Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable. You're listening to Roundtable.
With myself, young, I'm joined by Yushan and Steve Haberley.
Coming up, we share with you what brought us cheer to light this week.
Join us for a dose of positivity, laughter, and all things that make our hearts sing.
In Roundtable's happy place, your voice matters and it would be great to hear it and our heart to heart segment got a question, something you're itching to share.
Fire up that voice memo and hit us up at eZFM, Roundtable at FoxMail.com.
And we're stepping into the future of beauty pageants with Miss AI, a competition where over 1500 AI models vie for the crown.
Supporters say it's a celebration of technological marvels, while critics argue it perpetuates unrealistic beauty standards.
Is Miss AI a glimpse into the future or a digital detour?
Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcast.
Now welcome to the happiest corner on the airwaves, Roundtable's Happy Place.
Delivery, delivery, delivery.
What is it? Happyness from Roundtable.
So what do you have for a Steve?
My happy place this week is studying Chinese.
Wonderful. Wow. I'm having so much fun.
You know, I really believe that one of the things that we as human beings have that's only hours and hours alone is the ability to learn new things whenever we want.
Right? It's our right. Education is our right.
I really enjoy that. And I lived in Korea for a long time and I learned to speak Korean to a certain degree.
I grew up in Canada learning French as a second language in school.
And now here I am. And I'm in China and I'm excited to say that I've started studying a little bit and I'm having so much fun doing it.
That's fantastic. And you know, there's another show called Takeaway Chinese.
That's beyond my ability.
I know. I talked to Honglin already about it and I'm like, your show is too hard for me ever.
I'll get there in maybe one year.
I'm starting with like the basics, basics, basics, basics.
Oh great. And would it be too much pressure if I check on your progress from time to time?
You can check on it right now.
Lunch time, chuffan. Chuffan.
Right? That's eating in general.
Exactly. Okay. After the show, choba.
What was that? Is that...
Let's go. Oh, so that's...
Yes. Okay. How about if we're eating, how chuma?
Oh, that's cool. How chuma, yeah.
If I don't like it, boo how choo.
Oh. I don't like it very much.
You know, all these like, a jiao sheng, how good morning.
So all these little phrases, all these little words on picking up right now.
I'm enjoying learning about how Chinese is different from English and Korean as well.
You know, Chinese from what I've learned from the podcast I'm listening to, it's a very musical language.
And the tones, the one, two, three, four tones, it's like the most important thing.
So you have to get the tones right, because if you don't, then people wouldn't misunderstand you or sometimes you'll be saying a totally different word.
All of this is new information to me and I'm loving it.
This is definitely my happy place.
That's fantastic. And also, there's a fifth tone and elusive fifth tone as well.
Maybe that's a later episode that I haven't gotten to yet.
It's the tone without a tone and then without the intonation little mark thing.
So that's a fifth tone now, isn't it?
Oh, even you did a note. No, I only learned four in school.
There's one without any sign.
And then that's like a different tone.
And also with every tone of very every pronunciation, there could be like a million Chinese characters that corresponds to that.
Yeah. So it is a difficult one.
But there's also, you know, the fun and practical side of it.
And this is how I'm spending my mornings on the subway now before I get on the very busy train.
I load up the episode and press play and it's in my ears for the 40 minutes that I'm on the train.
And it just passes the time so happily for me this morning.
One of the cool things I learned as well is that, and please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm only sharing information that I learned like three days ago is that most Chinese words have either one or two or three or four syllables.
There's not a lot of five or six syllable words.
So that's why the tones are important with the vocabulary as well.
This is according to what my teacher said.
Okay. I've learned it from the Chinese perspective.
So I didn't think there are that many syllables.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Five syllables.
That's what the point was is that there's not a lot in five or six.
No. No. So it's either one or two syllables or three syllables or four syllables.
That's where most of the language exists according to what I learned.
Interesting. And this also shows a fascinating side of language that you know I'm used to approaching it as a Chinese person.
But you approach it from a Canadian slash South Korean perspective.
And then it's a different light.
And that just reminds me of how rich the world of language is.
And how rich culture is in general.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So thank you very much for inviting us to your happy place.
Steve. And what about you, Yushan?
Well, my happy place is that I was able to revisit on the book that I once read while I was in college.
Yeah. It's just, it feels so refreshing now that I'm starting to read it again.
So I started a few days ago and I'm just hitting maybe one third of this book for now.
But the name of that book is what I wish I knew when I was 20.
A crash course on making your place in the world.
So it sounds like it's a book written for the young people.
But to me now that I'm revisiting on the contents, I feel like it's really applying to all scenarios to old age groups.
Whether you're trying to face this society as a new newly grown adult or that you've experienced things.
But you're still facing all the uncertainties in life.
This book is for you. So well, it is a book that aims to inspire readers all over the globe to reimagine their future and get prepared for major life transitions, such as leaving the protected environment of a school or starting a new career or moving to a new country as Steve just does.
Or just awesome areas. And you know, just get prepared because sometimes it is scary for us to face a wall of choices knowing that no one is going to tell us what to do or how to achieve success or how to make the right decisions.
And for some, it even troubles them to just figure out how or where to start.
So this book is here to not enlighten, but rather inspire you to take the chances and grab risks or simply accept the fact that there's risks in doing anything.
And luck is just in the wind and you can just grab it by trying to embrace all possible new opportunities without overthinking on how this is going to turn out.
Oh, that's how I've lived my life up until now.
Yeah, you know, when you think about life, I think everything you mentioned in there is right.
One of the favorite quotes that I ever heard from a movie was something along these lines.
Life is harder than you think it will be and you will never get the help that you actually need.
And that kind of goes along with what you were saying is that all these decisions in life you have to make by yourself, you'll have your parents or your friends to help guide you.
But ultimately your decisions are your decisions and sometimes they're the right ones and hopefully those right decisions outnumber the wrong decisions.
But if we look at the wrong decisions as learning experiences, then that'll lead us to more right decisions in the future.
I guess is that kind of what one of the themes in the book is?
Yeah. And what I really like about this book echoing with what Steve just mentioned is that the writer called Tina C.Lick is actually a professor at Stanford University.
And in the book, she used a lot of the real examples from her students who are from the projects of her students as stories for the readers to better understand what the approaches, why or how is she like opening the innovative thoughts for her young adult students to really try to grab all our opportunities and give up the burden of trying to success in the first place.
Yeah. And also there are so many versions of success and I would welcome a world where we allow these different definitions of success instead of having that one narrow goal that everybody's racing towards.
And that's just not conducive.
Yeah. I mean, that's one of the problems with any society.
That's one of the problems with social media, right?
You're following what other people's definition of success is.
And you think that's what you're supposed to do when in fact the right answer is just whatever success is to you, then that's what it is to you.
And it doesn't have to mean that to anyone else.
That's easier said than done.
Yes and need. And my happy place this week is after a two year wait, my favorite talk show, Yundrelpide season seven is back on Yoku.
And I guess the English translation of the show title could be round table party is host, Dō Wintou makes it all a worthwhile wait.
And Wintou in my opinion is the best talk show host in China.
He is the ultimate chat, my strobe king of conversation.
And when you say everything in Chinese, I suppose it's just very different from English.
And then the connotations, what the do's and don'ts and what's acceptable and also all that stuff is in a different prey Yameter and he is a master of it.
I just want to say that, you know, with the second episode of the season, it really hit me hard.
I'll admit I cried by ice out.
Oh, really why? Well, the show dove into Alzheimer's and elderly care.
It's a heavy topic. One often we see in articles, but we shy away from discussion openly in the Chinese speaking world.
And perhaps it's too private and maybe too dark.
One of the guests, Professor Hu Yong from Peaking University's School of Journalism and Communication shared his personal journey of caring for his mom with dementia.
His heart breaking in three years, she lost her memory and even basic bodily control.
And he has been caring for her at home, honoring her lucid insistence against being sent to a facility.
Professor Hu, while struggling says that he will persist as long as he could manage and he had something that really stuck with me.
Here it goes. Life begins and ends with basic bodily functions.
And that's just the raw truth.
No need to sugarcoat it.
But in Chinese culture and in our public discussion, we don't do that.
And now get this. Professor Hu received an avalanche of comments after his journal of caring for his mom went viral.
A significant portion suggested that as a professor, he should be putting his time, quote unquote, to better use than caring for his mother with dementia.
It's so strange how we view aging in our culture, where we'll move mountains for our kids.
But when it comes to our elders, we don't see a similar level of devotion in a positive light.
Part of this stems from the perception that raising kids is about tending to the future.
While caring for the elderly represents staring into the inevitable demise.
We've all heard stories about families torn apart over elderly care.
But here's the thing. We're all going to get old and need care someday.
We're pushing for more open conversations about this on this show.
And it's about how we choose to live and what makes us human, after all.
China has a staggering 10 to 15 million people living with Alzheimer's more than anywhere else in the world.
It's an emotional and financial nightmare for families.
And for those without kids or a partner, I can't even imagine.
Families and individuals are really struggling.
And there doesn't seem to be an obvious solution.
Professor Hu dropped this German saying on that show that really hits home for me.
There is no victories. Only endurance counts.
And that's caregiving in a nutshell.
It's not about winning.
It's about hanging in there for love and dignity.
Whether you're caring for someone or you end up needing care yourself.
It's okay to feel frustrated.
The real strength is in keep going and one day at a time.
So that's your end of life.
My favorite talk show and feel free to visit all seasons.
That is my happy place. That's wonderful.
Coming up, move over Miss World and Miss International.
There's a new queen in town.
And she's not even human.
Join us as we explore Miss AI, the world's first beauty pageant for AI generated models.
Stay tuned. Looking for passion?
How about fiery debate?
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Then tune in to Roundtable.
Where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
Is the hour of Roundtable with myself, huh, young?
I'm joined by Yushan and Steve Haberley in the glittering galaxy of beauty pageants.
Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss International and Miss Earth are considered to be the big four.
Well, there's a new beauty pageant in town called Miss AI, where more than 1,500 non-human contestants fight to become the world's first to hold this title.
Its supporters claim it's an opportunity to flaunt the fascinating ability of the available technology.
As Naysayers, however, will tell you it exacerbates the existing problem of unrealistic beauty standards linked to various stereotypes.
So what is Miss AI and where did this idea come from?
Well, would you like to become Miss AI in the future?
Or you, Yushan, would you like to be?
No, thank you. Well, that's good because you can't because you're real.
This is a really interesting, you know, with all the topics we talk about with AI, right, in medical advancements and things like this or where we can find it in our daily lives, this one kind of popped up and I thought, huh, this is unexpected.
But it's not exactly what we think it is.
So let's learn what it's all about.
This was a contest. It was launched in April of 2023 and it was done by a company called FanView.
If you haven't heard of that, it's a social subscription platform and it was built and designed with leading creators to kind of redefine the standards of how content creators share, how they earn, how they connect with their following.
And this Miss AI was part of the world AI creator awards.
So that this is this small beauty pageant was part of a bigger awards ceremony for FanView.
The first installment was Miss AI.
So that leads me to believe that the second awards will be something different than a yearly beauty pageant.
But yeah, that's exactly what they did.
Like you said, 1500 non human contestants were submitted.
They narrowed it down to 10 finalists overall and then a winner was chosen.
Who's the winner? May I ask?
Well, let's talk about the prizes before I announced who the winner is because we have to build the drama.
The prize is pretty significant though.
First place prize, $13,000 the creator.
And I should say as well that these images are, you can find them on Instagram, right?
And they look like real people and they have personalities and they have, well personalities that are written in their description.
Okay. The audacity. The photos are from various parts of the world.
They talk about what's important to them as real beauty pageant contestants do as well.
So that's who these women, quote, unquote women are.
Anyway, the prizes. $13,000, $5,000 cash prize to first place winner with other things as well, like a mentorship program where that was worth $3,000 and then PR support worth over $5,000.
There was a second place winner that earned $5,000 and then $2,000 to the third place winner.
So again, we're talking about avatars.
So this prize money goes to the creators, the AI creators of these beauty contestants.
All right. How do you find it?
You, Shan? Yeah. I was reading about this news just very recently and what seemed pretty odd to me that, you know, the judges, there were four judges, by the way, and two of the judges are actually avatars.
Yeah, they are. So two real human judges and two avatar judges.
You're absolutely right.
Working together, right?
Yeah, I wonder how that works.
You know, as real person can give scores, which is how this pageant is working like it's a score based evaluation system on the beauty that quote unquote beauty of this contestants.
And then the technology used like how integrated and how sophisticated the technologies are and the social cloud like how how big of an influence that these avatars and making were the fan base.
Huge influence. Two of the judges were avatars like you mentioned, but one was a tena Lopez, who was an international AI creator avatar that avatar had earned over $100,000.
So that for the creators.
Yeah, for the creators.
There was a second there was a second avatar judge as well, Emily Pellegrini and avatar with $100,000 plus in earnings.
This sounds like a joke.
It sounds like something silly that you know somebody came up with on a Friday night and said, oh, let's just do this for fun.
No, this is a real. This is a real thing.
And these avatars make a lot of money for the creators like how well they're used for advertisements.
Right. This is one way that that AI is is changing the world because these influencers human influencers from before advertising companies made a decision not in every case, but in many cases.
You know what? Working with these influencers is really kind of difficult.
They have an attitude problem perhaps or they're difficult to schedule because they're really busy.
When you're dealing with an AI avatar, you don't have to deal with any of those difficulties.
The avatars look real. It looks like a real picture when you look at these pictures online and that's why they become so popular.
But I have a major grain assault for that because as a consumer, I am more or less willing to pay for let's say a human celebrity somebody that aligns with maybe my values or my aesthetics or whatnot in endorsing a product.
But if I know this is some AI as the poster boy or girl for a product, I'm not paying a dime for that unless if I absolutely already love that product to start with because also I'd like to know for these AI contestants are they shown up as just a picture because that sounds like the most underwhelming thing in the world of AI.
We've all been wowed by what AI generative AI can do with all the videos.
And if it's a real I sure say real if it's an AI avatar that can move can talk on a screen and can really show me some of the personality.
Then maybe I would vote for it not like they're asking for my votes right.
But I check the internet the website and apparently one of these contestants next to her picture.
There's a little line XXX advocates for cleaning the ocean.
And that just made me chuckle because now we're talking about okay a picture is advocating for a clean ocean.
It's like the least inspiring and motivating thing I've experienced in quite a while.
The final is the 10 final is from one was from Morocco one from Portugal France India Romania another from France two from Turkey one from Bangladesh and one from Brazil and you're right when you look at their profiles that's one of the things they talk about is what they stand for.
But when it came to the controversy of this story it wasn't necessarily about that although young you make a great point there it's like what you mean what do you mean you stand for your your an avatar.
The thing that people had the biggest problem with was how these women looked all were beautiful but in echoing the problems with real beauty pageants most of them were white most of them were thin had long hair and symmetrical features the stereotypical standards of beauty that we find in the real modeling industry.
And so people were saying the people who were against this were saying this was an opportunity to challenge those standards to maybe take this in a different direction okay great you're having these avatars these women stand for something great right these positive causes around the world why not challenge the typical beauty standards as well that's what the naysayers were saying.
Okay and well I'm one of those naysayers and I'll bring it home I certainly think that you know this might represent a concerning shift in our perception of beauty pushing us further away from embracing real diverse human bodies and these ai generated contestants with their flawless skin.
Oh so jealous and possibly proportion figures to wait to do anything about it and unwavering perfection never going to be able to achieve that it sets an unattainable standard that no living person can hope to match and just the thought that they created all these women in a matter of seconds if not days with still a few clicks on the computer it just makes me feel like so defeated.
Well the positive side of or not the positive side but the people who are supporting this they're saying these beauty standards were already set in place we didn't create them you just reinforce that yeah but what they're saying why is our why is it our responsibility to redefine these beauty standards this is an a remember this is an ai creator awards ceremony they just use the platform of a beauty pageant which I think is a bit of a weird choice it's almost like they're inviting controversy maybe on purpose maybe maybe we can speculate about that but that's what they are saying they are saying it's not our job to redefine beauty standards that's something that the world needs to decide that's already been put in place we're just going along with what's been put in place because remember these are computer programs that are generating these images they're going off the data that's been fed into those programs they're using well it almost sounds to me that they're using this platform as a way to shout out.
To shout out to the world about their like say the AI creators own say stances where their own opinions or their own beliefs in some way borrowing the even sometimes this stereotypical standards on beauty well here I'm holding a picture of a Turkish girls or say a avatar she's not from anywhere I mean I mean this is from like a good I know right but this one oh her name is serene and she is Turkish and the the way the creator put her out there is that she her photos are here are here to showcase her in various male dominated job roles that's something that the creators trying to shout out to the world say girls you can be a pilot you can be say a race car driver you could look all pretty and beautiful and blonde or whatever following all that beauty standards but in the same time doing whatever you want getting that empowerment from places that actually in real life you might not be able to get that's sorry hog washed to me because okay in a real beauty pageant that I'm not an advocate for either but at least you've got this pretty woman who's alive real and has done stuff even if she worked so hard just so that the resume can fit that beauty can up that beauty pageant but at least she did something but with this it's just AI computer generated and then you so easily with the top of a few letters and then you write down oh you advocate for this or that and I'm sorry that is paying just lip service and in outrageous anybody who's actually working on that actually working hard in that regarding area to do something for change if that in rage you this might make you feel a little bit better Hillary Friedman she's a so sociologist and author of a book called here she is the complicated rain of the beauty pageant in America now here's the interesting kind of spin off of what's happened with this AI development as technology has kind of become increasingly entwined with creating their version of an ideal woman the in person or human beauty pageants that sounds like such a weird thing to say the human the human beauty pageants they've responded with a shift towards emphasizing authenticity as opposed to the typical beauty standards so that might be a positive side story to what's happened here oh and by the way you asked me who won and I wanted to say but I wanted to build the drama but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but I'm a but
