内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/chinese-ai-researchers-are-finding-their-voice-on-x/

内容总结：

硅谷流传的主流叙事是，像Kimi K3和DeepSeek R1这样的中国AI模型似乎是凭空出现的。但事实上，即使你从未踏足中国，也有一个简单的方法可以了解中国AI研究者的动态：登录X平台。

过去一年里，我注意到越来越多的中国人工智能研究者入驻X，并积极参与有关AI发展和商业化的全球讨论。以Kimi K3背后的公司月之暗面（Moonshot AI）为例。周四，我很快就在X上找到了约30个账号，账号主人声称目前在月之暗面工作，其中包括该公司的两位联合创始人，以及六名前员工和合作者。这些并非“僵尸账号”：他们会讨论月之暗面的重大发布和阶段性研究论文，与西方研究者交朋友，并分享个人生活和兴趣爱好。

月之暗面可以说是X上最活跃的中国AI实验室，但你也能轻松找到其他领先中国初创公司的高管和技术人员，比如MiniMax和零一万物（Z.ai）。甚至连DeepSeek的一些员工——据报道他们因政府没收护照而无法离开中国——也会定期在X上发布最新AI新闻并分享招聘信息以招揽人才。

初创公司Evolvent AI的联合创始人、曾在月之暗面参与Kimi K2.5模型开发的实习生孟繁青表示，X是目前AI讨论的“最佳社区”。他说：“X上既有中国观众也有海外观众，推荐算法在展示你所在圈层的内容方面效果很好。”与很难进行严肃技术讨论的中国平台相比，像孟这样的中国研究者表示，他们更愿意把时间花在X上。

孟繁青说，他从2025年年中开始活跃地在X上发帖。年初，DeepSeek的R1模型在全球走红，让中国AI产业备受瞩目。许多中国研究者抓住时机，加入X并开始分享自己的观点。孟说：“大约在那时，所有的中国研究者都开始考虑在国际层面打造个人品牌。”

独立AI分析师、前Hugging Face研究员王铁震表示，中国AI研究者可能也在填补OpenAI和Anthropic研究者留下的空缺，后者的雇主已成长为巨头公司，他们本人也越来越不愿意在网上分享想法。“我猜他们觉得自己的模型架构和训练方式算是某种秘密，所以发帖少了，”王解释说。结果，中国研究者获得了更多X用户的关注，这些用户渴望理解快速变化的AI世界正在发生什么。

为何选择X？

X在中国AI研究者中流行的一个原因可能是，中国国内没有一个类似的高质量社交平台，可供人们进行关于AI和其他新兴技术的严肃技术讨论。

一些人表示，他们以前在知乎上发帖。知乎曾被定位为受过教育的专业人士展示自我、分享观点的首选平台，但自2020年以来，知乎越来越偏向小说内容，专家贡献者逐渐流失。例如，今年获得菲尔兹奖的中国数学家邓宇在2018年曾在知乎上公开表示，由于低质量内容增多，他决定停止在该网站发帖。

另一个在中国年轻、城市和受教育阶层中越来越受欢迎的社交平台是小红书。一些初级AI研究者最近在小红书上开设了账号，分享工作细节，但那里的读者群体在技术专业性上不如X上的用户。

三月，月之暗面发表了一篇新研究论文，在中国和西方社交媒体上都引起了轰动，甚至获得了埃隆·马斯克的称赞。但一位要求匿名的月之暗面现任研究员表示，“知乎和小红书上几乎所有人都在谈论作者的背景和年龄——其中一位只有17岁——以及他们的父母是谁，我觉得这些内容非常肤浅和八卦。”“反而是外国读者真正讨论了技术细节并称赞其突破。”他说，知乎上的读者也往往更刻薄，而且该平台上的AI垃圾内容比X多得多。月之暗面没有立即回应置评请求。

这些中国新用户总体上受到了X上西方AI公司学者和研究员的热烈欢迎，其中许多人一直渴望获得关于中国AI实验室的直接信息。“在他们都来X之前，我们已经看到很多有影响力的研究者把中文AI博客翻译成英文，”王说。他提到苏剑林是一位备受尊敬的研究员，他有一个活跃的中文博客记录自己的思考，是西方AI社区渴望的声音。如今，苏剑林在月之暗面工作，也有一个公开的X账号。

