Express Yourself in AI Era

(Visit Chinese Version: AI 时代的自我表达)

Today I want to chat about something related to “expression.” Back in the school days, expressing yourself was a crucial skill to pick up. Many industries and professions nowadays really value communication and expression because how you express yourself can seriously affect how well information gets across. Expression is basically the foundation of communication, and humans have come a long way from word of mouth to written language, all the way to the machine expression we have today.

In this AI era, expressing yourself has become even more important. Sure, anything that makes life easier also brings along some downsides. In the past year, AI has been booming, and a lot of people or industries are quietly entering the era of digital personas and digital twins. Imagine you’re a radio DJ or a blogger who’s recorded tons of episodes – that material could probably train a digital clone. But for the average person, do we really have the resources to get into this digital expression game?

Thanks to the internet, organizing digital assets has become a breeze with all sorts of tools. But when it comes to this whole digital persona thing and our super-digitized lives, we’ve got to ask ourselves if we’ve actually recorded and collected enough interesting stuff in our daily lives. More often than not, the answer is no, and we need to make a conscious effort to prep and digitize our life data. Considering everyone’s need for digital data in the AI age, how do we stack up and organize our digital assets so we can use them to train models when we need to?

Photos and short videos are probably the most common digital materials we’ve got in our daily lives. But audio and speaking-style materials? They’re kind of rare, unless you’re in a sound-related gig like broadcasting or podcasting.

So, here’s a suggestion – try doing some audio recordings every day and use some cool tech to turn them into text. This way, your recordings can cover everything from daily insights to professional viewpoints, slowly building up a solid library of audio and viewpoint materials.

Back in the day, expressing yourself was mainly about writing – diaries, blogs, you name it. Those methods were great for deep-diving into personal insights and thoughts. But, let’s be real, written records miss out on direct expressions of tone and facial expressions. They can’t capture non-verbal stuff like facial expressions and intonation. Looking back at how we used to record things, from handwritten diaries to today’s digital records, not only has the recording medium changed, but the ways we express ourselves have expanded too. Now, thanks to smartphones, we can easily use everyday speech to record our daily musings, thoughts, and viewpoints, forming a more comprehensive digital expression. The creative scene is also changing quietly – from needing specific pen and paper, specific desks and chairs, to now being able to record audio, video, and text whenever and wherever with just a phone.

This progress also makes us rethink the accessibility of education and social fairness. Can AI education really spread wide, or will it lead to a bigger wealth gap in the digital age? A small group with a ton of computational power uses advertising, psychology, and whatnot to control what most people see and consume. Just like any education boom, AI education in less developed areas might still be stuck with books, networks, and heck, even electricity could be a luxury for some.

With the rise of social media, face-to-face communication is turning into text and emojis in virtual spaces. In this digital age, our expression methods have become way more diverse. Voice messages and video calls are now another way to express emotions and thoughts, making up for the lack of immediacy in pure text expression.

This digitized recording isn’t just good on a personal level; it’s got an impact on society and culture too. In the AI era, these digital assets can train machine learning models, pushing tech even further. But, we’ve got to be cautious and make sure we handle data privacy and security rights to avoid any misuse of personal info.

In a nutshell, it’s worth starting to pay attention to collecting, organizing, and expressing personal data now. As time goes on, your recording methods will shape future expression. While AI is making us way more productive, it’s also giving us more time to dive into other stuff. Fingers crossed, there’ll be a personal tool in the future that can bundle up all kinds of life data, helping us understand and express our thoughts even better.