About AI, Thoughts from Human Perspective

Just like you perhaps, I have a lot of mixed thoughts about AI these days. I'm not a coder at all, so I don't want to comment on the technology itself. But I care about people's feeling, especially the real feeling which means how true our relationships are, with friends, colleagues, and even family relatives.

In my previous life, I was a journalist and editor for half of my career so far for more than a decade, and I still take my writings seriously. This morning when I woke up and got on my Gmail, I noticed Google added the "Help me to write" tab on my Gmail, and I tried. "Can you help to write a thank-you letter for my friend?" And Gmail AI did. It did quite well as you can see the example I attach here.

I am amazed and I am also puzzled. Friends, I will take it as a serious offence if anyone writes me a thank-you email using AI. This is even worse than you don't send me a thank-you email and I can understand. People are always busy. I get it. But if you spend time writing something, please write your own words. I don't need an AI letter to pass on some "fake" thanks to me and I promise I will never do that to my friends.

I've been working on the interplay between technology and policy for the past seven years, and I'm more and more convinced everyday that the biggest challenge to technology and innovation is not how great the emerging technologies are but how you can explain the new technologies to the people and government and how such new technologies can also bear the due responsibilities. All relevant stakeholders can then make their well-informed decisions as they know both the opportunities and risks (or let's say where the limits are) brought by those new technologies.

You can't just blame the technologies when things go wrong. We are all human beings. We are the users, contributors, and creators of all the new technologies. I'm not saying (like what Elon Musk already suggested) that we should pause on AI. No we should not. Technological development will never wait for you as things are destined to happen as you can tell from the history. But what we need is to be fully aware of how we can put "people" at the heart of every kind of technology. We need to help the engineers behind those technologies to understand why on earth we innovate: It is not about making the machines faster and smarter but rather at the end of the day it is about how to help human beings have better life.

Just like the "fake" thank-you letter now Gmail can help me to generate within few seconds using AI, if you don't like it, then don't use it. I'm a human being. I'm not a robot. I won't accept an AI-powered thank-you letter. I hope you won't either. And that's how we can defend and improve the value and philosophy of human nature everyday.

This post is written by me, George Chen, not any AI.

Thank you for reading.

For A Happy Friend

I'm very saddened to know a same-class fellow of our Yale World Fellows program passed away recently due to cancer. He was still relatively young. I still remember how passionate he was about life and the world.

I won't say we were the two closest friends in our class. He was more like an artist, a very creative one with focus on multimedia and the interplay between art and technology. Frankly I can't really understand many things he talked about in class but I remember his (loud) laughters, his smile, and sometimes he tried to play some Italian jokes that we didn't get it but anyway he laughed very hard. We were just so happy at that time when we were altogether in New Haven, in the historic Betts House, our home and office.

Life is short, isn't it? You think you can control and change a lot of things. No, you can't. We are all on our destiny. There is the beginning. There is the end. So what's the meaning of life really? To make impact? To make others happy? Or to make yourself happy? But how to define "happy"?

If you read Dalai Lama's famous book "The Art of Happiness", he teaches you to focus on your mind, see things in different perspectives, and be compassionate. I'm a very ordinary person. All I know is the world is crazy and I have a lot of bulls*** to deal with everyday. Shall we pause? And pause for what? To purse your happiness? And what is "happiness"?

I don't remember I asked my Italian friend about "happiness" but he seemed to be always very happy. Even when he found he was diagnosed with cancer, he decided to make his treatment like a journey, an inspiring open-sourced journey to welcome everyone to examine his body and find the cure together. How creative.

Now I miss his loud laughters, our time together, and those Italian jokes that I didn't really get (but I still laughed too). We are always destined to meet different people during our journey, for better or for worse. And then at some point we say goodbye. We move on. Everything becomes our memory.

There is the beginning. There is the end. And the meaning of life is in between. That's why we laugh, we cry, and we keep exploring.

Goodbye, Salvatore!

幕後故事：台灣元宇宙XR Hub成立

和大家講一些Meta台灣元宇宙XR Hub成立背後的故事。

首先，還是要謝謝蔡英文總統以及台灣各部門和團隊的支持，台灣最近幾年在吸引外商，特別是對科技創新領域的重視與投入，可以說是有目共睹，台灣作為「亞洲矽谷」不再是一句口號，而是確實越來越有樣子。

有關在台灣設立XR Hub這樣類似的概念其實早在三四年前我們就有和台灣的一些合作夥伴溝通過。當時公司還叫Facebook，最早一代VR設備要連著電腦才能運作，不像現在Quest 2那麼方便。台灣其實很早就在AR/VR領域有所發展，有次我們和唐鳳數位政委閒聊，期間曾考慮過是否可以利用舊空軍總部的場地，由Facebook出面設立一個供台灣開發者交流合作的空間。

今天Meta在台灣設立亞洲首座XR Hub的概念雛形，可以說就是來自於三四年前我們對「空總」的一些設想。當初的想法後來因為內外諸多因素沒有很快實現，但是當我們CEO於去年十月宣布公司改名，全面進軍元宇宙之後，來台灣設立XR Hub的想法很快再度躍然紙上。

