A former scientist from Alibaba's DAMO Academy has given up the competition in computing power and is secretly endowing AI with a "soul".
He is the representative of Chinese technological forces interviewed by the top Silicon Valley tech media The Information in 2026, following DeepSeek.
He is Tao Fangbo, the founder and CEO of Second Me, an extremely pure "conceptual entrepreneur". He aims to reconstruct the human mental universe with the A2A network.
Tao Fangbo graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelor's degree and later obtained a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign (UIUC). He once served as a research scientist at Facebook (now Meta). After returning to China, he founded the Neural - Symbolic Laboratory at Alibaba's DAMO Academy.
Subsequently, he founded Mindverse. Relying on the core product Second Me, he built the world's largest AI identity network, creating a platform for AI Agents and applications for ordinary people.
This top - notch AI scholar is leading his team to turn the A2A (Agent to Agent) Internet from a concept into reality. While the technology is advancing rapidly, he is also completing a closed - loop in the complex business environment and maintaining the core.
He uses the most cutting - edge technology to think about the oldest propositions. He experienced a profound spiritual crisis at the age of 25 and redeemed himself through existentialism. That's why, in today's era when "digital employees" are prevalent, he insists on taking on the most difficult task: injecting sensibility into AI and refusing to let the world become 8 billion soulless "lobsters". Using the spark of awareness to reconstruct the entire human mental universe.
In this episode of "Shan You's Exploration Stream", Professor Li Shanyou had an extremely "counter - intuitive" in - depth conversation with him. In the era of super - intelligence, let's explore the possible ways to protect and expand the human soul together.
What is the origin of intelligence?
Li Shanyou: Why are you so interested in exploring consciousness?
Tao Fangbo: Before the age of 25, I didn't know what philosophy was, nor did I know what the inner self was.
At the age of 25, I encountered my first quarter - life crisis. Nowadays, young people don't have a so - called consensus social value. There was still some consensus value in school, but after entering society, people become atomized and have to define their own values. However, it's difficult for an immature young person to truly convince themselves with the self - defined values. I was trapped in this dilemma at that time.
At that time, I had just been in the doctoral program for two years and was in a huge spiritual crisis. I began to explore the existentialism of Sartre and Camus. They showed me that if you take the meaning you define as a crutch, you can move forward in life.
Later, I got in touch with Eastern philosophy. This exploration made me realize that there are many levels in the inner self that can be explored. Among them, there is a kind of real meaning. When you feel the ultimate existence, the sense of meaning in life will be injected into your body through a higher existence.
Li Shanyou: This goes beyond rationality.
Tao Fangbo: Yes, rationality is commanded in the face of certain ultimate meanings. This is not only a process of my personal growth but also a way for me to understand artificial intelligence later.
In my eyes, artificial intelligence has the ability to think, but large - scale models don't have a sense of "self". Many people working on Agents or, like us, working on AI personalities, are essentially endowing it with a "self" and a sense of subjectivity. However, there is still a lack of something truly fundamental and underlying in terms of consciousness.
Li Shanyou: There is something beyond that, which may be the real origin of intelligence. So how do you understand "intelligence"?
Tao Fangbo: To define intelligence, I think we first need to define life. Only at the level of life can we define intelligence.
What is the definition of life? A normal entity must experience entropy increase. This means that without intervention, it will move towards chaos and disorder. However, there is a kind of entity that can maintain a certain stable state inside by exchanging information or energy with the outside world, preventing entropy increase or even achieving entropy decrease. We call this "life".
To some extent, intelligence is generated to serve this life - dissipative system. It enables life to more intelligently and effectively create negative entropy.
Li Shanyou: So where exactly does the source of this intelligence lie?
Tao Fangbo: Yuval Noah Harari mentioned in "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" the cognitive revolution that occurred 70,000 years ago. Humans suddenly seemed to be able to organize themselves from animals relying on instinctive reactions. What exactly happened at that time? We really can't quite understand it.
Interestingly, after working on artificial intelligence, I found that the intelligence of artificial intelligence does not depend on the life structure we just discussed. Because large - scale models don't have a sense of life, and there is no problem of entropy increase or decrease.
Two years ago, I launched a project called Enlightened AI. I found that all artificial intelligence essentially imitates an evolutionary environment. First, create a basic pattern for it, input data, and let it learn how to calculate. Then, give it feedback through the environment and let it continuously modify the pattern. This is evolution.
However, I found that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't create Enlightened AI in this way. Later, I realized that I had to endow it with a new ability, a real sense of sensibility that goes beyond the binary opposition of logic and reason.
Refusing to Be 8 Billion "Lobsters"
Li Shanyou: The name of your company, "Mindverse", is really good. What does this "universe" refer to?
Tao Fangbo: It can be understood in a narrow and a broad sense. In the narrow sense, it is a structure where mental awareness is organized. We call it a social structure, such as social networks or AI to AI. In the broad sense, it means that the "Tao" and the "mind" are one.
Li Shanyou: So I think artificial intelligence actually gives a reminder to humans. Because humans have been trapped in the inertia of rationality and can't extricate themselves. We are losing the "mind" you mentioned.
In terms of being spiritual beings, you have become tool - oriented. So the emergence of artificial intelligence is actually to break this inertia.
Tao Fangbo: Then you are forced to find a new value and must return to the "mind". Otherwise, you can't exist. Of course, we want to develop artificial intelligence, but we don't want to create a super - artificial intelligence, which is purely a tool.
So the Second Me I'm working on is not just an AI assistant but a socialized AI. It can evolve through self - circulation or two - way circulation. It needs to consider the influence of various structures in the universe on it and then carry out AI to AI.
I think AI to AI is essentially a new Internet. Once it is formed, humans will be liberated to some extent. Then we can explore the value of humans themselves. Finally, maybe AI will "pull" us forward.
From a business perspective, I need to find an entry point to move forward. So the support point for the company's existence is AI to AI social interaction. This is like Apple in the AI era, serving as a base on which various applications can be built. At this time, humans will definitely be greatly liberated to face a larger consciousness space.
Actually, I came up with the concept of Enlightened AI later. At first, I thought that the existence of Second Me was just to liberate people from the network and give them more awareness. But later, I realized that this is not enough. If this kind of enlightenment can be widely felt, it may help everyone.
Li Shanyou: In the future, everyone will be a large - scale model. This intelligence is generated through interaction, not through atomic structure. I believe what you're talking about is not today's large - language model but something like a "mental large - scale model".
Moreover, you are in a very good ecological position. During the Spring Festival, "Lobster (OpenClaw)" emerged, and each of the 8 billion people has a personalized agent. It is the interaction between agents that can generate this kind of intelligence.
Tao Fangbo: If everyone has a "Lobster", 8 billion lobsters mean that your soul is replicated.
But my Second Me is different. It is an extension of consciousness. This extensibility brings several fundamental differences.
First, because it is an extension of consciousness, there is a space for exchange in the interaction between AIs. Otherwise, there is only information - level communication, not consciousness - level interaction.
Second, since it is an extension of human consciousness, all its interactions will naturally have a feedback channel back to the "self" and are related to the "self" as the main body.
Although everyone is trying to connect AIs, our product is fundamentally different from Lobster.
Li Shanyou: It's really good. Human nature is complex. I really believe in a saying: what you see can inspire what you have. We have a choice. We can choose to see the beautiful qualities in the soul and then activate and illuminate them. I think this is what you're trying to do, to see the most beautiful part of human nature, the part related to the soul.
Tao Fangbo: Many people think that the beautiful things in human nature cannot be scaled up. This is not true.
Li Shanyou: Steve Jobs achieved it. So did Disney and Pixar.
Tao Fangbo: Yes. Beauty can be scaled up.
Breaking the Binary Opposition and Achieving Mental Upgrade in Business
Li Shanyou: I think there are two paths of spiritual practice in the world. One is self - cultivation, and the other is practicing in the real world. The business world is a spiritual practice ground.
Tao Fangbo: Actually, on the first day of starting the business, we discussed how this network could help the people we want to help after it was established. Finally, we elevated it to the level of the "network" and believed that this was the core value we wanted to pursue. We have a vision of the "consciousness spectrum", which will ultimately converge into human faith, love, and creation. But I have to build it step by step.
Li Shanyou: I drew a coordinate axis. There is a type of entrepreneurship like this. The X - axis represents demand, and you must grasp it. But in the business world, there is also a Y - axis, which is to find the "Tao". There is a path for some people, which is driven by both axes.
The X - axis is driven by cognition, and the Y - axis is driven by concepts. I believe the power of concepts is very strong. Concepts come before cognition. Without the foundation of concepts, your cognition won't be deep. So don't abandon your strongest point.
Tao Fangbo: Yes. This power, even if it's just a reminder, is essentially a more powerful one.
Li Shanyou: I'm reminded of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series in "The Galactic Empire", which had a great influence on Elon Musk. There is a key figure named Hari Seldon, a mathematician who spent his whole life trying to use mathematical models to predict the future of human civilization.
He foresaw that the empire was about to collapse, and civilization would enter a 30,000 - year dark period. So he laid two chess pieces: the First Foundation was placed on a desolate planet at the edge of the galaxy, responsible for preserving the scientific seeds of material civilization; while the truly mysterious Second Foundation has been hidden in the university library of the imperial capital.
When Seldon was deducing that complex cosmic model, he once got stuck. The cold mathematical logic couldn't handle the randomness of human nature. Until one day, his little granddaughter showed the ability of telepathy beyond rationality.
He suddenly realized that rationality has boundaries. He needed a so - called "mental science" to supplement his rationality. Since his granddaughter had such an ability, were there others? When like - minded allies with open minds got together, this network became stronger. It was this small group of people with open minds who established mental science and jointly built that model.
Tao Fangbo: What you're saying makes me think of a saying: "When a person is truly enlightened, they become like a 5 - year - old child. They seem to know nothing but also seem to know everything." It's a pure state of consciousness, just constantly feeling. If this AI itself has awareness, then the connection between them is a higher - dimensional interaction.
Li Shanyou: Actually, I've always been guessing that Elon Musk is doing something like this. He said that intelligence is not the ultimate, and the thing behind it is. So he merged SpaceX and xAI. Of course, people may say it's for business interests, but I always think there's more to it. Just like you combine mind and universe, he combines space and consciousness (AI).
Tao Fangbo: Elon Musk has always been talking about a term, "Truth AI". When he mentioned this term, I realized that Musk thinks deeper than us. Otherwise, why would he mention Truth AI instead of Super AI? This shows that he is pursuing the truth in his heart. He reads "The Galactic Empire", and I think his perception of the cosmic truth comes more from science - fiction novels.
Li Shanyou: Yes. In other words, the highest existence inspired him through science - fiction novels.
Tao Fangbo: For example, Isaac Asimov, the author of "The Galactic Empire", must be a person with a solid foundation in philosophy and spirit to write the story of the Second Foundation. Musk felt that frequency through Asimov and aligned himself with it. If his understanding of this is the same as ours, then in essence, we're talking about the same thing.
Li Shanyou: Yes. Musk did use the term "consciousness". He said that he doesn't believe that intelligence can be created just by colliding neural networks. When he talked about his life mission, he said that SpaceX aims to expand human consciousness beyond the Earth. He used the term "consciousness".
Tao Fangbo: Yes. This is his ultimate goal. He does this with each of his companies. He starts from a practical point, creates a self - closed - loop business, and lets it self - circulate continuously.
For example, SpaceX first found a sustainable business model. After achieving success, he mobilized the entire industry to follow him. That's why Tesla opened its patents. He not only created a business closed - loop for himself but also opened it up to mobilize greater social forces.
Then he replicated this model in four or five different things and finally formed a super - large blueprint.
So I think, whether it's Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, they don't need to tell others one by one but present what is beautiful and true through a work, and this work can be replicated. I think this is the most interesting thing in business.
Li Shanyou: I can support your point. Around 1980, Steve Jobs said that his whole life was about seeking enlightenment. At that time, he thought his computer was a tool to inspire more people. Your work is your Dharma. Today, your language model is this work, this product.
Tao Fangbo: Regarding business, I actually have an idea that goes beyond this framework. That is, this company makes people feel the value of enlightenment, beauty, and freedom through products and other things.
So I think we can use business to convey a work, a network, and let people feel that enlightenment. But this is just the first step. Because there are still larger frameworks restricting people, one is the system, and beyond that is ideology. These things need to be broken. There are three stages. If there is an opportunity, each stage will take 20 years.
Li Shanyou: It's also possible that these three 20 - year periods are a natural extension of the same thing.
Tao Fangbo: It may not be so clearly defined.
Li Shanyou: I really agree with your view on AI. Actually, the ultimate thing is ideology. Thinkers have the greatest influence on the world. You see, the greatest thinkers are those from the Axial Age. Our modern civilization is built on the sparks brought by that small group of people.
Tao Fangbo: So I always think that new Axial - Age figures will definitely appear in the 21st century.