文 | 人间像素
刚结束不久的福州茶交会上，55岁的肖朝虎和几名二十出头的学生站在福建农林大学展台前。他们是同学，只不过年龄差距较大。一边的笔记本电脑屏幕上，几条曲线不断起伏，显示着传感器捕捉到的茉莉花香气。
这是肖朝虎第二次参加茶交会。上一年，他到展会上学习泡茶；这一次，他带来了自己参与研发的茉莉花茶智能化窨制控制系统。茶交会开幕时，距离他2024年9月到福建农林大学报到，刚刚过去两年。
52岁时，肖朝虎辞去工作，用大约100天跨专业备考，以398分考上茶叶加工方向的硕士研究生。备考时，AI帮他整理十年真题、归纳知识点、模拟出题。读研以后，他又借助AI重新编程，把传感器、机器视觉、数据采集和软件系统串在一起。那个离开一线开发三十多年的程序员，又开始写起了代码。
但如今进入研三后，他最需要解决的问题，已经变成了“毕业以后去哪里”。是继续做科研、进入茶企、回贵州帮助家乡发展茶产业，或者回到熟悉的品牌传播行业，每条路似乎都有现实限制。
53岁时，肖朝虎给自己画了一条新的起跑线。55岁时，他开始准备再找一次工作。
一条逐渐变窄的轨道
肖朝虎上一次走进大学，已经是三十多年前。
1988年，他成为贵州正安县的理科状元。父亲卖掉家里的牛，村里人又一块、两块、三块五块地凑钱，最后，他带着375元来到北京。
填志愿时，肖朝虎原本想读经济管理，觉得那是一个“以后可以当干部”的专业。班主任建议他把刚刚兴起的计算机专业填在第二志愿，学校看到他的高考成绩，将他调进了计算机系。那是中央民族学院招收的第一届计算机专业学生。
家里经济条件有限，班主任和系里老师主动从外面找来文字录入、系统开发等工作，交给学生勤工俭学。肖朝虎用五笔帮人打字，也跟着老师为学校开发管理系统。毕业前，他和同学为外地一家单位做了一套工资管理系统，拿到1440元报酬。那时，他每月的生活补贴只有三十多元。
本科毕业后，肖朝虎做过两年程序员，又考取经济学硕士。1997年，他进入《中国计算机报》当记者。2002年，报社仍在上升期，广告多到需要临时加版，他却判断计算机报纸会最早受到互联网冲击：“我们的读者就坐在电脑前面，他们为什么还要等着看一张报纸？”
他主动离开报社，短暂进入门户网站工作，随后加入一家传播策划公司，一待就是二十多年。他在那家公司从普通员工成长为合伙人，长期服务戴尔、亚马逊云科技等客户。中间，他也曾出去创业，半年后失败，又回到公司。此后很长一段时间，他都以为自己可以在那里工作到70岁。
后来的变化来得缓慢。媒体注意力越来越分散，过去一篇报道迅速覆盖整个行业的传播方式失效了；美国科技公司在中国的业务空间收缩，客户预算和项目也随之减少。肖朝虎仍然亲自写重要稿件、做策划，却越来越难从工作中获得新鲜感。他形容那段时间，眼前的东西“黯淡无光”。
过去几次，他都较早看见旧轨道正在变化，也及时切换轨道。到了五十岁左右，属于他的下一站却迟迟没有出现。
父亲的茶园，带来新念头
让肖朝虎开始考虑另一种生活的，是父亲种下的一片茶园。
父亲67岁那年，县里开始发展茶产业。村里许多人已经外出打工，大片土地荒了下来。老人给几个子女打电话，问要不要种茶。肖朝虎劝他别种，一个人在老家照料不过来，也未必能挣到钱。父亲还是种了，最初只有十几亩，后来又承租了一些邻居家的土地，慢慢增加到四五十亩。
父亲种的是正安白茶，按照加工方式属于绿茶。贵州拥有大面积茶园，许多茶叶却长期以原料形式销往外地，本地品牌和零售能力较弱。父亲守着茶园十几年，种植、采摘都很辛苦，始终很难挣到钱。
2019年春天，父亲突然打来电话。收购商前一天还按每斤100元的价格收购茶青，第二天看到没有其他收购商竞争，价格便降到60元，“爱卖不卖”。父亲不愿意低价卖掉，想请人加工成干茶，让肖朝虎帮忙找销路。
从那以后，每年春天，茶叶成批寄到北京，肖朝虎负责称重、分装、找包装，再在朋友圈里销售。他会花很长时间写一篇公众号文章，最后可能只卖出几斤茶，帮父亲多挣几百元。但他觉得，替父亲卖出几斤亲手种的茶，比直接给老人一万元，更能让父亲感到自己的劳动被看见。
到了2023年，肖朝虎的儿子已经上大学，公司的业务也没有过去那么忙。肖朝虎开始想，如果自己的职业生涯要比原先设想的提前二十年结束，接下来可以做什么。父亲的茶园恰好提供了一个具体方向：重新学习茶叶种植、加工和销售，先帮家里做茶，将来或许还能为家乡的茶产业做些事情。
考研的念头出现在一个凌晨。肖朝虎睡到半夜醒来，突然想到：“我可以考一个茶学研究生。”他马上起床查资料，寻找开设茶学专业的学校，又通过熟人辗转联系导师。他担心即使通过初试，也不确定有没有导师愿意接收一个53岁的学生。得到“欢迎报考”的答复后，他才真正开始准备。
查分那天下午，肖朝虎坐在办公室里。临近查分开始的时间点，他故意去了一趟洗手间，想让等待显得短一些。回来后打开电脑，页面上显示398分。他把成绩告诉同事，办公室里响起一片惊呼。
那一刻，他觉得自己找到了下一条路。
AI和一个新专业
备考时，肖朝虎找到了两门专业课过去十年的真题，有些题没有答案，有些只能在零散材料里寻找线索。按照过去抄写、查找、整理笔记的办法，时间已经不够了。他想起此前用过的ChatGPT，决定把大模型真正用起来。
他让AI将历年真题分类，统计不同知识点出现的频率，再让AI根据题库重新出题。为了防止它凭空编造答案，他把参考书扫描成电子版，建立资料库，要求AI根据指定章节作答；遇到拿不准的内容，再让不同模型回答同一道题，彼此核对。
2024年9月7日，肖朝虎到福建农林大学报到。导师比他的年纪小了近十岁，许多同学的父母也比他年轻。第一次去上课，他觉得自己坐在哪里都显眼，索性挑了第一排。有些老师进教室后会先问：“你们班是不是有一位五十多岁的研究生？”那节课本想坐在后排的他，还是得往前排坐。
第一年评奖学金时，他原本没有报名。他有积蓄，也有其他收入，觉得没有必要和二十多岁的学生争。实验室的同学劝他：“虎哥，这是你该得的。”他最后交了材料，拿到了奖学金。那件事也让他意识到，回到学校以后，年龄可以带来额外的关注，却不能成为降低要求的理由。大家花同样的时间上课、做实验，成绩也应当按照同一套标准计算。
进入实验室后，他开始用AI辅助编程、分析实验资料和整理专利材料。他自己编写茶叶加工在线监测软件、数据采集和模型推理程序，又做出电脑端、大屏端和手机端的不同版本。过去需要程序员协助完成的工作，现在他可以自己往前推进。
过去，制茶师傅要看花形、闻香气，再凭经验决定什么时候让花与茶混合，什么时候进入下一道工序。不同的人对同一句行话往往有不同理解。肖朝虎和导师团队尝试用传感器采集香气数据，用摄像头记录花朵开放状态，将老师傅的感觉变成可以记录、比较和复盘的数据。相关研究已有两项发明专利进入实质审查。
这套系统建立在导师和实验室团队多年研究的基础上。导师团队熟悉茶叶加工、品质调控和装备，肖朝虎则带来计算机、信息技术和AI应用经验。在导师指导和团队共同推进下，他用一年左右将传感器、数据采集、机器视觉、气体感知与软件分析连接起来，并尝试把研究进一步做成可以在生产现场使用的产品。
「茶叶加工在线参数采集系统主要研发人员肖朝虎进行现场演示。摄影/李展颜」
2026年7月，团队把设备带到福建平和县的乌龙茶生产线上，记录做青过程中叶片、香气和环境参数的变化。两个月后，它又出现在福州茶交会的展台上。现阶段，系统仍需与制茶师傅的经验配合，真实场景中的测试会继续暴露问题，也为下一步修改提供数据。
在AI的帮助下，一个离开技术岗位三十多年的人，又能把脑子里的想法做成可以运行的东西。
离开传播公司前，肖朝虎已经很久没有感觉自己的能力还在增长。读研以后，一次实验、一段刚刚跑通的代码，都能让他明确地知道，今天又比昨天多会了一点东西。
简历上的年龄
读研第二年，肖朝虎参加了全国大学生职业生涯规划大赛。继续留在学校的路很窄：以他的年龄，进入高校获得教职几乎没有可能；如果只以学生或项目参与者的身份跟着导师做科研，科研经费能够提供的主要是有限的学生补助。
他希望进入一家茶叶机械或智能化设备企业，继续参与导师的研究，将实验室里的系统带到生产线上。参赛过程中，他开始在招聘网站上搜索茶企和农业科技公司的岗位。茶行业的企业规模都不太大，也没有太多专门从事智能化、品牌传播和数字化工作的岗位。
后来，他又尝试应聘农业企业的品牌总监。工作内容与他过去二十多年的经历接近，他投出简历后，很快收到了拒绝的消息。招聘方没有说明具体原因，他猜测年龄是其中一个重要因素。“你五十多岁还要靠投简历找工作，基本上就很难了。”
家乡也是他考虑过的方向。考上研究生后，他曾回到贵州正安县，在镇上住了五个月，帮当地拍摄短视频、宣传正安白茶。第二年暑假，他又带着学校的实践团队回去调研，走访茶企和相关部门，写成一份产业建议。
