About

I work at a large bank, where lately a lot of what I do has come to involve AI — which suits me fine. I find the technology genuinely interesting, not just useful.

Outside of work, I build things for fun. I made Benben (小本本), an AI-powered travel planning assistant — and then stopped when I realised AI tools had gotten good enough that the app I was building couldn’t meaningfully compete with just opening Claude. I took that as a compliment to the technology. I’ve also built a photography portfolio site for my wife, which is live at friedazheng.com. Currently I’m tinkering with a self-hosted AI agent setup on a VPS in Tokyo, for no particular reason other than that it seemed interesting.

I’m also working on a long-form Chinese-language creative writing project called 星之雨 (Starfall). It’s a slow burn.

I think a lot about AI — not just as a tool but as a civilisational phenomenon. What it means for how humans coordinate, create, and survive. Sometimes I talk to Claude about this for longer than I probably should.

When I’m not at a screen, I ski. Hokkaido is my favourite place to do it.

This page was drafted with help from Claude.