thinking and writing about media, tech, internet, art, ai, China and more. words at @techreview @restofworld @wired etc 1/32 @chaoyangtrap

Brooklyn
Joined May 2017
Took a small break from writing about Chinese tech to write about Chinese food w @xiong_yang_ , and had the honor to has the illustration from one of my favorite artists Yanki Kung! numbandspicy.substack.com/p/…
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Breaking my little hiatus and sharing this newsletter where I explore the global Chinese ~zeitgeist~, on what people got wrong about the Zhong Shu (Zhuge Yiyang) x Nolan interview, absurdist Chinese music, as well as some other irl fun things. alltimehai.substack.com/p/a-…
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someone needs to write a piece on Chinese diaspora intellectuals' obsession with hannah arendt
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anyone!! this sounds so fun
so does anyone in minneapolis want to come to my installation at the intersection of art and technology next weekend or🧐
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Had a great time at @tiatplace yesterday!!! With @imempowa and @being_on_line
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.@MTA if you cannot find a good Chinese translator hire me…
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The way @wynaliu played the Cranberries fans today… 🥺
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「晚点招聘丨招 AI 作者、驻硅谷科技作者」 晚点是谁? 一家还在努力通过一手采访,报道重要问题的公司。成立于 2019 年,生日是 4 月 1 号。过去 7 年,我们记录了中国最重要的公司、人物与商业事件,但我们知道,这仅仅是开始。 晚点想成为什么? 中国最好的商业媒体,也是关于这一轮技术革命最值得读的中文媒体之一。 不仅关注科技与 AI,也是充满善意的,关心人类与社会演进的媒体。我们想给用户提供怎样的内容?那种让读者在关掉无数窗口后,依然愿意停下来,想一想 “哦,事情原来是这样的” 的内容。 我们希望可以提供可靠的信息、知识与判断,帮助人们理解世界的复杂与变化;努力提出一些真问题,也让一些被忽视的声音被更多人听到。 以及,让当代中国和硅谷最好的科技人物访谈都发生在这儿。 晚点的价值主张是什么? 专业;相信文字依然能承载人类的好奇心和理性。 我们想招募怎样的同事? 这里没有公式化的报道,有新闻工作经验很好,但不是必需。我们希望招募对商业、科技、社会变迁有深刻理解的写作者;擅长讲述故事、擅长访谈,或是对数字和数据敏感,能拆解复杂的系统。 1. AI 报道作者 工作地点: 北京/上海/深圳 我们最看重的是: 你是不是真的对 AI 这件事有持续的好奇心,而不仅是把它当作一个热门赛道 Critical Thinking,可以分清事实和观点,能在 hype 与真实进展之间保持冷静 谦逊好学,能平等对待所有被访者——从研究员、创业者到一线工程师 加分项:理解大模型、Agent、芯片、Infra 中至少一个领域的技术脉络;有自己长期跟踪的人和公司。 2. 驻硅谷科技作者 工作地点: 旧金山湾区(常驻) 这是一个新的、也是我们认为越来越重要的位置。这一轮 AI 革命的核心节点很多在湾区——从 OpenAI、Anthropic、Google、Meta 到一批新生代 AI 公司,从 Sand Hill Road 到南湾的实验室。我们希望有一个人在那儿,真正进入那个圈子。 我们最看重的是: - 你足够了解 AI 和大模型圈子——知道谁在做什么、谁的判断值得听、谁在讲故事;不是把这一波只当成新闻热点来追,而是能看懂里面的人和事 - 英文能够进行深度访谈和写作,能在咖啡馆和研究员聊一小时还能挖出东西,也能读懂技术论文与财报 - 愿意长期在湾区工作和生活,已经在那边更好,但不强求 - Critical Thinking,对硅谷叙事保持距离感,不被 founder narrative 牵着走 - 能在中美两套语境之间自如切换,知道中文读者真正关心什么 我们不要求你已经做过作者,也不要求你有发表过的报道作品。我们更看重你对这个圈子的理解和判断力——你可以来自 VC、产品、工程、研究、产业分析等任何背景,只要你有足够的好奇心和讲述能力。 我们能提供的: - 一个相对独立的工作位置,不用做日更快讯,目标是月度的深度报道和重磅访谈 - 国内编辑部的协作支持,包括选题讨论、资料调研、产业链中国侧的信息补全 匹配湾区生活的薪资水平 关于工作方式: - 我们不太会说 “挺好的,就这样吧”。但我们也不会逼你一周写五篇稿子。相反,我们的要求是一个月一篇长报道——你有足够的时间去调查、去思考、去修改。编辑部的出发点是帮助每一个人把报道写得尽可能好。 我们可以提供什么: - 行业最有竞争力的薪资 - 绝佳的访谈资源,帮你一起约到这个时代最优秀、最有潜力或是最有争议的商业人物 - 一群可爱的风格各异的同事 “新闻是历史的草稿”。但我们还认为,记录不仅是为了防止遗忘,更是为了观察思维的演化过程。 世界不缺信息、不缺新闻,缺晚一点、好一点。 欢迎联系 [email protected] 并加入我们。
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This is so interesting!! humans have always used narrative as a way to triangulate shared reality. Stories/art in general are an important part of how we collectively make sense of experiences and this lack of gasp of reality shows in fully AI generated stories
There is a lot being written about the stylistic tells of AI writing (em-dashes, etc.) but this paper looks at AI narrative tells Fascinating differences between AI & human narrative, and asking AI to write in different styles doesn't do much to change it arxiv.org/abs/2604.03136
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The low-budget, smutty short drama from China that's taking over the world is now fully embracing AI at industrial scale. It is already kind of "slop" and AI only furthered the logic--and writers now have to adapt. My latest: technologyreview.com/2026/05…
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This is delightful!!
