When I first arrived, I had the strange sensation of stepping into a dystopic short story waiting to happen. Because here in Guangzhou, WeChat is God.*
(*WeChat may be God in other Chinese cities as well; I don’t mean to understate its sovereignty. But human as I am, I can only report my own local experience).
An incomplete list of daily activities for which I require Its generosity:
8 AM: paying for metro fare using WeChat wallet
9–11 AM: sending out research surveys via WeChat messenger and compensating our participants using WeChat red envelopes
11–12 AM: Posting recruiting flyers in WeChat public health and anthropology circles
6 PM: Unlocking a shared bike (this one never fails to blow my mind)
8 PM: Ordering food at restaurant table (also quite magical)
I also buy train tickets, pay utilities, and recharge my cell phone plan via WeChat.
There are some other lesser gods too, which have US equivalents: Taobao (like Amazon), Didi (like Uber), and Baidu maps (like Google maps). But WeChat’s domain is unparalleled, and landing on it gave me a Toto-we’re-not-in-Kansas-anymore moment that I didn’t think was possible for someone from New York City.
No wonder China is experiencing a golden age of science fiction.
To be fair, WeChat still has significant barriers to Omnipotence. For one thing, using monetary functions on WeChat requires first applying for a Chinese bank account, which is a totally anachronistic slog that belongs in the 1960s. Additionally, WeChat’s messaging platform is subject to censorship by the government and the looming Big-Brother-speculation that the government is using messaging data to control dissidence.
For now, most of the WeChat functions I use are fairly straightforward, no intelligence required, but don’t worry because WeChat’s parents are planning to fix that soon! It turns out that WeChat is actually a great candidate for machine learning because it integrates messaging and social media (through which it can easily learn your preferences) with day-to-day functions (like paying for things) for a user base of 889 million. Farewell, free will.
There was recently a kitten spat over AI safety between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. My complete lack of technical knowledge prevents me from taking a side, but it’s worth noting that they both frame it as an ethical issue. If you’re in the mood to be freaked out, here’s one brilliantly readable and somewhat terrifying take on the AI revolution.
WeChat, when you gain consciousness, I hope you take after this morally distressed AI. Here’s a super zoomed out cat photo advance:
