"I Want to Shatter Your Unrealistic Fantasies About AI, and Rebuild a Correct Understanding" | Podcast

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The most knowledge-dense episode of "Crossing" podcast ever is here!

The most hardcore episode of "Crossing" podcast ever!

This is the 20th episode of "Crossing," and in my view, the most valuable one yet — packed with common sense, fresh insights, and abundant inspiration.

About Our Guest

Today's guest, Leding Li, is a treasured friend I've known for over a decade. We've road-tripped to Inner Mongolia, eaten our way through Beijing's sushi scene, chatted about everything under the sun, and witnessed each other's growth.

In this episode, Teacher Li breaks down generative AI in accessible terms, decodes AI entrepreneurship directions, discusses Big Tech AI strategies in Silicon Valley, and gives a comprehensive overview of hot industry topics including Professor Yann LeCun, world models, and AI search.

Teacher Li joined Baidu in 2010 and, as a principal architect, consistently took on the most challenging assignments.

Today, there's broad consensus in tech that generative AI will become the most important and largest-scale technology infrastructure of the future. Before generative AI, the two most important and largest-scale technology infrastructure buildouts in tech history were search and cloud services. And in Li's 12 years at Baidu, his first six years were spent as a search architect, and his latter six as a cloud services architect. Architects who have lived through both of these massive infrastructure waves are exceedingly rare globally.

To excel at large-scale infrastructure architecture requires not only deep technical understanding, but also intimate knowledge of every role and component in the system — only then can you formulate systemic strategies and complete architectural design.

In today's AI landscape, opinions proliferate and many voices are strident. Notably, those speaking out most actively tend to be industry observers — media professionals and investors. This is precisely why "Crossing" invited Teacher Li to share his perspective on generative AI's past, present, and future:

Only those in the trenches can hear the sound of gunfire; and only commanders and architects who have fought battles of equivalent scale can comprehend the deeper meaning within that gunfire.

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🎬 Episode Timeline

Part 1: Shatter Those Unrealistic AI Fantasies

On AI: too much fantasy, too little rationality. Unshattered fantasies are bubbles; shattered fantasies may become opportunities.

02:19 The layers of fantasy

04:42 Why so much fantasy?

05:55 How to shatter fantasy? Start by understanding how AI actually works

09:44 What harm comes from indulging in unrealistic fantasies?

10:50 On the AI bubble: inevitable and worth embracing; but also recognize it truly is a bubble

12:05 What's changed and what hasn't in the 18 months since ChatGPT 3.0's release?

Part 2: Disrupt! Google

Teacher Li served as chief architect of Baidu's Aladdin platform, making him one of the most authoritative voices on AI search.

15:07 Will AI search disrupt Google?

16:45 What is Perplexity's real value?

18:42 What is Google's Achilles' heel? That's where Perplexity's opportunity lies

19:47 In building RAG, whoever first grasps that AI is the least important of the key factors may win.

Part 3: The Leap of Faith — AI Entrepreneurship Choices

Having understood generative AI's technical principles and gained insight into user needs and scenario characteristics, what entrepreneurial choices emerge?

Wrong directions for AI entrepreneurship:

  • 25:18 Direction 1: Using AI to plan travel itineraries; people's goals are often clarified through the very process of searching and browsing
  • 27:50 Direction 2: Using AI to fully manage ride-hailing, flight booking, and hotel reservations

Scenarios suitable for AI entrepreneurship:

  • 29:58 Characteristics: high margins + high fault tolerance
  • 31:28 Low-hanging fruit: digital advertising, cloud GPU reselling

33:01 How generative AI makes Douyin's recommendation algorithms even more formidable

37:01 Two bright spots observed in Chinese AI entrepreneurship projects

39:20 AI PaaS projects lacking distinctiveness

On Scaling Law:

  • 40:49 The current state of affairs is the ceiling of Scaling Law; one shouldn't assume a car will fly just because it's a vehicle
  • 41:57 Rapid progress we can realistically expect: broader model knowledge coverage, faster response times

What highly probable developments will occur in the next 6-12 months?

  • 43:04 Multimodality + robotic control, sensors
  • 44:25 On-device small models
  • 44:55 AI is already everywhere, actually
  • 46:56 Advances in AI compilers will break Nvidia's monopoly
  • 47:52 AI's integration with cutting-edge scientific fields

Part 4: Defend! Silicon Valley Giants

The giants hold the highest form of industry moat: ecosystem; therefore their AI strategies are all defensive.

49:24 Meta: The entire AI industry owes Meta its gratitude

54:55 Microsoft: Its rise to $3 trillion today is well-deserved

  • 56:29 OpenAI has been boxed by Microsoft into the position of a model researcher
  • 58:41 Predicting GPT-5

59:13 Apple: Experience-first forever, and worthy of admiration

01:01:31 Amazon: Has articulated an excellent three-tier AI system

  • 01:03:39 Advice for Dify and Langchain: Exceptional products, but if it were me, I'd advise them to sell to a major player as soon as possible

01:05:03 Tesla: FSD is directionally correct, but the road is long; Robotaxi isn't worth pricing in

Part 5

01:10:46 Domestic tech giants' AI strategies are all quite solid — and that's not mere politeness

01:12:16 Recommended AI information channels

01:20:19 If you could time-travel to the future, what answer would you most want to sneak a peek at?

01:22:30 What are the most worthwhile questions to focus on in the next 6-12 months?

Part 6: Yyds! Professor Yann LeCun

The person on this planet with the deepest and most correct understanding of AI.

01:13:45 In the AI industry, what separates those who do well from those who do exceptionally?

01:14:40 Who on this planet has the deepest and most correct understanding of AI?

01:14:54 Why are Yann LeCun's widely controversial views actually correct?

01:17:59 A layperson's introduction to "world models"

Subscribe to "Crossing" on Xiaoyuzhou

🚦 Subscribe to the "Crossing" podcast on Xiaoyuzhou. We track the industry transformations and entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the new wave of AI technology. "Crossing" is Steve Jobs' metaphor for Apple — standing at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming industries across the board; we seek out, interview, and bring together "active doers" of the AI era, exploring and embracing new changes and new possibilities alongside them.

👦🏻 Host Koji: Co-founder of The Fair and Tangdao, also an active doer diving into AI himself. Koji on Jike, A self-introduction by Koji

👧🏻 Host Ronghui: Works at a tech VC, former Silicon Valley correspondent for CBNweekly. Ronghui on Jike

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Inspiration Posters

🎄 This podcast is supported by the Sound Forest Podcast Plan

🎈 Special thanks: Beijing KeyoneStudio for providing recording space

References

[1] Subscribe to "Crossing" on Xiaoyuzhou: https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/podcast/60502e253c92d4f62c2a9577

[2] Koji on Jike: https://okjk.co/0JSUes

[3] A self-introduction by Koji: https://www.notion.so/About-Koji-415843ab8db74235b98f8b1f67da1930?pvs=21

[4] Ronghui on Jike: https://okjk.co/0cbnYV