其他激励因素

除了参与公开讨论的愿望外，中国AI公司还发现X是宣传自身和产品的有效平台。“X是流量和曝光度最高的平台。在某种程度上，AI行业现在就像金融行业；每个人和公司都需要自己的品牌，”孟说。

当AI研究者成为社交媒体上的小名人的时候，这也有助于提升他们雇主的形象。王说，他曾在2025年一次为月之暗面提供的一次性咨询中，建议该公司推动更多研究者走向社交媒体前台。当一家初创公司发布新模型或论文时，“比起官方公告，人们更想看到他们个人想发布什么，”王说，“这肯定有助于他们收集更多受众反馈。他们还可以与其他研究者交流，并可能促成一些合作。”

月之暗面已经证明它拥有大量富有魅力的个性人物。中国媒体经常将其描述为内部文化最有趣、最活跃的AI实验室之一，其CEO办公室里贴满了摇滚乐海报和其他纪念品，彰显他对摇滚乐的热爱。公司的中文名“月之暗面”字面上就来自于平克·弗洛伊德的专辑《月之暗面》。

王说，让中国AI研究者在X上用自己的话解释他们的工作，对美国来说是净收益，因为这减少了对中国AI实验室所做工作的盲目猜测。“关于中国在做什么，人们有很多错误的臆想。现在，X是他们更好了解中国的一扇门。”

中文翻译：

硅谷的主流叙事是，像Kimi K3和DeepSeek R1这样的中国人工智能模型是横空出世的。但事实是，即使你从未去过中国，也有一个简单的方法可以了解中国人工智能研究人员在做什么：登录X。

在过去一年里，我看到越来越多的中国人工智能研究人员加入X，参与关于人工智能发展和商业化的广泛讨论。以Kimi K3背后的公司月之暗面为例。周四，我很快在X上找到了大约30个账号，运营者自称目前隶属于月之暗面，其中包括该初创公司的两位联合创始人，以及六位前员工和合作者。而且这些并不是沉寂账号：他们会谈论月之暗面的重大发布和增量研究论文，与西方研究人员交朋友，并分享个人生活和爱好的细节。

月之暗面可以说是X上最活跃的中国人工智能实验室，但你也很容易找到其他领先中国初创公司的高管和技术人员，比如MiniMax和阶跃星辰。甚至DeepSeek的几位员工——据报道他们因政府没收护照而无法离开中国——也会定期在X上发布最新人工智能新闻，并分享招聘信息以招募新人才。

“X是目前人工智能讨论的最佳社区，”初创公司Evolvent AI的联合创始人、曾在月之暗面实习并参与Kimi K2.5模型工作的孟凡清表示。“这里有中国和海外受众，推荐算法在向你展示你所处圈子的内容方面也做得很好，”他说。与中国平台上往往难以进行严肃技术讨论的情况相比，像孟这样的中国研究人员表示，他们宁愿把时间花在X上。

孟说，他在2025年年中开始积极在X上发帖。年初，DeepSeek的R1模型在全球走红，将中国的AI产业置于聚光灯下。许多中国研究人员抓住了这一时机，加入X开始分享他们的观点。“大约在那个时候，所有中国研究人员都开始考虑在国际层面打造个人品牌，”孟说。

中国人工智能研究人员可能也在帮助填补OpenAI和Anthropic研究人员留下的日益扩大的空白，独立人工智能分析师、前Hugging Face研究员王铁震表示，随着他们的雇主成长为巨头公司，这些研究人员越来越不愿意在网上分享他们的想法。“我猜他们觉得自己的模型架构和训练方式算是机密，所以他们发帖变少了，”王解释道。因此，中国研究人员获得了更多X上那些渴望理解快速发展的AI世界动态的受众的关注。

为什么选择X？

X在中国人工智能研究人员中受欢迎的一个原因可能是，中国确实没有一个类似的社交平台，可以用于AI和其他新兴技术的高质量技术讨论。

有些人说他们以前在知乎上发帖，这是一个类似Quora的平台，曾将自己定位为受过教育的专业人士展示和分享的首选目的地。但自2020年以来，知乎日益转向承载小说内容，专家贡献者逐渐流失。例如，今年获得菲尔兹奖的中国数学家邓宇，曾于2018年在知乎上公开发文，表示由于低质量内容的增多，他决定停止在该网站发帖。