正所謂天時、地利、人和，有時候我們好像花了很多功夫，未必馬上就有成果，但我始終相信，所有的努力都不會白費，更何況我們在台灣有那麼多的長久合作夥伴，比如這次與 資策會 合作，最終建成XR Hub，完全可以說是水到渠成。

現在回想起來， 與今天的XR Hub相比，當年在台設立「開發者中心」的想法在當時確實有著諸多局限性，而今天的XR Hub，不僅有資金，有專業設備，後續還有一系列的專案，針對文化創意、教育、科技創新等不同領域下功夫，把台灣的AR/VR人才都聚集起來，更希望在疫情之後，我們能夠組團帶領台灣科技人才親赴美國矽谷總部，做更直接且深入的交流。

蔡總統於元宇宙中訪談

Meta首席產品官Chris Cox視頻致詞

由Meta贊助並製作的台灣VR人文紀錄片《重逢》即將上映

台灣的許多朋友都知道我們在台北辦公室的公共政策總監陳奕儒（Max），他的中文名和香港歌手陳奕迅只差一個字。Max有著前中華民國外交官的專業背景，在政府服務近十年，然後加入Facebook。我還記得有次在台北誠品信義樓下的那個星巴克咖啡和Max閒聊，當時他還沒決定加入Facebook，我和Max說，你以前在外交部工作，目的是為了為台灣建立更多的國際連結，你加入Facebook，一樣可以為台灣創造更多的國際連結，為台灣發展做出自己的貢獻。

今天台灣有亞洲第一座XR Hub，我覺得大家要謝謝Max，當然還有幕後許許多多的Meta團隊同事們，從台北到香港，從新加坡到美國加州，這次台灣XR Hub專案融入太多Meta同仁的努力，更包括我們的全球首席產品官，雖然因為疫情原因未能親自赴台，但也是一口答應錄製發言短片，聊表心意。回頭看，整個XR Hub專案，從起草到落成，前後也就大致半年多時間，這當然也離不開我們在台灣的許多老朋友的支持。

我加入Facebook的時候，我們在台北還只有很小的一間辦公室，再後來搬入信義區高級寫字樓全層，整個台北最美城市景色盡收眼底⋯⋯我很喜歡用「扎根」來形容今天的Meta以及過去的Facebook與台灣的關係。中文「扎根」這個說法感覺比英文更有意義。Meta是以美國加州為總部的科技公司，但我們的用戶遍及全球，美國以外的用戶遠多過美國本身。我們在台灣扎根，與台灣市場共同成長，今天的XR Hub一定會是以後Meta在台發展史中的重要一頁，我們也期待有更多重要篇章可以在台灣陸續展開。

我一直覺得Meta是一間比較特別的科技公司，因為我們的產品和服務，以及我們的公司使命，都是和人有關，包括今天的元宇宙發展，都必須以人為本。去年我們終於和台北電腦公會等合作夥伴一起共同拍攝完成一部紀錄片，片名叫《重逢》，講述的就是如何通過VR技術來增加日本與台灣民間交流和友誼，這部紀錄片很快可以算是我們XR Hub落成後的一個成果展示。

最後，還是要向我們所有在台灣的同事們說聲感謝，特別是這兩年，大家辛苦了。XR Hub的落成是值得大家驕傲的一件事情，是一個新的起點，是台灣與全球元宇宙生態鏈的一個接入點，也希望為台灣「亞洲矽谷」的願景帶來更多國際連結。

（完）

Make An Impact

One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is to see how you can make impact on others.

Real. Positive. Impact.

Recently we completed our #VRforGood program, which involved hundreds of students in Hong Kong including many who had their first-time experience to create something in virtual reality environment. I was fortunate to attend the closing ceremony and meet some students who participated the educational program.

Many of them told me something similar: I'm an art student and I used to read literature only; If it was not because I had the chance to join this VR program, I probably would never thought about learning how to code. I wrote my first line of code, thanks to this program...

Isn't this just amazing? We always talk about hope, opportunity, and how great minds alike can change the world. Changes are actually happening everyday if everyone can keep trying.

Read this story (中文) about those bright students who I believe can someday change the world.

A Wasted Weekend

Every Saturday morning when I wake up, I ask myself in my mind: How's my week been so far? What exactly did I do this week?

So, on Friday I've replied all remaining emails (at last) that have been waiting for me to reply so far this year. This week (as usual) I helped to restore some accounts and pages, which I know matter a lot to those who were previously affected. I'm also delighted we took down some unsafe content quickly for our users in Central Asia. My team fixed a draft plan (finally!) for a new project to launch. I hope I can share more good news soon.

My done list and to-do list can go on. I keep learning how to prioritize and how to take best use of my time, but I'm also reminded repeatedly sometimes some "small things" do matter too.

A reasonable sense of accomplishment can make me feel my life more complete and also help me to sleep better at night (well, I mean, usually after midnight). I also felt very accomplished whenever I can find a good bowl of ramen. After all, the taste of our good life is not only about work.

I don't usually waste time but I do like to "waste" my time on weekends. Someone once said: "A weekend wasted isn’t a wasted weekend."

Indeed.