Parallel Channels

Tracy zhao

2794843008@qq.com

I’m exploring the connection between AI creation and human identity. Online, people don’t always appear through a physical body—we often show up through avatars, text, and voice. In that sense, humans and AI can both exist in a kind of “disembodied” form.

My question is: how do we actually tell AI apart from humans? Rather than focusing on bodies, I shift the difference to relationships and consequences. Human expression online is tied to lived history, social bonds, and responsibility; what we say can produce real-world effects. AI can imitate personality and emotion, but it often lacks the same chain of accountability and impact.

My work takes the form of a comparative experiment. I use a fixed face and self-introduction, then generate multiple versions of “personality” and language habits under different platform logics. By keeping the subject constant and changing the constraints, I show how a single “self” can be reshaped into algorithm-friendly human templates—and ask whether AI is simply non-human, or a platform-made state of the human.