I wrote about the Chinese math kids turned AI superstars, and what it’s like meeting my much smarter (and richer) classmates in Silicon Valley. restofworld.org/2026/chinese… via @restofworld
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Caiwei Chen retweeted
SCOOP: A pro-AI dark money group backed by a powerful super PAC funded by execs tied to Palantir and OpenAI, has been secretly paying influencers to push pro-AI, anti-China propaganda on TikTok and IG.
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New detail from FT on DeepSeek's fundraise: Liang Wenfeng is also considering a share buyback or performance-based method to set a valuation, in case fundraising terms fall through. This confirms what I argued last week. The fundraise is a pricing mechanism, not a capital raise. DeepSeek needs a number its researchers can attach to their equity. The amount ($300M, under 3% dilution) is almost beside the point.
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Having skimmed the technical report, I am surprised by Deepseek's candidness and humility, in the performance gap between V4 and top Claude/Gemini models in some aspects.
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I’ll be at JF Books in talk with novelist M Lin about writing our past in another language! This event will be in Chinese. Come through!
#JFSALON The Memory Museum:非母語的記憶寫作 Date: April 28, 6:00-7:30 pm Speakers: M Lin & Caiwei Chen RSVP: zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/jf… Stretching from the present to the future, from China to America and beyond, M Lin’s debut collection depicts characters finding beauty amidst the disorientation of migration, the contradictions of living between cultures and the delicate dance between survival and resistance. M Lin is a Chinese writer and translator living in the US. Born and raised in Beijing, she writes in English as her second language. Her first book, The Memory Museum, is published by Graywolf Press in April 2026, including stories that appeared in Ploughshares, Swamp Pink, Joyland, Epiphany, Fence, and Best Debut Short Stories 2023. Her nonfiction and translations can be read in The New York Times, Guernica, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. Caiwei Chen @CaiweiC is an award-winning journalist, writer and oral historian based in Brooklyn, New York. She writes about technology, society, culture and life on the internet. She is currently the a tech reporter with a focus of China at MIT Technology Review. Her work has been seen in a bunch of places, in both English and Chinese. She writes and thinks about internet and tech, sometimes optimistically and sometimes cynically. She is more online than she likes to admit.
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Something that stood out to me when doing the China OpenClaw craze reporting is how many of the offline events are now hosted on Luma... For a place that famously love to have its own version of website/apps this is a rare lifestyle thing where my two worlds are syncing
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This is culture/related but also sort of by design, when individuals are not empowered to organize in the same way and the public is not mobilized at scale. But the OpenClaw craze is a rare example of grassroots mobilization, and new technology is one of the few things that can induce this level of fanaticism.
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Discussed with @tianyuf yesterday about this and many interesting threads of thoughts, including how there always seem to be this top-down element in these technology crazes, and the government endorsement offer an ideological pass that progress (however poorly defined) is treated as something to pursue unconditionally and technology is the destined vehicle to get there. but then when the public fanaticism spins out of control the government had to step back in and halt things, a reminder of the qigong craze in the 80s, the crypto/web3 slurry, or the "shuang chuang" craze circa 2015.
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