light on one side of her face. Mama looks down at the phone, her eyes wet, smiling with her lips pressed together. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her jumper below is the quiet area.

He remembered the osmanthus.他还记得桂花呢。

The same grey morning. Xiaoyu in her school uniform sits at the RIGHT of the round table with her own pale-blue phone, its screen to HER, her brows a little drawn. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the lower middle of the panel. The grey window and the pale wall above are the quiet area for the box.

LOADED DICE. A model gives every possible next word a chance, then rolls loaded dice. The likely word usually wins, not always. So one question can get different answers.灌铅的骰子。模型给每个候选的下一个字都算出概率，再掷一把灌了铅的骰子。概率大的字多半胜出，但不总是。所以同一个问题，答案可能每次不同。

Mine was about the osmanthus too. Different words, same flowers.我那条也说桂花。话不一样，花是同一树。

Thursday afternoon, four o'clock, already dusky, rain on the tall window, the reading lamp on. Xiaoyu, home from school, still in her white shirt and striped tie, her school jumper thrown on the chair, sits against the wall on the bed on the LEFT with her knees up, typing on her phone with both thumbs, its screen to HER, biting her lip. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The rainy window above is the quiet area.

I told Grandpa things I told nobody else. He'd never tell. He'd forget by morning.那些不跟任何人讲的话，我都跟外公讲。他不会说出去，到第二天也就忘了。

Dusky lamplight. Xiaoyu's two thumbs on the pale-blue phone; on the screen one sky-blue bubble on the right, just sent. NO letters painted.

Grandpa, there's a boy I talk to every night. Don't tell Mama.外公，有个男生，我每天晚上都跟他聊天。别跟妈妈说哦。

Lamplight, a little darker. The same screen: her sky-blue bubble on the right, and under it a new pale-grey bubble on the left. NO letters painted.

Is he kind to you? Then good. Your grandma made me wait a whole year.他对你好不好？好就行。你外婆当年让我等了整整一年。

Dusk, the window dark blue, lamplight. Xiaoyu lies back on the bed, the phone face down on her chest under both hands, smiling up at the ceiling, happy and embarrassed. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the lower middle of the panel. The dark ceiling and window above are the quiet area for the box.

WHAT YOU TELL IT. Words typed into an AI helper may be kept, read by the people who run it, or used to train it. Don't tell it secrets.你跟它说的话。你发给聊天助手的内容，可能会存下来，运营它的人能看到，还可能拿去训练模型。秘密别告诉它。

Bridge City, late at night, the small window on the LEFT black with a few far lit windows, the desk lamp OFF. On the honey wooden desk Grandpa's phone in its dark green flip cover lies open, plugged in to charge, its screen glowing pale; a boy's hand in a navy tracksuit sleeve with two white stripes rests beside it, one thumb on the screen; the white earbud wire trails across the desk. NO face, only the hand and sleeve. The stacks of blank exam books are dark shapes behind. The black window is the quiet area. NO letters painted on the screen.

At the lake it was twenty past eleven at night.湖边那时是夜里十一点二十。

Sunday morning, nine o'clock, flat grey light, rain on the window. Mama and Xiaoyu sit side by side at the round table, Mama on the LEFT and Xiaoyu on the RIGHT, both leaning towards the tablet standing in its grey cover, its screen to them, its back half to us. Xiaoyu has her phone face down by her hand. Two faces in the middle band. The grey window above is the quiet area.

On Sunday we video called. It was a bad day.星期天我们跟外公视频。那天他状态不好。

On the tablet screen, Bridge City at four in the afternoon, warm low light: Grandpa's face and shoulders a little from below, as Auntie Zhang's phone sees him, his cream wall and glass cabinet behind. He squints at the screen, kind and lost, then brightens at the wrong name. His face in the middle of the screen. His cardigan below is the quiet area.

‹Huihui? ...Look how tall you've got.›慧慧？……都长这么高了。

Edinburgh, grey Sunday light. Xiaoyu leans in towards the tablet off panel on the LEFT, trying to smile, hopeful. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her hoodie below is the quiet area.

‹It's Xiaoyu, Grandpa. Did you like my message?›外公，是我，小雨。我发的消息你喜欢吗？

On the tablet screen, Bridge City afternoon light. Grandpa holds his two big old hands up in front of him and looks at them, turning them over, puzzled and a little ashamed. His face in the middle of the screen above his hands. The cream wall behind him is the quiet area.

‹Message? These hands can't write any more.›消息？我这手，写不了字喽。

Grey Sunday morning, the tablet now dark and folded flat on the table. Mama on the LEFT rubs her eyes with one hand, tired. Xiaoyu on the RIGHT sits very straight, staring at the dark tablet, her jaw set. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Two faces in the middle band. The grey window above is the quiet area.

He has good days and bad days.他就是时好时坏的。

Which words were his? Now I had to know.到底哪些话是他自己的？这回我一定要弄明白。

Thursday after school, half past three, grey light from the rain-streaked windows on the LEFT, the room lights on. On the whiteboard one line of big hand-printed letters with a gap at the end, the letters left BLANK for lettering; NO letters painted, only the faint line under where they go and an empty box at the end. Ms Rennie in her green cardigan stands at the RIGHT, marker up, looking LEFT at the class, delighted. Her face in the middle band. The wall above the board is the quiet area.

Shannon's game. I write one letter at a time. You guess the next.这叫香农游戏。我一次写一个字，你们来猜下一个。

Thursday afternoon, flat light on the whiteboard. A row of hand-printed letter spaces and one empty box at the end, each space EMPTY; the words are lettered in afterwards. NO letters painted.

I'M GOING TO PUT THE KETTLE O_我去烧一壶开_

Thursday afternoon, the rainy window behind her on the left. Xiaoyu sits at her window desk and calls out the answer, looking RIGHT at the board off panel, quick and sure. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her jumper below is the quiet area.

N!水！

SHANNON'S GAME. In 1951 Claude Shannon had people guess English text one letter at a time. Given the text so far, they were often right first time.香农游戏。1951年，克劳德·香农让人逐个字母猜一段英文。只要看到前文，人们常常第一次就能猜中。

Thursday afternoon, grey light. Ms Rennie perches on the edge of her desk on the RIGHT, her white mug in one hand, pointing her marker LEFT at the class. Her face in the lower middle of the panel. The plain whiteboard above is the quiet area for the box.

Easy, because you've heard it a thousand times. A language model plays this game with a whole library.好猜吧？因为这句话你们听过上千遍了。语言模型也玩这个游戏，不过它读了一整座图书馆的书。

Thursday afternoon, the windows going grey-blue, the harbour cranes faint in the rain. Xiaoyu sits at her window desk on the LEFT of the panel and looks down at her phone on her knee under the desk, its screen to HER, thinking hard, not smiling now. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The rainy window and grey sky above are the quiet area.

Grandpa's phone played it with Grandpa's words.外公的手机也在玩这个游戏，用外公的话玩。

Saturday afternoon, grey light from the tall window, the reading lamp on. Xiaoyu sits cross-legged on the floor with her back against the bed, the laptop open on her knees, its back half to us; on the cream wall to the RIGHT of the window her paper word map from long ago is pinned with four red pins (its words left blank). She leans in, counting, a pencil behind her ear. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The window and the pale wall above are the quiet area.

So I counted. Every pair of words in his old calls, and every pair in the new messages.于是我去数。他以前的电话里、新来的消息里，凡是前后连着的两个词，我都数了一遍。

Grey afternoon light. The laptop screen shows two plain columns side by side, each a list of short grey rows with a small number at the end, and one row in each column highlighted pale yellow. NO letters or numbers painted.

In a year of calls, "wear more" 9 times. In a month of messages, 11 times.一年的通话里，“多穿点”出现9次。一个月的消息里，出现11次。

Grey afternoon light. Xiaoyu looks down at the laptop off panel, half laughing, half unsettled. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her hoodie below is the quiet area.

The messages were more him than he was.消息比他本人还像他。

One word wasn't his. "Basically." That's mine now. It must have picked it up from my calls with him.只有一个词不是他的，“基本上”。这是我的口头禅，准是它从我跟外公的电话里学去的。

basically基本上

Late Saturday afternoon, the light nearly gone, the lamp the only warm light. Xiaoyu lies on her back on the floor by the bed, arms out, staring up, the laptop closed beside her. Her face in the lower middle of the panel. The bare floorboards and the dim wall above her head are the quiet area for the box.

COUNTING. Early models counted which word followed which, so a pair never seen got no chance. In 2003 Bengio's team gave each word a spot on a map, so words with similar meanings could share what they'd learned.数数。早期的模型只统计哪个词后面跟着哪个词，没出现过的搭配，概率就是零。2003年，本吉奥团队给每个词在一张“地图”上找了个位置，意思相近的词挨得近，学到的东西也能互相借用。

Counting could tell me it sounded like him. Not whether it was him.数得出像不像他，数不出是不是他。

Tuesday, ten past four, the classroom empty after school, the lights off, grey-blue dusk and rain at the tall windows on the LEFT, the harbour cranes dark shapes. Xiaoyu sits alone at her window desk, her backpack on the desk, typing on her phone with both thumbs, its screen to HER. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The dim empty rows of desks on the right are the quiet area.

Then I asked something only he would know.于是我问了一件只有他知道的事。

Grey-blue dusk light. Her two thumbs on the pale-blue phone; on the screen one sky-blue bubble on the right, just sent. NO letters painted.

Grandpa, how did you and Grandma meet?外公，你跟外婆是怎么认识的？

Dusk at the rainy window. Xiaoyu rests her chin on her LEFT fist, her black watch close to her face, and looks LEFT out at the rain, waiting, sure of the answer. Her face in the middle of the panel. The dark window glass behind her is the quiet area.

He'll say it was the stone table at sunrise, and Grandma won in eleven moves.他会说，天刚亮，在湖边石桌那儿，外婆十一步就赢了他。

Dusk light. Xiaoyu's hand holds the pale-blue phone, her black watch on her LEFT wrist at the edge. Under her sky-blue bubble, a long pale-grey bubble on the left fills most of the screen. NO letters painted.

It was raining the day I met your grandma. She had no umbrella, so I held mine over her on the stone bridge and walked her all the way to the station.认识你外婆那天下着雨。她没带伞，我在石桥上给她打着伞，一路把她送到了火车站。

Tuesday evening, the window black, the low lamp over the round table on. Xiaoyu on the LEFT, still in her school shirt, holds her phone out across the table to Mama, screen towards Mama, urgent. Mama on the RIGHT, peeling a clementine, looks at it. Two faces in the middle band. The black window above is the quiet area.

It's wrong. They met at the chess table. He told me himself.不对。他们是下棋认识的，外公亲口跟我说的。

Lamplight on her face. Mama looks LEFT at Xiaoyu off panel, gentle and sad, a piece of clementine in her fingers. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her jumper below is the quiet area.

Last spring he told me they met at the station.去年春天，他跟我说是在火车站认识的。

Lamplight. Xiaoyu lowers the phone and looks down at the table, deflated. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her shirt and tie below are the quiet area.

He mixes stories up too. So the wrong answer proves nothing.外公自己也会记混。所以答错了，也说明不了什么。

Evening lamplight, the black window behind. Mama sits at the RIGHT of the table, smiling a little to herself, holding the half-peeled clementine. Her face in the lower middle of the panel. The black window and dark wall above are the quiet area for the box.

LIKELY, NOT TRUE. A language model learns which words tend to follow, not what really happened. It can write something smooth, sure and wrong. Researchers call that a hallucination.像，不等于真。语言模型学到的是哪些词常常接在后面，而不是事情到底怎样。它写出来的话可以通顺、肯定，却是错的。研究者把这叫作“幻觉”。

A bridge in the rain, though. It's a lovely story.雨中石桥，故事倒挺美。

Saturday morning, nine o'clock, grey light, the sea flat and grey. Mama sits at the round table on the LEFT with her phone on the table between them on speaker, screen up; Xiaoyu sits on the RIGHT, arms folded tight on the table, leaning in. Two faces in the middle band. The window above is the quiet area.

So I asked Mama to ask Auntie Zhang.我只好求妈妈去问张阿姨。

‹Zhang, those messages Dad sends. Does he write them himself?›张姐，我爸发来的那些消息，是他自己写的吗？

Bridge City, Saturday at four in the afternoon, warm light through the small kitchen window. Auntie Zhang in her plum-red blouse holds her phone in its black case to her ear and looks RIGHT, out of the kitchen door, matter-of-fact. Her face in the middle of the panel. The white wall tiles behind are the quiet area.

‹Every afternoon he says a few words into it. Then it writes and writes.›他每天下午对着手机说几句，然后那玩意儿就自己写啊写的。

Bridge City, four in the afternoon, gold light from the balcony doors. Through the kitchen doorway, Grandpa sits in his armchair in his grey cardigan, holding his phone in its dark green cover in his lap, looking down at it and smiling, pleased. His face in the middle of the panel. The cream wall above is the quiet area.

‹He's happy after. He says, "Xiaoyu wrote back."›发完他可高兴了，说“小雨回我了”。

Grey Saturday morning, the call ended, the phone dark on the table. Mama on the LEFT sits back, her hand still on the phone. Xiaoyu on the RIGHT looks at her, frustrated. Two faces in the middle band. The window above is the quiet area.

So we still don't know which words are his.那还是不知道哪些话是他自己说的。

Grey morning light on one side of her face. Mama looks RIGHT at Xiaoyu off panel, steady, a little stubborn. Her face in the middle of the panel. The grey window behind her is the quiet area.

Some of them are. Isn't that enough?有一些是啊。这还不够吗？

Saturday morning, grey light, rain on the tall window. Mama stands at the window holding her phone low against her chest with both hands, looking out at the grey sea, her face in three-quarter turned towards us. Her face in the middle band. The grey sky and the sea above the roofs are the quiet area.

Your grandpa never wrote me a letter. Not once. Now I get one every morning.你外公这辈子一封信都没给我写过。一封都没有。现在每天早上都能收到一封。

Grey morning. Xiaoyu looks RIGHT at Mama off panel, her voice small. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her hoodie below is the quiet area.

But they might not be his.可那不一定是他写的。

Grey window light behind her. Mama turns her head and looks LEFT at Xiaoyu off panel, her eyes wet, pleading. Her face in the middle of the panel. The window glass behind is the quiet area.

Let me have this, Xiaoyu.小雨，就让我留着这个吧。

Grey morning. Xiaoyu stands in the hall doorway at the LEFT, half turned away, her hand on the frame. Far across the kitchen on the RIGHT, small at the window, Mama reads her phone again. Two faces in the middle band, Xiaoyu's in three-quarter. The high ceiling above is the quiet area.

Mama wanted the letters. I wanted the truth. I couldn't see a way to get it.妈妈想要信，我想要真相。可我不知道怎么才能弄清楚。

Saturday evening in November, the window black, rain, the low lamp over the round table on. Papa in his navy cable-knit jumper sits at the table on the LEFT shuffling an old worn deck with red backs, grinning. Xiaoyu in her sky-blue hoodie drops into the chair on the RIGHT. Two faces in the middle band. The black window above is the quiet area.

On Saturday Papa got out the cards he'd brought home from Bridge City.星期六晚上，爸爸翻出从桥城带回来的那副牌。

Game? Your grandad's rules.来一局？按你外公的玩法。

Evening lamplight. Xiaoyu picks up her hand of five cards in a small fan, the red backs to us, and looks LEFT at Papa off panel. Her face in the middle of the panel, above the fan. Her hoodie below is the quiet area.

What are his rules, anyway?那他到底怎么玩？

Evening lamplight. Papa laughs, his five-card fan held loosely, looking RIGHT at Xiaoyu off panel. His face in the middle of the panel. His jumper below is the quiet area.

No idea. He never explained one. I lost for three weeks.天知道。他一条规则都没讲过，我输了整整三个星期。

Evening lamplight on her face, the dark kitchen behind. Xiaoyu holds her cards still and stares past them, her eyes going wide as something comes back to her. Her face in the middle band. The dark wall above is the quiet area.

In Grandpa's village nobody explained. You lost till you learned. And the day after he taught me, he'd forgotten the rules himself.在外公的村子里，没人讲规则，输着输着就会了。而且他教会我的第二天，自己就把规则忘了。

Evening lamplight. Xiaoyu has put her cards face down on the table and half stands, reaching for her pale-blue phone on the worktop behind her; Papa's big hand with its gold wedding ring at the LEFT edge holds his cards, waiting. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The black window above is the quiet area.

He couldn't tell me the rules. Not even if he wanted to.他讲不出规则。就算想讲，也讲不出来。

Tuesday, twenty to five, already dark, the tall window black with a few far harbour lights, the reading lamp on. Xiaoyu, home from school in her white shirt and striped tie, sits on the edge of the bed on the LEFT with her phone in both hands, its screen to HER, typing slowly, serious. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The black window above is the quiet area.

On Tuesday after school I asked him.星期二放学回家，我问了他。

Lamplight. Her two thumbs on the pale-blue phone; on the screen one sky-blue bubble on the right, just sent. NO letters painted.

Grandpa, how do you play the card game from your village?外公，你们村里那个牌，怎么玩来着？

Lamplight on one side of her face, the black window behind. Xiaoyu looks down at the phone off panel, holding her breath, very still. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her shirt and tie below are the quiet area.

If it's him, he'll say, "Come and lose."要真是外公，他会说“来，输几回就会了”。

Lamplight. Xiaoyu's hand holds the pale-blue phone, her black watch on her LEFT wrist at the edge. Under her sky-blue bubble, a long pale-grey bubble on the left, laid out as four short neat rows. NO letters or numbers painted.

Easy! 1. Four players, five cards each. 2. Follow the suit that's led. 3. The highest card takes the trick. 4. Three rounds. Most tricks wins.很简单！1. 四人，每人五张牌。2. 首家出什么花色，就跟什么花色。3. 最大的牌赢这一墩。4. 共打三局，墩数多者胜。

Lamplight, the black window behind her. Xiaoyu has lowered the phone to her lap and looks straight ahead past us, her face very still, the colour gone from it. Her face in the middle of the panel. The dark window above is the quiet area.

A perfect list of rules. Grandpa never explained a rule in his life.一条条，清清楚楚。外公这辈子没讲过一条规则。

Tuesday evening, five o'clock, the window black, the lamp on. Over Xiaoyu's RIGHT shoulder: she sits cross-legged on the bed with the laptop on her knees, its screen facing HER and us behind her: three short rows of numbers, each with an arrow (NO numbers painted), her finger on the trackpad. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band at the right. The black window above is the quiet area.

