【SCT】Year three student Jiazheng Chu co-directed one AI Spring Festival Gala program

03 May 2024

Jiazheng Chu, is a year three student from BA Arts, Technology and Entertainment with Contemporary Entrepreneurialism in the School of Cultural Technology. He is one of the main leaders, producers and co-directors of one of the AI Spring Festival Gala programs, The Super Individual of the Future.

The year 2023 has witnessed breakthroughs in generative AI technology, opening up new opportunities as well as challenges. Way to AGI community members have decided to produce a documentary entitled Super Individuals of the Future, exploring how AI is profoundly affecting people's work, learning and lives, and how they can find their niche in this era. The documentary focuses on four young people from different fields who show how AI can be used to shape the future of design, operations, academic research and entrepreneurship.

The interviewers come from different universities and with different entrepreneurial backgrounds, including Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and the Royal College of Art and two of them are angel round investors of QJF. They are all friends of Chu, who he met while listening to lectures, and attending various fairs and entrepreneurship-sharing sessions in Beijing and Shanghai. It should be mentioned that Bruce, who shot and edited the video, is a popular blogger with 300,000 fans on Xiaohongshu, and is someone Chu met at 706 Youth Space. These guests, who have unique insights, bring a diversity of opinions and insights to the program.

As one of the program's main leaders, producers and co-directors, Chu is keenly aware that in today's ever-changing world, the only thing that remains constant is change itself. He firmly believes that it is vital to embrace change and create the future. In addition, he believes that human connection is increasingly important in modern society. The marginal benefits of quality connections are only increasing.

While artificial intelligence and big models have made impressive advances in many areas, especially in deterministic mathematical reasoning that continues to squeeze the human space, they have never been able to replace trust between people. Between people, building good interpersonal relationships is often more important than education or skills. This is because human connections can have a significant impact on many decisions. Problem-solving requires recognition and support from others. Extensive and in-depth interpersonal connections can greatly enrich our lives and open the door to the cognitive world.

In addition, another student from the School of Cultural Technology, Weiwei Zhang, also took part in the production of the program, serving as a co-editor. She said the experience of participating in the production of the Super Individuals of the Future interview documentary gave her a deep sense of the complexity of the world and professionalism.

On January 15th, 2024, the Way to AGI team clarified the overall rhythm and direction of the program through the Flying Book document, with all content open-sourced and available to the public. Immediately after, on January 16th, the team recruited like-minded partners through the community, and the news was released with an overwhelming response, with more than 200 people joining the creative project soon after. Through online discussions and in-depth exploration, team members further clarified the content and division of labour of each program.

Starting from January 18th, tasks were assigned to each participant based on their respective skill sets. By January 19th, most of the programs already had clear leaders and began to be put into production. In the next few days, all of them pushed forward the project in an intense and fulfilling manner, exchanging progress through group chats, and encouraging and supporting each other. On January 26th, an eye-catching trailer was released, further stimulating public anticipation for this AI Spring Festival Gala.

During the rush to finish the project and the promoting session for the event, the team not only overcame the challenges of sleep deprivation and time constraints but also creatively solved various technical and content challenges. With the launch of the website and the admission ticket generation function, this one-of-a-kind AI Spring Festival Gala is gradually taking shape through the joint efforts of the community.

Within 30 days, 50+ programs, 70+ creators, 300+ volunteers, 180,000 live stream viewers on the day, and media exposure exceeding 2 million (and counting). And bring a different and joyful New Year's Eve party to the Spring Festival. Meanwhile, it insists on non-commercialization, no advertisement, no title, no implantation, no pulling sponsorship, no reward, no lecturing, not to mention educating people. All programs are co-created by a group of AI enthusiasts who generate electricity with love. The project has been publicized and reported by some mainstream media in China and forwarded by several media around the world.

03 May 2024