Who Designed the Things We Take for Granted?

00:01 I recently tried Apple Music.

00:05 While listening there, I noticed

00:10 that between one song and the next,

00:14 there was a fade-in and fade-out effect.

00:20 I think the official terms

00:23 are Crossfade and AutoMix.

00:29 When I first noticed it,

00:32 I thought,

00:33 wow,

00:33 what a lovely surprise.

00:35 I'd never had that experience

00:38 with any other music app.

00:42 So then,

00:42 I asked AI what was happening.

00:46 What I first noticed was—

00:48 no, wait—

00:49 I never seemed to hear the first song end.

00:52 Before I realized it,

00:54 the next song had already begun.

00:57 The transition happened unconsciously,

00:59 and felt so smooth

01:01 that it actually caught my attention.

01:04 So I asked AI

01:05 what was going on.

01:07 It introduced me to

01:09 Crossfade and AutoMix.

01:15 Then it told me

01:16 Spotify has this feature too.

01:19 I was shocked.

01:20 I've been

01:22 a Spotify user for years,

01:24 and I never knew it existed.

01:27 Before that, I mostly used

01:29 apps from mainland China,

01:32 like NetEase Cloud Music.

01:36 Oh, right.

01:37 Here in mainland China,

01:38 I mostly use NetEase Cloud Music.

01:41 I haven't used QQ Music in ages.

01:45 So the two music apps I use most

01:48 are NetEase Cloud Music

01:49 and Spotify.

01:52 When AI told me Spotify also has

01:54 a Crossfade feature,

01:56 I thought,

01:57 really?

01:58 So I looked in Spotify's settings

02:03 and checked.

02:04 It really was there.

02:05 But its design lets

02:08 the user decide

02:11 how many seconds the crossfade lasts.

02:16 And I thought this design—

02:19 how should I put it?

02:21 The result could never

02:23 be as good as Apple Music's.

02:25 Every song has

02:32 well,

02:32 structure at the beginning and end.

02:35 If you use one fixed standard,

02:38 the same Crossfade setting,

02:41 for every song's beginning and end,

02:45 I don't think the experience

02:47 can match Apple Music's AutoMix.

02:51 My understanding is that AutoMix

02:55 might use AI to analyze

03:00 similar structures between the two songs

03:03 and find the right

03:05 point to join them.

03:07 That can make listeners—

03:11 for example, it made me feel like

03:13 I hadn't even heard one song end.

03:15 How had the next one already begun?

03:18 AutoMix gave me

03:22 exactly that feeling:

03:25 a seamless flow.

03:27 I don't know why,

03:28 but I feel this feature

03:31 is incredibly good

03:34 for a music listener like me. So good...

03:38 I was actually using Apple Music

03:41 through its

03:43 one-month free trial.

03:46 Now I may pay for it next month.

03:49 And this phenomenon

03:52 made me think of other things.

03:55 Where else might

03:58 a similar feature

03:59 be used?

04:02 I thought of

04:03 when I'm watching a video on Weibo

04:06 and accidentally

04:08 swipe upward.

04:12 It immediately jumps to another video.

04:14 And I remember thinking,

04:17 why design it this way?

04:19 I was clearly still watching that video.

04:21 I only swiped by accident,

04:23 yet it served me the next one.

04:26 That also made me think of

04:31 the classic example: Douyin.

04:33 Douyin has continuous autoplay,

04:36 and Bilibili has

04:39 a similar feature.

04:40 It autoplays.

04:42 Why does that feature exist?

04:45 I think the thinking

04:47 behind that design was deliberate.

04:50 Then I realized similar ideas

04:52 may appear on other levels too.

04:55 When we're using an app,

05:00 for instance, we may move

05:03 from one screen to another.

05:05 Sometimes,

05:06 moving from screen A to B takes time.

05:09 During that loading period,

05:11 the app can't leave the user

05:13 staring at the screen and waiting.

05:15 So it may add an animation

05:20 to draw the user's attention

05:22 toward the animation.

05:23 That brief interval can then

05:26 cover the loading time.

05:30 Another example

05:31 is the friction we often feel

05:34 in the user experience.

05:37 That's one example.

05:38 There are many others.

05:42 I often feel

05:43 that when something suddenly sparks,

05:50 and I follow that spark outward,

05:52 I discover so many

05:54 interesting things connected to it.

05:56 And these things—

05:57 or these phenomena—

05:59 may be things we normally

06:01 have already

06:03 come to take for granted.

06:07 We assume their presence

06:09 is simply

06:10 unobtrusive,

06:11 so we never turn around and ask,

06:14 hey,

06:14 why is this thing the way it is?

