Conversation with Charles Zhang: Amidst the AI Frenzy, Why Pursue 'Anti-Efficiency' Content?
Dialogue with Charles Zhang: In the Era of AI's Sprint, Why Create "Anti-Efficiency" Content
Standing out among China's early internet pioneers, Charles Zhang, founder and CEO of Sohu, maintains a distinct personal identity. He keeps a consistent public presence and embodies traits of high-energy individuals: sleeping only 4-5 hours daily, running 5km or marathons, and hosting frequent offline tech forums and dialogues with Nobel laureates.
He has shifted focus from external business expansion to internal self-reconstruction, adhering to his own pace. "People aren't afraid of being busy; the busier you are, the better your health. Having nothing to do can lead to emotional issues and poor health."
Marking the 10th anniversary of his live-streamed "Charles Zhang's English Class," he recently took it offline for a real-world classroom session. Following this, he discussed the course's decade-long journey, Sohu Video's content ecosystem, and the value of content in the AI era.
**Pen and Mouth Diligence: A Class Against Instant Mastery**
His English class began in August 2016 on "Qianfan Live." He spends about 40 minutes daily preparing, reviewing dozens of news headlines, reading five in detail, and selecting three for the lesson. Over ten years, he has completed over 2000 live sessions totaling more than 110,000 minutes, with over 52 million views.
Initially, the stream was a way to "talk more" and combat emotional struggles. He started by repeating after TV news anchors, then moved to live-streaming with the launch of Qianfan Live. It was 40% for personal emotional regulation ("like a monk chanting sutras"), 30% to deliver authentic news, and 30% to promote the new platform. This daily "ritual" helped him overcome depression, leading to what he calls his "peak life state."
From a product perspective, it was counter-intuitive—launched without prior market research or growth strategies, based on the founder's personal need that resonated with users. Yet, his content creation follows a strict routine. The decade of covering geopolitics, economics, tech, health, and society has built a vast "knowledge compound interest" system.
In an age of AI summaries and algorithmic content, Zhang insists on "hard work": meticulous reading, handwritten notes, and manually created teaching materials, refusing AI-generated content. The English class is now a fixed daily rhythm; preparing for his weekly physics class requires a full day of solitary deduction on a blackboard.
In his live streams, Zhang positions himself as a "content creator," not a CEO or teacher. He sees physics as extreme brain training and English as a "sensor" to understand the world. This explains why a top entrepreneur persists for a decade in seemingly "unprofessional" pursuits—it's the information input and psychological healing method he found during a low point.
It's fundamentally an "anti-efficiency" commitment. He believes the meaning of reading lies in finding community and spiritual support, not just fleeting conversation points. For today's media, he states: "Reading news isn't the goal. As humans with many confusions, we need reference points, to find a group, find kindred spirits, or seek support and spiritual nourishment. Large language models can't satisfy these starting points; they only give you information." This offers solace and a value defense for media professionals impacted by AI summaries.
**"Don't Think Earth Stops Turning Because AI Arrived"**
A content creator expressed anxiety: after feeding their article to AI, it produced a more comprehensive, profound version, making their work feel valueless.
Zhang responded with an analogy: "Carrots from the market, with a bit of soil, not glossy, taste delicious and flavorful. Tomatoes forced by chemical fertilizer have no taste at all." He sees AI giving world content a "plastic feel," but acknowledges its significant role in improving information access efficiency, especially in physics and social science research where he often queries AI for quick professional answers.
The key, Zhang stresses, is that the outside world still needs to guide our perspective. LLMs provide "information," while the outside world offers "viewpoints." He cares deeply about *what* that external viewpoint is and *how* someone thinks about an issue.
"Don't think the Earth stops turning because AI arrived," he analyzes. AI currently replaces rule-based work, noting significant impact on the software industry with many programmers laid off as even less experienced people can now write decent code. However, AI cannot yet replace arts, social sciences, emotions, and creative content. "Hollywood remains thriving, producing great works. Oscars will continue, Nobel Literature Prizes will still be awarded—all by real people, with works conceived by real people."
While wary of AI, Zhang isn't anti-technology and is open to its applications. Sohu itself has launched AI assistants. In Sohu's AI practice, Zhang defines his role as a "large language model corpus provider." He believes LLM training is inseparable from human-original content as its data foundation, so original content retains irreplaceable value.
"The era of self-media indeed offers everyone new ways to discover their strengths and achieve growth." He suggests every young person should consider self-media. Most importantly, the bottom line of content creation should be "authenticity." If using AI avatars, they must be clearly labeled; not doing so and misleading viewers wastes their time, especially when people still prefer real human content.
Behind AI's sprint lie unavoidable realities. As AI quickly provides seemingly perfect answers, people grow accustomed to accepting "summarized" results, omitting processes of questioning, deduction, and trial-and-error, leading to a decline in deep thinking.
Zhang's "anti-efficiency" practice with his two live-streamed classes is his answer to AI's狂奔: In an algorithm-driven era chasing ultimate efficiency, don't expect AI to fill inner voids. Read books, speak in front of a camera, sweat on a running track, and build connections with real people.
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