When Robots Crack Jokes That Make You Laugh, Humanity's Nightmare Arrives
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AI threatening your job isn't the real concern at the human level - that technology is visible and predictable. But if AI-generated jokes make you laugh, that's truly terrifying, as it involves human emotions - the very thing we believed was uniquely human.
As a child, I pondered: Why spend two hours walking to grandma's house for New Year visits? I wanted to visit grandma, not be on the road - wasn't the travel time wasted?
Later, the trip shortened to one hour, then thirty minutes, then twenty. Though the duration decreased, I still questioned why unnecessary intermediate time existed.
Studying thermodynamics later, I understood that work inevitably involves consumption under energy conservation laws. Learning communication theory revealed how information inevitably distorts during transmission due to varying encoding/decoding abilities, noise interference, and differing semantic spaces - perfect message delivery is impossible.
I gradually realized all exchanges, transactions, interactions, and communications carry costs: time, money, mental energy, physical effort.
Recently reviewing Communication Theory alongside two years of work experience, past learnings began crystallizing. Social evolution and business model advancements essentially represent progressively faster information transmission and reduced information asymmetry.
Today, I'll share simple thoughts on IT development through the lens of "eliminating information asymmetry."
Since bartering began, supply and demand emerged. With social division of labor and productivity growth, material abundance increased both supply and demand volumes. Yet no individual knows all products, nor can producers reach all buyers.
This created massive information asymmetry, spawning professional traders - merchants being the 1.0 solution.
Beijing's early "profiteers," post-reform trading companies, Jack Ma recognizing the internet as an information efficiency tool to create Alibaba, alongside Dangdang, JD, Yihaodian - these e-commerce platforms solved transactional information matching. Transparent product information and vast selection characterized internet-era e-commerce.
4G and smartphones ushered mobile internet, making anytime-anywhere connectivity routine. Higher-efficiency mobile internet integrated offline sectors, sparking the O2O boom (Online-to-Offline) - DiDi (taxis), Ele.me (food delivery), Helijia (beauty), 58 Daojia (housekeeping), Xianyu (second-hand markets).
Fundamentally, these platforms still address basic product-consumer information asymmetry - bridges between supply/demand appearing differently across eras and scenarios.
Economics' Watch Law states: one watch tells time; two conflicting watches create confusion. This is choice paralysis.
When products proliferate (100 lamp styles, 100 platform prices), consumers face decision fatigue. Information overload birthed information asymmetry 2.0 - shopping guides.
Entering a TV store overwhelms with Samsung, Xiaomi, Skyworth, LeEco, Sharp options. Solution? Find the best fit.
How? Via shopping assistants matching needs to products.
Online information explosion saw e-commerce platforms battle. When unsure where to buy a better lamp, someone says: "Buy here - we've curated the best." Thus emerged online shopping guides.
Information explosion created cognitive anxiety, spawning knowledge economies.
When amateur success-book readers lecture on financial freedom, Dedao APP counters: "Learn from top experts - Peking University's Xue Zhaofeng for economics, Tsinghua's Ning Xiangdong for management. We curate the best."
When unsure what to read, Fan Deng's Book Club offers: "Fifty curated annual book summaries."
With information channels established and overloaded, shopping guides emerged, personally filtering content - advancing beyond mere information symmetry to personalized matching.
Such matching data accumulated from 1MB to exabytes. When human guides became inadequate, big data emerged, entering AI-driven information transmission.
Abundant consumption data enables predictive analytics. Horizontally: if 5,000 people bought 10 identical shoes, their 11th purchase likely suits you. Vertically: if flower buyers later purchased Durex, searching flowers might prompt lingerie recommendations.
Multidimensional big data analysis enables not just matching but consumption prediction - hence smart recommendations. Previously: "Find what you want." Now: "Prepare what you'll want next." Before Double Eleven orders, Tmall pre-positions goods in nearby warehouses via smart matching.
Information matching reaches anticipatory levels. Platforms understand you deeply through consumption, travel, dining, reading, even thought data.
Internet use becomes as unconscious as breathing. But while exhaled CO₂ enters nature's cycle, your online orders, likes, shares become consciously collected data - fertile ground for commercial ecosystems.
Today we understand: in cyberspace, data is production material, cloud computing is productivity, the internet is production relations - all indispensable.
