Yi-Ling Liu
@yilingliu95
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writer covering China & AI | journalist-in-residence @tarbellcenter | writing a book forthcoming in February 2026 with @AAKnopf https://t.co/2brZ0oZbuX
Joined May 2015
NEW: With 157 M users, ByteDance’s Doubao 豆包 has officially surpassed DeepSeek to be the most popular AI app in China. It targeted those who can’t craft a prompt. “Some of the earliest Doubao users I heard of were my friends’ grandmothers & aunties.” https://t.co/YKgDUghsW6
wired.com
An AI chatbot developed by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is now more popular than DeepSeek. The feat proves that user-friendly design often matters more than having the most advanced AI model.
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LMAO. Here’s the first sentence of this Kushner “profile”:
The team at Colossus is breaking something in magazine journalism in a fascinating way. Let me try to articulate. Even just a few years ago, if you wanted to read a beautifully written, exhaustively reported and actually interesting piece on someone shaping a corner of the
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NEW: Three more nonprofits subpoenaed by OpenAI allege the requests were unusually broad and concerning. All of the nonprofits had been critical of OpenAI's plans to reorganize from a nonprofit to a for-profit company. https://t.co/oyaY4XJaMH
nbcnews.com
Seven nonprofit groups that have criticized OpenAI say it sent them wide-ranging subpoenas as part of its litigation against Elon Musk.
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Young people in China are turning to AI chatbots like DeepSeek and Doubao for therapy to save time and money, while avoiding stigma around mental health (@yilingliu95 / Rest of World) https://t.co/G7Wi8CUZdd
https://t.co/ziiYPfcHx8 📫 Subscribe:
techmeme.com
Yi-Ling Liu / Rest of World: Young people in China are turning to AI chatbots like DeepSeek and ByteDance's Doubao for therapy to save time and money and avoid stigma around mental health
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30,000 Chinese migrant workers travel to remote islands in Indonesia to process nickel for EV batteries, risking their lives on the frontier of the green energy transition Read @Wufei_Yu’s new feature, produced @grist and republished by Rest of World https://t.co/zwUJ8ei7s7
restofworld.org
30,000 Chinese workers travel thousands of miles to remote islands in Eastern Indonesia to process nickel — and put their lives at risk on the frontier of the green energy transition.
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And only five years after my first RoW column on China's online therapy apps! https://t.co/Ydt916sRhu
restofworld.org
A wave of therapy apps is shaping how the country’s rising middle class sees itself and the world.
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I wrote for @restofworld about China's chatbot therapists — why young people are turning to AI for mental health care & the risks of sycophancy. 👉
restofworld.org
Cheap, accessible, and friendly AI tools can augment scarce professional help, but there are risks to overreliance on the technology.
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“On social media, users avidly chronicle their heart-to-heart conversations with chatbots, attempting to address anxiety, depression, and relationship issues. On Xiaohongshu, searches for ‘crying after chatting with AI’ are linked to over 1 million posts.” https://t.co/ksmjE8SM2D
restofworld.org
Cheap, accessible, and friendly AI tools can augment scarce professional help, but there are risks to overreliance on the technology.
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Young people in China say that AI chatbots save them time and money, and are more discreet in a society where stigma around mental health persists. But there are risks to chatbots becoming therapists, writes @yilingliu95 for @restofworld
https://t.co/jYjtJLfsLp
restofworld.org
Cheap, accessible, and friendly AI tools can augment scarce professional help, but there are risks to overreliance on the technology.
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"The real question is less about becoming “stupider” as a result of AI, and more about near-term cognitive disempowerment: how AI is reshaping our relationship with thinking." great piece by @cogcelia for @ReadTransformer
There is no evidence that using LLMs causes irreparable neurological or cognitive damage (yet). But AI is changing our relationships with thinking, information, and relationships in deeply concerning ways. This conversation deserves more than “is AI making us stupid???” (1/n)
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🚨 ATTN. New Jersey: We can do SO much better than Mikie Sherrill. She voted against the child tax credit… She voted for tax hikes… She voted to give your money to illegals… Reject her on Nov. 4th.
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One publication I’m really excited about this year is Equator. Link in reply
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We’re reviving up the @NYTmag On Language column, and thankfully our own Nitsuh Abebe is at the wheel. The first is about em dashes—why people thought only A.I. used them, how A.I. learned to love them, and how we increasingly write like we speak.
nytimes.com
The debate about ChatGPT’s use of the em dash signifies a shift in not only how we write, but what writing is for.
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https://t.co/HW2SeasQcO Exclusive: DeepSeek evaluates AI models for ‘frontier risks’ The company has conducted evaluations on self-replication and cyber-offensive capabilities in particular. It's not clear when the evaluations were completed or which of the company’s models
scmp.com
Unlike US AI firms which publish findings of their frontier risk evaluations, Chinese companies do not announce such details.
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Our new magazine @Equatormag is officially out in the world. Sign up for preview emails, donate, and get tickets to our launch event: https://t.co/dFPvJizKPq.
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When I launched Transformer a year ago, it was with a simple mission: provide decision-makers with the information and analysis needed to anticipate and steer the impacts of transformative AI. Today, we're announcing an exciting new effort to achieve that: Transformer 2.0.
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Society needs in-depth reporting on AI and its impacts, to understand how the world is changing and to do something about it. Tarbell's reporting grants can help. Journalists, pitch us on key AI beats by 14 Sept.
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Not long after DeepSeek R1 launched, I discovered that my mother had started using the chatbot as her virtual doctor. I worried about her reliance on AI. But over time, I realized Dr. DeepSeek was offering something no human in her life could. https://t.co/Jfrg10xghy
restofworld.org
In China and around the world, the sick and lonely turn to AI.
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Along with amazing colleagues, I’ve been laid off from the @WSJ in NY as it reshapes its China coverage. Grateful to colleagues and readers who taught me so much. I’m excited (and a bit nervous) to explore what’s next—please get in touch with opportunities, ideas and tips!
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Sometimes your deepest prayer is one you don’t even understand. Listen to this story. @TheElijahList @ElijahStreamsTV
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New working paper (pre-review), maybe my most important in recent years. I examine the evidence for the US-China race to AGI and decisive strategic advantage, & analyse the impact this narrative is having on our prospects for cooperation on safety. 1/5 https://t.co/Dxi9upAa3L
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