I added the hours between here and there. Then I added them again.我把两边的时差加上去，又算了一遍。

here → there 16.20 → 23.20 16.25 → 23.25 16.49 → 00.49这边 → 那边 16.20 → 23.20 16.25 → 23.25 16.49 → 00.49

Lamplight. Xiaoyu looks LEFT at the laptop off panel, her lips parted, understanding. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her shirt below is the quiet area.

At night his phone was at Haoran's.晚上，外公的手机在浩然那儿。

Lamplight. Her thumb scrolls the pale-blue phone back up the chat to an older sky-blue bubble on the right with a grey bubble under it. NO letters painted.

Grandpa, there's a boy I talk to every night. Don't tell Mama.外公，有个男生，我每天晚上都跟他聊天。别跟妈妈说哦。

Lamplight, the black window behind her. Xiaoyu sits with both hands pressed over her mouth and nose, her eyes wide and wet, her face burning red above her hands, the phone fallen on the blanket. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her eyes in the middle of the panel. The dark window above is the quiet area.

Grandpa never read it. Haoran did.那条消息，外公根本没看到。看的是浩然。

Evening, the lamp on, the black window. Xiaoyu sits curled on the bed with her knees up and her arms round them, her chin on her knees, staring at nothing. Her face in the middle band. The black window and dark ceiling above are the quiet area.

"Basically." Not Grandpa's word. Haoran's. I had picked it up from him.“基本上”不是外公的口头禅，是浩然的。我也是跟他学的。

Tuesday night, ten o'clock, Bonfire Night: in the tall black window, far off over the sea, two small fireworks open silently, one gold and one green, tiny and quiet. The reading lamp is off; only the laptop's glow. Xiaoyu in her sky-blue hoodie sits on the bed facing the laptop on her knees, its back half to us, very upright. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The black window and night sky above are the quiet area.

At ten, like every night, he called.十点，他照常打来了。

Hey. So, basically, I've got a practice exam on Friday...嘿。跟你说，基本上吧，我星期五有个模拟考……

Night, only the cold laptop glow on her face. Xiaoyu looks LEFT at the screen off panel, steady and quiet. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her hoodie below is the quiet area.

Were the messages you?那些消息，是你写的吗？

Night. The laptop screen: the big call square plain BLACK, no face, no icon, and in the corner her own small face, still. The black square fills the panel. NO letters painted.

...Some of them.……有些是。

Night, the laptop glow. From just behind the laptop's lid, Xiaoyu beyond it, listening, her face unmoving, her eyes fixed on the screen. Her face in the middle band. The black window behind her is the quiet area.

He does say a few words every afternoon. I only finished his sentences. And if I hadn't answered at night, you'd have waited a whole day.他每天下午是真说几句的。我就是帮他把话接完。晚上我要是不回，你就得干等一整天。

Night, the laptop glow, one far green firework fading in the black window behind her. Xiaoyu's eyes fill; her mouth is pressed shut. Her face in the middle of the panel. Her hoodie below is the quiet area.

You were so happy, Xiaoyu.小雨，你那时候多高兴啊。

Night, only the laptop glow. Xiaoyu leans towards the laptop, its back half to us, tears on her cheeks, her voice low and shaking. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The black window above is the quiet area.

I told him things. I told him about you.我跟他说的都是心里话。我还跟他说了你。

Night. The black call square fills the panel, silent. In its corner her own small face, crying. NO letters painted.

I know.我知道。

Night, the laptop glow. Xiaoyu's LEFT hand, her black watch on its wrist, presses one finger down on the trackpad, hard. Only the hand and the edge of the keyboard; the dark blanket around is quiet.

CLICK咔哒

I hung up on him. Over the sea, the fireworks went on without us.我挂了他的电话。海那边的烟花照样一朵朵开着。

Midnight, the window black and still, the reading lamp on low. Xiaoyu sits on the bed wrapped in the tartan blanket, her eyes red, holding her phone in both hands, its screen to HER, typing one message. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The black window above is the quiet area.

He sent eleven messages. I didn't open them. I sent one.他发来十一条消息，我一条都没点开，只回了他一条。

Lamplight. Her two thumbs on the pale-blue phone; on the screen, above, a stack of unopened grey message rows, and at the bottom one sky-blue bubble on the right, just sent. NO letters painted.

Turn the helper off. I want his words. Even if there are only three.把那个助手关掉吧。我要外公自己说的话，哪怕只有三个字。

Bridge City, Wednesday, four in the afternoon, a cooler day, low gold sun, a few yellow willow leaves falling. Grandpa sits alone at the stone table in his grey cardigan, holding his phone in its dark green cover up near his mouth in both hands, its screen towards HIM, speaking slowly and carefully, his eyes half closed. His face in the middle of the panel. The yellow willows behind him are the quiet area.