06:16 I find this sense of familiarity

06:22 quite interesting.

06:24 When we take something familiar

06:27 and treat it as unfamiliar,

06:29 or examine the design philosophy

06:33 or principles behind it,

06:35 it becomes even more interesting.

06:40 Then I thought about

06:42 some moments with my young niece.

06:47 When she was very little,

06:49 we spent a lot of time together.

06:51 And I noticed that,

06:53 as a child

06:55 of three or four,

06:57 then four, five, or six,

06:58 she saw me very often.

07:01 Whenever I took her out,

07:03 she would see things

07:04 that, to me,

07:06 were completely ordinary,

07:08 or ordinary topics.

07:10 Then she'd ask me,

07:12 "Auntie,

07:13 what's that?"

07:14 Or,

07:15 "Why is that?"

07:16 Or,

07:17 "What is that thing?"

07:19 She would ask me endless questions.

07:23 And I started thinking.

07:25 At the time, I was still

07:28 working as an educator at a school.

07:30 While spending time with her,

07:32 I compared her state with

07:36 that of the students I met at school.

07:39 At school,

07:40 I taught elementary, middle,

07:44 and high school students—

07:46 the full K–12 range.

07:48 I'd taught students at every age.

07:50 So I compared them.

07:52 Elementary school students clearly

07:54 asked many more questions

07:57 than middle and high school students.

08:01 They had far more questions

08:02 and much more curiosity about the world.

08:06 By middle school, though,

08:08 they seemed to be

08:10 at a crossroads.

08:13 Their curiosity

08:15 and liveliness had faded since childhood,

08:18 but greater than in high school.

08:20 As for the high school students,

08:23 some were still

08:24 very lively indeed.

08:28 But from my adult perspective,

08:31 I sometimes felt

08:32 their energy was aimed the wrong way.

08:34 That doesn't mean

08:35 I thought that liveliness was bad.

08:38 More often, though, they seemed lifeless.

08:42 Especially in the last two years,

08:46 they were less curious about many things.

08:48 For them,

08:50 daily life followed the same three stops.

08:53 Their daily tasks were simply:

08:59 listen to the teacher,

09:01 do their homework,

09:03 review the homework in class,

09:05 then start a new lesson.

09:07 These things

09:09 became the most mundane routine,

09:14 yet they were still their duties.

09:17 Comparing the two made me wonder:

09:20 why does this happen?

09:22 What exactly

09:24 changes their state

09:28 from something I find so adorable,

09:31 so alive,

09:32 and so vibrant

09:34 into—

09:36 to exaggerate a little—

09:37 a pool of stagnant water?

09:40 What lies behind that change?

09:46 I won't go further into it,

09:48 but I find the thinking behind it

09:50 deeply, deeply interesting.

09:53 Recently, I also came across

09:56 maybe the Center for Humane Technology.

10:04 Its website,

10:05 if I remember correctly,

10:06 was humanetech.com.

10:12 I may be remembering wrong.

10:14 Anyway, after finding the organization,

10:16 I took a look

10:17 at some of the courses

10:18 on its website.

10:20 And I thought,

10:21 wow,

10:22 people are actually working on this.

10:25 In today's age of AI,

10:29 how should I put it?

10:33 The direction many things take,

10:36 or the way they happen,

10:38 may all be designed.

10:41 Think of the recent OpenClaw frenzy.

10:48 Why did it become so wildly popular?

10:50 Everyone, from national governments

10:53 down to individuals,

10:55 was swept into the storm.

11:00 There may be reasons behind that too.

11:07 For me, analyzing such phenomena

11:10 is incredibly interesting.

11:13 Likewise,

11:13 once I trace the thread clearly,

11:16 I want to

11:17 take one point along that thread,

11:21 write down the event it represents,

11:24 and turn it into an essay.

11:26 I also hope that

11:27 if I write such an essay,

11:30 others can read it and clearly see

11:32 what lies behind familiar things:

11:35 who helped design them,

11:42 what they wanted people to become,

11:44 and what goals they wanted to achieve.

11:47 Sometimes, I think we can

11:49 turn certain things to our own advantage.

11:51 But what if you encounter something

11:54 you can't reclaim at an individual level?

11:59 What do you do then?

12:01 That brings us back to

12:04 the question of AI's development.

12:07 Many say AI's advance is irreversible.

12:10 If it is irreversible,

12:12 that also means some things

12:14 will inevitably escape human control.

12:17 To increase human control,

12:22 or to welcome

12:26 a more humane future,

12:28 what should regulators,

12:32 or people deeply concerned

12:35 with AI safety, do?

12:40 Every part of this

12:42 is just so fascinating.