In 2010's cloud computing discussions, only BAT's Jack Ma invested heavily across unprofitable sectors (transport, dining, entertainment, retail) to control data. Latecomer Pony Ma caught up, while Robin Li dismissed "cloud computing as old wine in new bottles" - a shortsighted view.
Also recognizing this trend was窒息-loving贾跃亭, entering smartphones with "hardware-with-membership" to rapidly expand across software, hardware, entertainment, sports, e-commerce - attempting a data-driven ecosystem for AI-era dominance. Overexpansion broke his capital chain, leaving only US-based car-making dreams.
Endless Taobao browsing, late-night Douyin scrolling - data acts as robotic butlers providing perfect matches, giving what we want, showing what we like, further reducing information asymmetry. Yet while smartphones satisfy needs, the data we create begins controlling our preferences and behaviors.
We once lamented "nobody understands me."
When a machine completely understands you - does that terrify you?
Marketing identifies five consumption steps: exposure → interest → desire → trust → purchase.
Smart precision matching merely delivers what you like to your doorstep, tempting you to buy. But rationality reminds you to reconsider: Is this product trustworthy? Where is it produced? What's its reputation? Are there cheaper alternatives elsewhere? So you check certifications, buyer reviews, and online feedback before making a purchase.
Now, imagine if you could instantly access all product information, eliminating this information asymmetry.
In The Three-Body Problem, sophons can see through every nerve and capillary in the human body as if viewing a flat painting—this is the power of the fourth dimension. Today, this power is entering our lives in another form: blockchain.
After reading many explanations of blockchain, it boils down to this: it's a peer-to-peer, encrypted, immutable, decentralized, distributed ledger system.
How does this relate to me?
Consider a future scenario: When you order a pound of organic, fresh eggs and worry about their authenticity, simply scan a code. The egg's information unfolds like a web: origin, the hen that laid it, what the hen ate, packaging and transportation details, shelf time, and prices elsewhere. If you wish, with a click, you could even see which TikTok video the delivery guy liked yesterday.
Information becomes fully transparent, interconnected, and unalterable. Blockchain records and links all network data.
What can it do?
It can establish a networked credit archive system for people and objects.
The internet consensus is that all publicly visible content (except drafts) is open. Blockchain can record this permanently and immutably through encryption—your public words and actions follow you for life.
If someone wants to know your past, they just scan your code.
What's the benefit?
It simplifies online identity management and eliminates counterfeiting and shoddy production, as any issues become visible to the entire network. You won’t need to worry about price hikes before discounts on Double 11 or calculate complex deals. A single scan reveals everything.
Of course, this scenario requires significant advancements in IoT, where everything carries a sensor uploading data constantly.
Whether this era arrives remains to be seen.
Some of these points are already reality, while others remain uncertain. Even if realized, they only address external information asymmetry between people and objects or among people.
One form of asymmetry may never be broken: knowing what’s in someone’s mind.
From the dawn of humanity, from shouts to gestures, to the invention of language and writing—accelerating civilization—we’ve used symbols and art to express ourselves. Yet, all we perceive are external manifestations. What someone thinks internally remains inaccessible, even with our five senses or scientific instruments.
This unobservable mental data—thoughts, emotions, refined methods, creativity, consciousness—can only be conveyed outwardly. We can’t, like the Trisolarans, directly read minds or, as in Black Mirror, invent memory storage devices that allow reading, writing, or even inheriting memories.
Thus, for millennia, from Confucius’ teachings to modern classrooms, knowledge and skill transmission still rely on human interaction. This has birthed professions like teachers, advertisers, and consultants—roles that will never vanish.
Luo Zhenyu brought elite educators online, transcending time and space, but no technology can fully convey a teacher’s inner thoughts—only through language, which inherently limits expression.
As one philosopher said: 'Prejudice in the heart is like a mountain—no effort can move it.'
This perhaps signifies that in eliminating the asymmetry of inner thoughts, humanity may never reach the finish line.
Technologies like big data and cloud computing merely optimize the collection, transmission, and processing of existing data—they don’t generate it.
So-called 'eliminating information asymmetry' only applies to known information.
When the fourth industrial revolution—data algorithms and AI—threatens jobs, remember what technology can’t replace: emotion, art, creativity, human care, and thought.
If humans ever laugh at AI-generated jokes, that might be the start of a nightmare.