‹Xiaoyu... lake... cold now. Wear more.›小雨……湖……冷了。多穿。

Wednesday morning, eight o'clock, the first grey light in the tall window. Xiaoyu in her school uniform sits at the round table on the LEFT holding her phone to her ear with her eyes closed, tears and a small smile at once. Mama in her oatmeal jumper leans in close on the RIGHT, her cheek near the phone, listening too, her hand over her mouth. Two faces in the middle band. The window and pale sky above are the quiet area.

In the morning a voice message came. Slow, and short. Every word of it his.第二天早上，来了一条语音。说得很慢，很短。每个字都是他自己的。

Wednesday morning, grey light growing over the sea in the window behind her. Xiaoyu holds her phone up near her mouth in both hands, its screen towards HER, speaking a voice message back, smiling through wet eyes. Her black watch on her LEFT wrist. Her face in the middle band. The pale sky in the window above is the quiet area.

‹I will, Grandpa. I'll wear more.›好，外公。我会多穿点的。

Next: Chapter 9. Attention.下一章：第九章注意力

The ideas, a little slower

Some of this chapter was left to the pictures, so the hang-up and the voice message could stay quiet. Here it is in words.

On page 3 Haoran says the helper guesses the rest. Every chat assistant today is built on a language model, and a language model does one thing. Given some words, it guesses which word comes next. Then it adds that word to the end and guesses again. A long, perfect message is that guess made hundreds of times in a row. It works in small pieces of words, which researchers call tokens, as Xiaoyu's word map did in Chapter 6. Haoran gave a big model Grandpa's own words as examples, so its guesses came out sounding like him.

On page 5 Mama and Xiaoyu get two different messages about the same osmanthus. A model doesn't pick one word. It gives every possible next word a score and turns the scores into chances. Suppose after "the" the scores are cat 2, dog 1 and moon 0. That gives cat about a 67 per cent chance, dog 24 and moon 9. Then it rolls loaded dice. A setting called temperature changes how loaded they are. Turned down, cat gets 87 per cent and the writing is safe and dull. Turned up, the chances even out and the writing gets surprising, and sometimes silly. That is why the same question can get a different answer every time.

On page 8 Ms Rennie plays a game Claude Shannon invented. People are surprisingly good at guessing the next letter, because language is full of patterns. A machine that has read a whole library can learn a great many of them.

On page 9 Xiaoyu counts pairs of words, which is how the first language models worked. Train one on "the cat sat. the cat ran. the dog sat." and it knows "the dog" is followed by "sat". It will never say "the dog ran", because it never saw it. In 2003 Yoshua Bengio and his colleagues gave every word a place on a map, a list of numbers, so that "cat" and "dog" sit close. Then what the model learns about one can help with the other. Counting also shows why her test failed. A model trained on Grandpa's words is meant to sound like Grandpa. Sounding like him was the whole job, so it could never prove it was him.

On page 11 the helper tells a lovely story about a bridge in the rain. It wasn't lying. A language model doesn't look anything up and doesn't keep a list of facts. It writes what usually comes next, and a girl, a rainy day and an umbrella usually come next in stories about how two people met. The result can be smooth, sure and wrong.

On page 15 Xiaoyu asks a question whose true answer is not in any pile of writing. Most people asked "how do you play" answer with the rules, so the model did too, and did it well. But Grandpa never explained a rule in his life, and by the day after he taught her, he had forgotten them. The best guess about people in general was the wrong guess about him.

What is true here

The guessing game

In 1948 Claude Shannon wrote the paper that started information theory, and he used guesses about the next letter to show how much pattern there is in English. In 1951 he asked people to guess a text letter by letter. With a long stretch of text to go on, they often got the next letter first time. He worked out that English carries only about one bit of information per letter, against nearly five if every letter were equally likely.

From counting to networks

Counting models were used for decades in speech recognition and spelling checkers. After Bengio's map of words came networks that read a sentence one word at a time and carry a kind of memory along, such as the LSTM, designed by Sepp Hochreiter and Jürgen Schmidhuber in 1997. Today's models use a design called the transformer, which the next chapter comes to. In 2019 GPT-2 showed that a model trained only to guess the next word could also write stories and answer questions. In 2020 GPT-3, with 175 billion numbers to tune, could do new tasks from a few examples in the question.

Why the dice matter

Always choosing the single likeliest word sounds safest, but it makes writing dull and makes it go round in circles, saying the same thing again and again. In 2020 Ari Holtzman and his colleagues showed this and suggested a fix. Roll the dice only among the likeliest words, which together make up most of the chance, and leave out the long tail of strange ones.