小红书是另一个在中国年轻、城市和受过教育人群中越来越受欢迎的社交平台。一些初级AI研究人员最近在小红书上开设了账号，分享他们工作的细节，但受众的技术水平不如他们在X上可能找到的受众。

三月，月之暗面发布了一篇新研究论文，在中西方社交媒体上都引起了不小的轰动，甚至获得了埃隆·马斯克的称赞。但“知乎和小红书上几乎所有人都在谈论作者的背景和年龄——其中一位只有17岁——以及他们的父母是谁，我觉得这些非常肤浅和八卦，”月之暗面的一位现任研究员说，他因未获授权对媒体发言而要求匿名。“是外国读者真正讨论了技术细节并称赞其突破。”他说知乎上的读者也倾向于更刻薄，该平台上的AI垃圾内容也比X多。

月之暗面未立即回应置评请求。

中国新来者普遍受到了已经在X上的西方AI公司学者和研究人员的热情欢迎，其中许多人一直渴望获得关于中国AI实验室的直接信息。“在他们都来到X之前，我们已经看到许多有影响力的研究人员将中文AI博客翻译成英文，”王说。他提到苏剑林，一位备受尊敬的AI研究员，他保持着一个活跃的中文博客记录自己的想法，作为西方AI社区渴望的那种声音的例子。现在，苏剑林在月之暗面工作，也有一个公开的X账号。

其他激励因素

除了参与开放讨论的愿望之外，中国AI公司还发现X是营销自身和产品的有效场所。“X是流量和曝光度最高的平台。在某种程度上，AI行业现在就像金融行业一样运作；每个人和公司都需要自己的品牌形象，”孟说。

当AI研究人员成为社交媒体上的小名人时，这也有助于提升他们雇主的形象。王表示，他在2025年为该公司进行的一次一次性咨询中，曾亲自建议月之暗面将其更多研究人员推到社交媒体前台。当一家初创公司发布新模型或论文时，“看到他们作为个人想发布什么，比官方公告更有趣，”王说，“这肯定有助于他们从受众那里收集更多反馈。他们还可以与其他研究人员交谈，并可能促成一些合作。”

月之暗面已经证明了它拥有充足的有魅力的个性人物。该公司在中国媒体上常被描述为内部文化最有趣的AI实验室之一，其CEO办公室里贴满了乐队海报和其他纪念品，以表达他对摇滚乐的热爱。公司的中文名“月之暗面”字面上就来自平克·弗洛伊德的专辑《月之暗面》。

王说，让中国AI研究人员在X上用自己的话解释他们的工作，对美国来说是一个净收益，因为这减少了对中国AI实验室在做什么进行盲目猜测的需求。“人们对中国在做什么有很多错误的臆想。而现在，X是他们更好地了解中国的大门，”王说。

