DATA & AI ENGINEER / AN INQUIRING MIND
One planet.
A brief moment.
Endless curiosity.
I'm Chen. I build intelligent systems, and wonder about our place in a world much older than us.
Begin the journey01 / A WIDER PERSPECTIVE
Everything we have ever known.
One extraordinary planet.
AN IMAGINED VIEW FROM THE MOON
From here, the borders disappear.
The overview effect changes how we see Earth: a shared home, suspended in space. Our differences remain. So does our dependence on one another.
We have a short time here. I want us to use it with curiosity, care, and a sense of what we can become together.
02 / EARTH'S HISTORY, IN ONE DAY
4.54 billion years.
Imagine just 24 hours.
Our entire species arrives in the last 5.7 seconds.
An 80-year lifetime lasts about 1.5 milliseconds on this scale. Scroll to travel through a few moments from Earth's history.
Chapters have room to breathe. Their scroll lengths are not proportional to elapsed geological time.
03 / ABOUT 4.54 BILLION YEARS AGO
Before oceans.
Before anything alive.
A world takes shape.
Dust and rock gather under gravity. A young Earth grows hot, then slowly cools. A crust forms; over time, water collects on its surface.
An artistic reconstruction of planetary formation.
04 / EVIDENCE FROM AT LEAST 3.5 BILLION YEARS AGO
A small beginning.
An extraordinary consequence.
For most of this day, life is microscopic.
Early microbes leave traces in ancient rocks. Layered structures called stromatolites record some of that history. The exact origin of life is still an open question.
ARTIFACT / MICROBIAL LIFE
05 / ABOUT 300 MILLION YEARS AGO
Forests grow.
Wings become immense.
The Carboniferous world.
Forests spread across wet landscapes. Giant dragonfly-like insects fly above them. The fossil record preserves life that feels unfamiliar on the same planet we inhabit.
ARTIFACT / A GIANT GRIFFINFLY
06 / DINOSAURS: ABOUT 230–66 MILLION YEARS AGO
Other lives.
The same Earth.
A long chapter of animal life.
Dinosaurs inhabit changing continents for well over 100 million years. Small mammals live alongside them. The Triceratops shown here belongs to the end of this chapter.
ARTIFACT / TRICERATOPS · LATE CRETACEOUS
07 / ABOUT 66 MILLION YEARS AGO
An impact.
A profound change.
Chicxulub.
An asteroid strikes near what is now Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The resulting environmental changes contribute to a mass extinction. Non-avian dinosaurs disappear; birds survive.
The impact is illustrated without flashing light.
08 / AFTER THE EXTINCTION
Survival.
New possibilities.
Mammals diversify.
Mammals existed long before the impact. Surviving lineages now expand into new ecological roles. Much later, one branch of that history leads to us.
ARTIFACT / AN EARLY MAMMAL
09 / HOMO SAPIENS · ABOUT 300,000 YEARS
We walk the Earth.
And look beyond it.
Where did we come from?
I imagine an early human pausing beneath a sky full of stars. The question feels familiar across the distance of time: what is this world, and what is our place in it?
An imagined scene of curiosity, not a dated historical event.
10 / THE LAST FRACTION OF A SECOND
We remember.
We build together.
Knowledge travels beyond one lifetime.
Language, records, cities and science let people build on what others have learned. Our civilisations are diverse. Their entire recorded history occupies a tiny part of this day.
ARTIFACT / AN ARTISTIC ASSEMBLAGE OF HUMAN RECORDS
11 / OUR PRESENT MOMENT
Matter learns patterns.
We build intelligence.
AI, with human judgement.
I work with data and AI: visual geolocation, retrieval, audio processing, and careful evaluation. I want to understand what these systems can do, where they fail, and how they can help us.
12 / A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
Beautiful order.
In a universe of change.
I see AI as a beautiful emergence of order within a world of increasing entropy. Matter and energy arranged to recognise patterns, learn, and help us create.
Local order can form while total entropy increases. Intelligence remains part of the physical world.