Smooth, sure and wrong

In 2023 two lawyers in New York handed a court a document that cited six earlier cases. A chat assistant had made all six up, names, quotes and all. The judge fined them five thousand dollars. Researchers have argued that part of the reason models do this is the way they are tested. A test that scores right answers and gives nothing for "I don't know" rewards a confident guess. The habit that helps is the one Xiaoyu used. Check a sure answer against something you know.

Does it understand

People who build these models disagree. Some think that to guess the next word well enough, a model has to learn a great deal about the world. Others think it learns the patterns of language without knowing what the words are about. Both sides agree it is more than a phone's word suggestions, and that it can be very wrong while sounding very sure.

What you tell it

A model doesn't change while you talk to it, and it doesn't remember you by itself. Features that remember earlier chats are separate software built around it. What you type may be stored, read by the people who run the service, or used to train later versions. Xiaoyu's secret was read by exactly the person she least wanted to read it. Before you tell a machine something private, ask who else can read it.

SourcesShannon (1948), A mathematical theory of communication.Shannon (1951), Prediction and entropy of printed English.Jurafsky and Martin (2026), Speech and Language Processing, 3rd edition draft.Bengio, Ducharme, Vincent and Jauvin (2003), A neural probabilistic language model.Hochreiter and Schmidhuber (1997), Long short-term memory.Radford, Wu, Child, Luan, Amodei and Sutskever (2019), Language models are unsupervised multitask learners.Brown and colleagues (2020), Language models are few-shot learners.Holtzman, Buys, Du, Forbes and Choi (2020), The curious case of neural text degeneration.Ji and colleagues (2023), Survey of hallucination in natural language generation.Kalai, Nachum, Vempala and Zhang (2025), Why language models hallucinate.Mata v. Avianca, Inc. (2023), United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.Goodfellow, Bengio and Courville (2016), Deep Learning.

What is pretend

Bridge City, Xiaoyu, Grandpa Chen, Mama, Papa, Haoran, Auntie Zhang, Ms Rennie and her coding club. Haoran's helper, every message, the osmanthus, the counts and the umbrella story are made up, and so is the card game. The story is set a few years from now. Real tools can already finish a sentence in someone's style if they are given enough of that person's writing, which is one reason to be careful whose words you share. Grandpa's memory is drawn from no one in particular, and the story makes no medical claim. People whose memory slips sometimes lose writing before they lose speech.

Who made this

Yingying Fu created this manga. She chose the story and its people, directed every page, and edited every word and picture. The words were drafted with Claude, an AI by Anthropic. The pictures are made with AI image generation, painted panel by panel from her direction and checked and corrected by hand.

慢慢再讲一遍

这一章有些地方交给了画面，好让挂电话那一刻和最后那条语音安安静静的。这里用文字补上。

第三页，浩然说剩下的让它来猜。现在的聊天助手，背后都是语言模型，而语言模型只做一件事。给它一段话，它猜下一个字。猜出来就接在后面，再猜下一个。一条长长的、挑不出毛病的消息，就是这样猜了几百次接出来的。它处理的是一个个小片段，可能是字，也可能是词的一部分，研究者叫它“词元”，就像第六章小雨的词地图那样。浩然把外公自己说过的话当例子交给一个大模型，所以它猜出来的话，听着就像外公。

第五页，妈妈和小雨都收到了说桂花的消息，可两条写得不一样。模型并不是直接挑出一个字。它先给每个可能的下一个字打分，再把分数换算成概率。比如在“我看到了”后面，猫得2分，狗得1分，月亮得0分。换算下来，猫的概率大约是67%，狗24%，月亮9%。然后掷一把灌了铅的骰子。有个参数叫“温度”，决定铅灌得有多重。温度调低，猫的概率升到87%，写出来稳妥，但平淡。温度调高，各个概率更接近，写出来更出人意料，有时也会很离谱。所以同一个问题，每次问都可能得到不同的回答。

第八页，伦尼老师玩的是香农发明的游戏。人猜下一个字母，准得出奇，因为语言里处处是规律。一台读过整座图书馆的机器，能学到非常多这样的规律。

第九页，小雨数的是前后相连的词，最早的语言模型就是这么做的。用“猫坐下。猫跑了。狗坐下。”训练它，它就知道“狗”后面是“坐下”，却永远不会说“狗跑了”，因为它从没见过。2003年，本吉奥和同事给每个词在地图上安了一个位置，其实就是一串数字，让“猫”和“狗”挨得很近。这样，模型从一个词身上学到的东西，也能用在另一个词上。数数也解释了小雨的检验为什么不管用。拿外公的话训练出来的模型，目的就是听着像外公。像他本来就是它的全部任务，所以再像，也证明不了就是他。

第十一页，助手讲了一个雨中石桥的好故事。它并没有撒谎。语言模型不会去查资料，也没有一份事实清单。它写的是通常会接在后面的话，而讲两个人怎么认识的故事，后面常常就是一个姑娘、一个雨天、一把伞。结果就是写得通顺，口气笃定，内容却是错的。

第十五页，小雨问的问题，真正的答案不在任何文字里。被问到“怎么玩”，大多数人会把规则一条条列出来，模型也照这样答，还答得很好。可外公这辈子从没讲过一条规则，而且教会她的第二天，他自己就忘了。对一般人最好的猜测，放到他身上，恰恰是错的。

哪些是真的

猜字游戏

1948年，香农发表了开创信息论的论文，文中就用猜下一个字母的办法，说明英文里有多少规律。1951年，他请人逐个字母地猜一段英文。前文给得够长，人们往往一次就能猜中下一个字母。他算出，英文每个字母只携带大约1比特的信息。如果每个字母出现的机会都一样，就接近5比特。

从数数到神经网络

数数的模型在语音识别和拼写检查里用了几十年。本吉奥的词地图之后，又有一类网络，一个词一个词地读句子，一路带着一点记忆，比如霍赫赖特和施密德胡伯在1997年设计的LSTM。如今的模型用的是一种叫Transformer（变换器）的结构，下一章会讲到。2019年，GPT-2表明，一个只练猜下一个字的模型，也能写故事、回答问题。2020年，GPT-3有1750亿个需要调整的参数，只要在问题里给几个例子，就能完成没专门学过的新任务。

骰子为什么要紧

每次都选最可能的那个字，听起来最稳妥，可写出来平淡乏味，还会兜圈子，同样的话翻来覆去地说。2020年，霍尔茨曼和同事指出了这个问题，也提出了解决办法。只在最可能的那几个字里掷骰子，这几个字的概率加起来占了大头，后面那一长串稀奇古怪的就不要了。

又顺又笃定，却是错的

2023年，纽约有两名律师向法院交了一份文件，引用了六个先前的判例。这六个案子，连案名带引文，全是一个聊天助手编的。法官罚了他们五千美元。有研究者认为，模型会这样，部分原因在于测试的方式。答对得分、说“我不知道”不得分，这样的测试等于在鼓励模型硬猜。真正管用的，是小雨用过的那个习惯。答案再笃定，也要拿自己确实知道的事核对一下。

它懂不懂

做这些模型的人自己也有分歧。一些人认为，要把下一个字猜得足够准，模型必须学到大量关于世界的知识。另一些人认为，它学到的只是语言的规律，并不知道这些话在说什么。双方都同意两点。它比手机输入法的联想强得多，而且它可能错得离谱，口气却十分肯定。

你跟它说的话

你跟模型聊天的时候，模型本身不会改变，它自己也不会记住你。能记住以前聊天内容的功能，是在模型外面另做的软件。你输入的内容，可能会存下来，运营这项服务的人可能看得到，以后的版本也可能拿它来训练。小雨的秘密，偏偏让她最不想让知道的那个人读到了。跟机器说私事之前，先问问还有谁能看到。

出处Shannon (1948), A mathematical theory of communication.Shannon (1951), Prediction and entropy of printed English.Jurafsky and Martin (2026), Speech and Language Processing, 3rd edition draft.Bengio, Ducharme, Vincent and Jauvin (2003), A neural probabilistic language model.Hochreiter and Schmidhuber (1997), Long short-term memory.Radford, Wu, Child, Luan, Amodei and Sutskever (2019), Language models are unsupervised multitask learners.Brown and colleagues (2020), Language models are few-shot learners.Holtzman, Buys, Du, Forbes and Choi (2020), The curious case of neural text degeneration.Ji and colleagues (2023), Survey of hallucination in natural language generation.Kalai, Nachum, Vempala and Zhang (2025), Why language models hallucinate.Mata v. Avianca, Inc. (2023), United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.Goodfellow, Bengio and Courville (2016), Deep Learning.

哪些是虚构的

桥城、小雨、陈外公、妈妈、爸爸、浩然、张阿姨、伦尼老师和她的编程社都是虚构的。浩然的助手、每一条消息、桂花、那些统计数字、雨伞的故事，还有那个牌戏，也都是编的。故事发生在几年后。现在的工具，只要拿到一个人足够多的文字，已经能模仿他的口气把话写下去，所以别随便把谁的话交给机器。外公的记忆衰退不以任何真人为原型，故事也不做任何医学上的论断。记性出问题的人，有时确实会先写不了字，后来才说不好话。

谁做了这本漫画

这本漫画由 Yingying Fu 创作。故事和人物由她决定，每一页由她导演，每一句话、每一幅画由她修改。文字是和 Anthropic 的人工智能 Claude 一起起草的。画面由人工智能生成，按她的要求一格一格地画，再逐张检查、修正。

When You Forget, I'll Remember你忘了，我记得