这是杨泽远和Louise Matsakis《中国制造》通讯的一期。点击此处阅读往期通讯。

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英文来源：

The prevailing narrative in Silicon Valley is that Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 and DeepSeek R1 came out of nowhere. But the truth is that even if you never travel to China, there’s an easy way to get a sense of what Chinese AI researchers are up to: log on to X.
In the past year, I’ve seen a steady increase of Chinese artificial intelligence researchers joining X and participating in the wider discourse about AI development and commercialization. Take Moonshot AI, the company behind Kimi K3, as an example. On Thursday, I was able to quickly find around 30 accounts on X run by people who claim to be currently affiliated with Moonshot, including two of the startup’s cofounders, as well as half a dozen former employees and collaborators. And these are not dormant accounts: They talk about Moonshot’s big releases and incremental research papers, make friends with Western researchers, and share details about their personal life and hobbies.
Moonshot is arguably the Chinese AI lab that’s most active on X, but you will easily find executives and technical staff from other leading Chinese startups, like Minimax and Z.ai. Even several employees at DeepSeek, who reportedly are unable to leave China because the government confiscated their passports, regularly post on X about the latest AI news and share job listings to recruit new talent.
“X is the best community” for AI discussions right now, says Meng Fanqing, cofounder of the startup Evolvent AI and a former intern at Moonshot, where he worked on the Kimi K2.5 model. “There are both Chinese and overseas audiences, and the recommendation algorithm works pretty well for showing you content in the same circle that you are in,” he says. Compared with Chinese platforms, where it’s often hard to have serious technical discussions, Chinese researchers like Meng say they would rather spend their time on X.
Meng says he started actively posting on X in mid-2025. At the start of the year, DeepSeek’s R1 model went viral around the world, shining a bright spotlight on China’s AI industry. Many Chinese researchers seized the moment and joined X to start sharing their perspective. “Around that time, all the Chinese researchers are starting to think about branding on an international level,” Meng says.
Chinese AI researchers may also be helping fill a growing gap left by researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic, who have become more reluctant to share their thinking online as their employers have grown into behemoth companies, says Tiezhen Wang, an independent AI analyst and former researcher at Hugging Face. “I guess they feel that their model architecture and how they train the model is kind of a secret, so they're posting less,” Wang explains. As a result, Chinese researchers are getting more attention from audiences on X who are hungry to make sense of what’s happening in the fast-moving world of AI.
Why Choose X?
One reason X may have become popular among Chinese AI researchers is that there’s not really a comparable social platform in China for high-quality technical discussions about AI and other emerging technologies.
Some people say they used to post on Zhihu, a Quora-like platform that once branded itself as the premier destination for educated professionals to show and tell. But since 2020, Zhihu has increasingly pivoted to hosting fiction content, and expert contributors have gradually fallen off. For example, Deng Yu, a Chinese mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal this year, publicly wrote on Zhihu in 2018 that he decided to stop posting on the site due to the rise of low-quality content.
Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, is another social platform that has become increasingly popular among the young, urban, and educated classes in China. Some junior AI researchers have opened accounts on Xiaohongshu recently and use them to share details about their work, but the audience is less technical than what they might find on X.
When Moonshot published a new research paper in March, it caused quite a stir on both Chinese and Western social media, even attracting praise from Elon Musk. But “almost everyone on Zhihu and Xiaohongshu were talking about the background and age of the authors—one of them is only 17—and who their parents are, things that I find very superficial and gossipy,” says a current researcher at Moonshot who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. “It was the foreign readers who actually discussed technical details and praised its breakthroughs.” He says readers on Zhihu also tend to be more mean-spirited, and the platform is plagued by higher amounts of AI slop than X.
Moonshot did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Chinese newcomers have generally received a warm welcome from academics and researchers at Western AI companies who were already on X, many of whom have been eager for direct information about Chinese AI labs. “Before they all came to X, we already saw a lot of influential researchers translating Chinese [AI] blogs into English,” says Wang. He points to Su Jianlin, a well-respected AI researcher who keeps an active blog in Chinese documenting his thoughts, as an example of the kind of voices that Western AI communities crave. Now, Su is working for Moonshot and has a public X account, too.
Other Incentives
Beyond the desire to participate in open discussions, Chinese AI companies are also finding that X is an effective place to market themselves and their products. “X is the platform with the highest traffic and exposure. To some extent, the AI industry works just like the finance industry now; each individual and company needs their own branding,” says Meng.
When AI researchers become minor social media celebrities, that helps boost the profile of their employers too. Wang says he personally advised Moonshot during a one-off consultation session for the company in 2025 to push more of its researchers to the front on social media. When a startup releases a new model or paper, “it’s more interesting to see what they as a person want to post, instead of the official announcement,” Wang says, “And this would definitely help them gather more feedback from the audience. And they can talk to other researchers and potentially trigger some collaboration.”
Moonshot has already proven that it has an ample supply of charismatic personalities. The company is often described in Chinese media as one of the AI labs with the most interesting internal cultures, where the CEO plastered his office with band posters and other souvenirs celebrating his love for rock music. The Chinese name of the company, 月之暗面, literally comes from Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of the Moon.
Having Chinese AI researchers explain their work in their own words on X is a net benefit for the United States, Wang says, because it reduces the need for blind speculation about what Chinese AI labs are doing. “People have a lot of wrong hallucinations about what China is doing. And now, X is the door for them to better understand China,” Wang says.
This is an edition of Zeyi Yang and Louise Matsakis’ Made in China newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.
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