当地更希望他直接投资办企业，负责收茶、加工和销售。肖朝虎没有接下这件事。他经历过一次创业失败，也不愿拿养老积蓄承担农业项目的资金风险。他更希望进入一家已有的企业，在其中负责技术、品牌或传播工作。
最近，他开始研究抹茶出口，借助AI整理海外市场、供应链和国内生产企业的信息，建立自己的外贸数据库。他设想为海外买方提供顾问服务，替对方在中国寻找、洽谈和考察供应商，从买方收取服务费。
「茶叶加工智能化在线监测系统现场演示」
他也在考虑另一种路径：先从AI应用、咨询或相关服务中获得收入，再把茶产业作为技术应用和能力提升的场景。用他的话说，这是“羊毛出在猪身上”——如果AI业务能够挣钱，做茶便不必急着在每个项目上获得回报。
职业生涯规划比赛中，肖朝虎获得了校级金奖和省赛铜奖，但并没有因此得到新的工作机会。现在，他和共同学习了两年的同学们一起进入了秋招季，毕业后的去处究竟是哪里，他还在寻找。
他给自己的视频栏目起名叫“虎哥求职记”，准备花一年时间介绍自己、接触企业。
“超级年轻人”
肖朝虎给自己想了一个头衔：“超级年轻人”。
他跑了十几年马拉松，愿意学习新工具，也愿意进入陌生的专业。他觉得，自己已经走过恋爱、养育孩子和到外面看世界的人生阶段，可以把更多精力投入工作。与年轻人相比，他又多了三十年的职业经验。
“假如从大学毕业到现在是三十年，我还可以健康地活二三十年，那不就相当于，前面这条路可以再走一遍？”
他也承认，能这么做的前提条件，不是每个人都有。儿子已经上大学，太太有稳定工作；他有积蓄，缴纳了二十八年社保，暂时没有工资也能维持生活。这些条件让他能够辞去工作，到福建读三年研究生。对还在承担房贷、子女教育和父母养老的人来说，同样的选择很难复制。
我们见面的那天，肖朝虎凌晨五点多起床，先跑了21公里。上午，他录制了一期视频播客；下午坐进茶馆，又连续聊了两个多小时。他刚从福建回到北京，忙着给新装修的房子办理宽带移机，还去街道咨询了灵活就业人员社保相关问题。学生生活和退休准备，在他身上同时发生。
距离毕业还有一年，肖朝虎仍然希望找到一个能够发挥价值的平台。他学了新的专业，掌握了AI工具，也有三十多年的职业经验，用他自己的话说，现在是“一身武艺”，能发挥多少就发挥多少。
但能不能找到这样的平台，已经不是他判断这次选择是否值得的唯一标准。“就算最后没有找到，我对现在的状态也很满意。反正本来就是快退休的人了，哪怕每天闲着跟人吹吹牛，也挺好的。”
读研之后，他最确定的收获并不是一份新的工作，而是重新拥有了学习和创造的快乐。有人退休后打麻将、旅游，他愿意读论文、写程序、研究新的行业。AI又让这种兴趣有了更大的活动范围：过去一个人很难完成的事情，现在他可以先让AI帮助设计方案，再从网上采购部件，自己组装设备、开发软件。
做出一台设备，或者让一个程序真正运行起来，对他来说像完成了一场“高级游戏”。茶叶加工、智能设备、外贸服务，甚至那些他还没有接触过的领域，都可能成为下一场游戏的场景。
53岁考上研究生以后，肖朝虎一直在寻找下一份工作。到了55岁，他仍然希望能够有地方发挥自己的经验和能力。但即使这样的机会没有出现，他也不觉得这三年落了空。
“我通过学习获得了快乐，也掌握了AI这么强大的武器，可以很轻松地进入不同的领域，去做以前做不了的事。”他说，“这本身就是我的退休生活。”
本文由 AI图鉴自动抓取并翻译，版权归原作者所有；如需查看原文请点下方链接。
Man, pixels.
Soon after the Fukuoka Tea Fair, 55-year-old Xiao Hao and some 20-year-old students stood in front of the Fujian Agroforestry University stand. They're classmates, but there's a big age gap. On the laptop screen on one side, several curves were constantly rising, showing the smell of Jasmine captured by the sensor.
This is the second time that Shaw Pilgrim has attended a tea fair. In the previous year, he had been studying tea at the fair; this time, he had brought in the Jasmine Tea Smart Cream Control System which he had been involved in developing. At the opening of the Tea Fair, he reported to Fujian Agroforestry University in September 2024, just two years ago.
At the age of 52, Shaw resigned from his job and took approximately 100 days to prepare for a multidisciplinary examination and took a master ' s degree in tea processing at 398 points. In preparation for the examination, AI helped him to organize 10 years of reality, synthesize knowledge points, and simulate questions. After reading, he reprogrammed with AI, linking sensors, machine vision, data acquisition and software systems. The programmer who left the front line for over 30 years started writing again.
But now that he has come to study III, the problem he needs most has become “where to go after graduation”. There seems to be a real limit on every road to continuing research, entering tea companies, returning to Guizhou to help develop the tea industry, or returning to familiar branding.
At the age of 53, Shaw drew himself a new starting line. At age 55, he began to prepare for another job.
A narrow orbit.
The last time Shaw went to university was more than 30 years ago.
In 1988, he became a scientific member of the Changan County of Guizhou. The father sold his cattle, and the villagers came to Beijing with three, two and five dollars.
When filling out the volunteer service, Xiao Tsai would have wanted to read economic management, which was considered to be a profession “for the future”. The headmaster advised him to fill in the newly emerging computer profession as a second volunteer, and the school saw his high grades and transferred him to the computer department. That was the first computer student admitted to the Central National College.
The family has limited financial means, and school directors and faculty teachers have taken the initiative to find work outside, such as word entry, system development, etc., and leave it to students to study and study. Xiao Tsao typed five times and developed management systems for schools with teachers. Prior to his graduation, he and his classmates had made a payroll management system for a non-resident unit, which was paid $1440. At that time, his monthly subsistence allowance was only thirty.
After graduating from undergraduate studies, Xiao Hao was a two-year programmer and also a Master of Economics. In 1997, he entered the Chinese Computer as a journalist. In 2002, the newspaper was still on the rise, and the number of advertisements was too high to require ad hoc additions, and he judged that computer newspapers were the first to be hit by the Internet: “Our readers are sitting in front of computers, why are they waiting to see a newspaper?”
He volunteered to leave the press, entered the portal for a short time and joined a communications planning company for over 20 years. He grew from an ordinary employee to a partner in that company, serving long-term clients such as Dale and Amazon Cloud Technologies. In the middle, he also went out to start a business, failed six months later and returned to the company. For a long time, he thought he could work there until he was 70.
Later changes were slow. The media ' s attention has become increasingly distracted, and past stories have quickly lost their way of communicating across the entire industry; American science and technology companies have contracted their business space in China, and so have client budgets and projects. It is still difficult to gain a sense of freshness from the work of Xiao Dynasty, who is still writing important articles and planning. He described that period as a period in which what was in front of him was “darkness”.
On several occasions in the past, he had seen earlier changes in the old orbit and had switched it in time. By the age of 50, his next stop was delayed.
Father's teahouse, bringing new ideas. Head
Let Shaw go and think about another life is a tea garden planted by his father.
At the age of 67, the county began to develop the tea industry. Many people in the village have gone out to work and vast areas of land have been abandoned. The elderly called several children and asked if they wanted to grow tea. Shaw urged him to grow something else, and one person could not take care of him at home and might not be able to earn money. The father was still growing, initially just over a dozen acres, and later rented land from his neighbours, slowly increasing to 40 acres.
The father had grown a tea of pure white, which belonged to green tea according to the method of processing. While Guizhou owns large tea parks, many tea leaves have long been sold out of the country in the form of raw materials, with weak local branding and retail capacity. For more than a decade, the father has been guarding the tea park, growing and gathering it has been difficult to earn money.
In the spring of 2019, Father suddenly called. The day before, the collectors also bought tea at a rate of $100 per pound, and the following day they saw no competition from other buyers, and the price fell to $60, which was “no sale”. The father did not wish to sell it at a low price, but wanted to have it processed into dry tea and asked Shaw to help find a way out.
Since then, tea has been sent in batches to Beijing every spring, and Shaw is responsible for weighing, distributing, packing and selling in the circle of friends. It would take him a long time to write an article on WeChat Official Account, which would end up selling only a few pounds of tea to help his father earn hundreds more. He felt, however, that selling his father a few pounds of hand-planted tea would make him feel more visible than giving the elderly $10,000 directly.
By 2023, his son had gone to university, and the company was not as busy as it used to be. Xiao Chao began to wonder what could be done if his career ended 20 years earlier than originally envisaged. The father ' s tea garden provides a concrete direction: re-learning to grow, process and sell tea, first helping home to make tea, and perhaps doing something for the tea industry in the home.
The study was thought of in the morning. Shaw woke up in the middle of the night and suddenly thought, "I can take a tea graduate." He immediately got up and looked for a school for tea science and then approached his mentors through acquaintances. He was concerned that even after the initial test, it was uncertain whether there were any mentors willing to accept a 53-year-old student. It was only after receiving a “welcome examination” response that he really began to prepare.
In the afternoon of that day, Cho was sitting in his office. He went to the bathroom on purpose to make the waiting short. When you get back, turn on the computer and show 398 on the page. He told his colleagues about his achievements and there was an alarm in his office.
At that moment, he felt he had found the next way.
AI and a new profession.
When preparing for the examination, Xiao Chao found the real issues of two professional courses over the past decade, some of which had no answers and others had to look for clues in scattered materials. In accordance with the past practice of copying, searching and compiling notes, time is no longer sufficient. Remembering ChatGPT, he decided to use LLM for real.
He asked AI to classify the real issues of the calendar years, to measure the frequency of the occurrence of different knowledge points, and then to reissue them in the library. In order to prevent it from making up answers in a vacuum, he had scanned the reference book into an electronic version, created a database and asked AI to respond to the assigned chapter; and, in case of incorrect content, allowed different models to answer the same questions and check each other.
On 7 September 2024, Shaw reported to Fujian Agroforestry University. The mentor was nearly 10 years younger than him, and many of his classmates had younger parents. The first time he went to class, he felt that he was sitting in the first row of the row. Some teachers come to class and ask, "Is there a graduate student in his 50s?" The textbook wants to sit in the back, but it has to sit in the front.
He did not sign up for the first year of the award. He had savings and other income and felt there was no need to compete with students in their twenties. The lab students told him, "Hu, this is what you deserve." He finally submitted the materials and received the scholarship. It also made him realize that, upon return to school, age could bring additional attention, but could not be a reason for lowering the requirement. People spend the same time in classes and experiments, and achievements should be calculated according to the same set of criteria.
Upon entering the laboratory, he began to use AI-assisted programming, analysis of experimental information and preparation of proprietary material. He himself prepared on-line monitoring software for tea processing, data collection and model reasoning, and produced different versions of the computer, large screen and mobile phones. In the past, programmers were required to assist with the work, and now he can move forward on his own.
In the past, the tea maker needs to look at the flowers and smell them, and then learn to decide when to mix them with tea and when to enter the next process. Different people often understand the same line differently. The Xiao Chao Tiger and the team tried to collect aromatic data with sensors, record the flower ' s openness with cameras, and turn the teacher ' s feelings into data that can be recorded, compared and repeated. Two patents on inventions have been subject to substantive review in relevant studies.
The system is based on multi-year research by mentors and laboratory teams. The team of mentors is familiar with tea processing, quality control and equipment, while Xiao Dynasty brings computer, information technology and AI application experience. Together with mentors and teams, he linked sensors, data collection, machine vision, gas perception and software analysis for about a year and attempted to further develop research into products that could be used in the field.
"The main developer of the tea processing online parameter collection system, Xiao Chao, gave a live demonstration. Photo/Li Xiang
In July 2026, the team took the equipment to the Ulong tea production line in Fujian Ping County to record changes in leaf blades, aroma and environmental parameters during the green process. Two months later, it appeared at the tea fair in Fukuoka. At this stage, the system still needs to be aligned with the experience of the tea master, and testing in real scenes will continue to expose problems and provide data for next step modifications.
With the help of AI, a man who has left a technical position for more than 30 years can make ideas that work.
Before leaving the communications company, Shaw had not felt that his capabilities were growing for a long time. After reading, an experiment, a code that just ran through, made it clear to him that there was a little more today than yesterday.
Age on curriculum vitae
In the second year of study, Xiao Dynasty Tiger participated in the national university career planning competition. The way to remain in school is very narrow: it is virtually impossible for him, by his age, to enter a higher education institution to obtain a post; if he is followed by a mentor only as a student or as a participant in the project, scientific research funds can provide mainly limited student subsidies.
He wished to enter a tea machine or smart equipment business and to continue to participate in mentor research to bring the laboratory system to the production line. In the course of the competition, he began to search for jobs in tea companies and agritech companies on the recruitment website. The tea industry is small in size and does not have many jobs dedicated to intellectualization, branding and digitization.
Later, he tried to recruit a brand director for agricultural enterprises. The work was close to what he had experienced over the past two decades, and he soon received a rejection after putting out his curriculum vitae. The recruiter did not specify the reasons, and guessed that age was one of the important factors. “You're in your mid-50s looking for a job with a CV, which is basically difficult.”
Home is the way he thought about it. After his post-graduate studies, he returned to Jung-Ahn County, Guizhou, where he lived in town for five months, where he was able to film short video and promote regular tea. During the following summer, he returned with the school ' s practice team to study, visit tea companies and related departments and write an industry proposal.
He is more likely to invest directly in the business and be responsible for tea collection, processing and marketing. Shaw didn't take it. He had experienced a failure in entrepreneurship and was reluctant to use old-age savings to finance agricultural projects. He prefers to enter an existing enterprise where he is responsible for technology, branding or dissemination.
Recently, he began researching tea exports and developing his own database on foreign trade through AI to collate information on overseas markets, supply chains and domestic producers. He envisages providing consultancy services to overseas buyers, finding, negotiating and visiting suppliers for each other in China, and charging the buyer for services.
On-site demonstration of the tea processing intelligent online monitoring system
He is also considering another path: income from AI application, consultancy or related services, followed by the tea industry as a scenario for technology application and capacity enhancement. In his words, this is “shell out on pigs” — if the AI business is able to earn money, making tea does not have to pay off on every project.
During the career planning competition, Xiao Chao received the School Gold Award and the Provincial Copper Prize, but did not receive new jobs as a result. He is now entering the fall season with students who have been studying together for two years, where he will go after graduation and is still looking.
He named his video section “The job search book for Tiger” and intended to spend a year introducing himself to the business.
“Super Young”
Shaw Pilgrim gave himself the title “Super Young People”.
He has spent more than a decade on marathons and is willing to learn new tools and enter strange professions. He felt that he had gone through the life cycle of falling in love, raising children and seeing the world outside, and could devote more energy to work. He has 30 more years of professional experience than young people.
"If I graduate from college to 30 years now, I can live in health. Thirty years, isn't that the equivalent of the road ahead?
He also acknowledged that the preconditions for doing so were not available to everyone. The son has gone to university and his wife has a steady job; he has savings, paid 28 years of social security and is temporarily able to support himself without pay. These conditions allow him to quit his job and study for three years in Fujian. The same choices are difficult to replicate for those who are still taking up mortgages, raising children and raising parents.
The day we met, Shaw Hao got up at more than 5 a.m. and ran 21 km. In the morning, he recorded a video podcast; he sat in the teahouse in the afternoon and talked for more than two hours. He had just returned from Fujian to Beijing, where he was busy moving broadband to newly renovated houses, and had gone to the streets to consult with flexible workers on social security issues. The student lives and prepares to retire, and it happens on him.
One more year before graduation, Xiao Dynasty would still like to find a platform where value can be served. He has learned a new profession, acquired the tools of AI, and has more than 30 years of professional experience, which, in his own words, is now a “mutual skill” to do as much as he can.
But finding such a platform is no longer the only criterion for him to judge whether this choice is worth it. “I am satisfied with the state of affairs, even if it is not found. It's good to be free to brag about it every day.”
After the study, his most determined gain was not a new job, but a return to the joy of learning and creation. Some retired to play mahjong and travel, and he was willing to read papers, write programmes and study new industries. AI has also given this interest a greater scope of activity: a person who was hard to accomplish in the past can now get AI to help design a programme, then buy parts from the Internet, assemble his own equipment and develop software.
Making a device, or making a program really work, is like having completed a “high-level game”. Tea processing, smart equipment, foreign trade services and even those areas that he had not reached could be the scene of the next game.
After the 53-year-old baccalaureate, Shaw Chao has been looking for his next job. By the age of 55, he still hoped to have a place to build on his experience and abilities. But even if such an opportunity had not emerged, he did not feel that those three years had failed.
“I have gained happiness through learning, and I have acquired the power of AI's weapon, and I can easily enter different fields and do things that I couldn't do before.” He said, "This is my retirement.
Auto-fetched and translated by AI Atlas. All rights belong to the original author.