Jade Zhao 赵郎溪

Pro-human AI · public record · still building

Coach. Filter. Never replace.

AI can reduce the friction. It cannot become the relationship.

Whitney Wolfe Herd's public AI argument starts with healthier, more equitable human relationships: use AI for self-improvement, reduce the burnout of endless searching, and get people to the real connection faster. The system can coach and filter. It should not replace the person.

My work starts with real rooms: restaurant social that has to work Tuesday to Sunday, Serve IT pages staff can keep, short guides for the next person, and student videos that opened a door. Digital Humans is where I pressure-test the same promise: can an intelligent system help without hiding its limits, falsifying the person, or taking the human out of the decision?

Jade Zhao · 赵郎溪 · Digital Humans Project Lead at Luddy · Serve IT Website Team Lead · Informatics @ Indiana University · expected May 2027

See what I've shipped Digital Humans Build with me
Jade Zhao on a boat, laughing, white sun hoodie, sunglasses on her head.

Origin

Where the agency rule comes from

Chinese American; grew up in central Indiana (Greenfield, Indiana) and around a family Chinese restaurant in New Palestine. A system either survives contact with a real person or it does not. That bar still holds: posts that go out, pages staff can keep, handoffs after I leave, Digital Humans work that refuses to hide the hard parts behind a friendly interface.

  • Restaurant social, site, and marketing for my parents. Tuesday to Sunday, 11 AM to 9 PM. Closed Mondays. Real customers, real constraints.
  • Informatics at IU Luddy. Serve IT clinic work since January 2024 ... freshman intern to Website Team Lead. The work keeps teaching me how to lead without taking over.
  • Digital Humans Project Lead at Luddy ... research with a product question underneath it: what earns trust when the system feels personal?

Full hire narrative lives on IU Pages and LinkedIn. Essays live on zhao-langxi. This door keeps the work in progress I can defend.

About · Restaurant site

Proof

Systems people can actually inherit

Highest-stakes ship so far

Middle Way House · Serve IT

Middle Way House supports survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. In hard moments, people often need private, trustworthy information before it is safe to ask out loud ... the website can be that quiet first door. Their staff also needed a site they could keep after the student team left. Fall 2024, about 84 volunteer hours across scope, build, and handoff: make important paths easier to find without turning survivors' lives into portfolio material. Nashville this term is recommendations only. Same responsibility either way: leave something the next person can run. The handoff is part of the product, so I rewrite it when the first draft is not clear enough.

See Serve IT pages Handoff guides

Handshake clips · beta to collaboration

These started as beta videos. They helped grow an audience of nearly 100,000 followers on Handshake, with posts reaching millions of students and prompting students to reach out. Then Indiana University's career team reached out about collaborating. The useful part was not only the reach; it was seeing student content open a real door.

First video. Watch on Drive
Second video. Watch on Drive

Handshake profile

More systems I'm testing

Same agency rule, different room

One sharp rule keeps me honest: the person using the system should understand what it is doing and keep a meaningful choice. Digital Humans is where the pieces meet for me right now: trust, disclosure, and adoption when AI looks and communicates like a person. Jade🪴 is early web and branding help for small businesses and nonprofits ... a small practice built by doing the work well. Serve-AI (PIT-UN, CC BY-SA 4.0) sits beside Serve IT, not inside it. Essays and campus classroom work live on other doors so nobody has to wade through the wrong room.

  • Essays · thinking zhao-langxi Digital Humans as a product question: what happens when an AI starts choosing before we do? Limits before claims. Research before launch.
  • Campus classroom matchaxmoxie Scratch-style code help for students. Ask, try, revise.
  • Hire front door LinkedIn Digital Humans-centered professional story. This door stays ships and handoffs.
  • Early practice Jade🪴 Small-business and nonprofit web / branding. Same respect bar as the restaurant floor. Still learning clients.

Also on the map

Campus and study abroad

  1. HHSP Program Assistant

    S.U.C.C.E.E.D. programme work on campus. Student life

  2. IU 2025 Leadership Conference

    I led a session on 8 February 2025. Here is Mimi Attenoukon's IU page.

  3. Madrid

    Spring 2026 study abroad at UCM Madrid.

  4. Undergraduate research

    Aug to Dec 2025, with IU Undergraduate Education. This door keeps the claim narrow and the evidence public.

Bring me the hard interaction

The part where the system meets a person

If you land here as a peer, look at the ships, then email if you want to work on Digital Humans, handoffs, or the next unglamorous build. Bring the interaction that is hard to get right. Hire path stays on LinkedIn.

jlzhao@iu.edu

Email me Digital Humans CV Essays

Code clips live on the classroom door.