We live in a time without precedent. AI is only beginning to reshape how we live, work, and produce knowledge. Things that used to take months can now be started by one person with the right tools. Suddenly more is possible, and that makes it even more important to know what you actually want to do.

On the practical side, I would recommend a MacBook to anyone looking for an everyday computer. For my own AI workflow, macOS paired with Apple’s M-series chips remains hard to beat. Codex, Claude Code, and Google Antigravity are also worth trying firsthand instead of just watching demos. Begin with whatever you can use for free. When I pay, I pay for better models and higher usage limits. In my work, the productivity gain has felt almost exponential. For now, I would rather use the continually improving models from proprietary providers than spend time and money running models locally.

As tools grow more powerful, choosing where to place our attention becomes more important. Whatever you study or whatever your level of education, I recommend reading Attention Is All You Need. You do not have to work in AI to get something out of it. The paper’s intuition about allocating attention keeps bringing me back to questions in other fields: with limited resources, what do we notice, and what do we ignore? I try to choose where I get my information, too: GitHub, Apple Podcasts through a US Apple ID, X, YouTube, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu. Don’t wait for someone else to filter the world and hand it to you.

Since short videos took off, sustained attention has become harder to come by, and the paper’s title has taken on another meaning for me. I don’t think AI will shrink the distance between people across the board. Within a field, it may narrow the gap in tools and execution between people at a similar level while widening the gap between those at different levels. Someone with real taste in a field can use it to bring their wildest ideas to life. I am one small example. AI can help you work faster; it cannot tell you what is worth doing. To go further in any field, develop your taste. Talent matters, but reading great work, making things again and again, and taking criticism seriously can build it, too.

A quick word about research: if you hope to go far, my advice is a little obsessive. Aim only for journals internationally recognized as the best in your field. Start with questions drawn from your own life, rather than whichever gap is left in the literature. The back-and-forth with editors and referees at top journals sharpens your judgment. So does competing with equally ambitious researchers around the world. Note: A top journal earns its standing from the people working in its field, not from a rating table. There is a growing consensus in academia that researchers should be judged by their best work, not by a pile of papers in weak journals. Over the next twenty years, that principle will only carry more weight in China and elsewhere.

I would also recommend going to more seminars. The speaker might be a leading scholar, a rising star, or a researcher few people know; there is something to learn from each of them. The longer I work in a field, the more aware I become of how little I know. Arrogance makes it easy to miss what others could teach me.

If you want to speak with people around the world, English cannot remain just another exam subject. English is worth investing in for life. I have never considered the time and money spent on it a loss. Other languages are worth learning, of course, but English is still the most important. When you learn a foreign language, go somewhere it is spoken if you can. You won’t know whether it’s raining outside until you step out; the places you see for yourself leave memories no book can give you.

Sticking with language learning and research takes attention and follow-through, day after day. Those two things also set apart people at a similar level. AI can help you follow through; only you can protect your attention. Look after your body and mind, too; without them, even the strongest drive won’t last. Exercise in whatever way you like. When I go out for scenery, I would rather spend quiet time in nature; Xinjiang is too beautiful to rush through a checklist of popular photo stops. Keep a journal by hand, listen to music you love, watch Korean dramas, and cook a few meals yourself. Cooking is especially fun. These things give me the energy to keep going.

Time and energy are limited. I would urge students to steer clear of the university activities that only look “useful”: clubs, student union and class committee positions, class events done for show, and one competition after another. A contest can rank highly on an official list and still matter less than what you actually love. You won’t get those years back. Don’t spend them on events you don’t care about. The only way to learn what you love is to go and do it.

The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.

A path like that won’t win everyone’s approval. When people are collecting titles and chasing rankings, it’s fine to feel lost; don’t give up your sincerity or the things you love. Hold on to them, and you may meet people and find opportunities you would otherwise miss. Dare to try a path you want even if it looks different from everyone else’s. People who have gone before you are worth listening to, but they aren’t living in your present. Their advice inevitably has blind spots; the choice remains yours.

In a little over three years at university, these are the three decisions I count as both my best and my luckiest:

1. Throwing myself into the field I love and putting down roots there a little over six months after starting university.
2. Choosing to go on exchange at the Central University of Finance and Economics.
3. Giving up the opportunity to apply through another university’s early graduate recommendation process.

I am still moving forward. The road is muddy, with a cliff behind me. Fortunately, there have always been people beside me.

Here are four things I would gladly read again. No need to start at the top; start with the question that has been on your mind lately:

• Grit: When the first rush of enthusiasm fades, what keeps you at the work?
• How China Escaped the Poverty Trap: If you study development and institutions, it may change the questions you ask.
• The Shanghai Jiao Tong University Survival Guide: If you are still at university, read it as a challenge to the rules everyone takes for granted on campus.
• How to fix your entire life in 1 day: When you feel life running on autopilot, take a day to ask where you actually want to go.