THE SEER

A LINGUISTICS- AND MATH-OBSESSED ALUMNUS OF GOOGLE, FACEBOOK AND TWITTER, EDWIN CHEN BUILT HIS DATA LABELING AND AI TRAINING COMPANY, SURGE, IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE AI REVOLUTION. BUT THE QUIETEST OF TECH BILLIONAIRES-AND THE YOUNGEST MEMBER OF THE FORBES 400-HAS DECIDED HE NEEDS TO MAKE HIS VOICE HEARD.

- By PHOEBE LIU

AFTER A MORNING SPENT REVIEWING A DATASET, READING RESEARCH PAPERS AND PLAYING WITH CUTTING-EDGE AI MODELS IN HIS MANHATTAN APARTMENT, EDWIN CHEN TAKES A SHORT WALK TO THE SWANK THREE-STORY STARBUCKS RESERVE ROASTERY ON NINTH AVENUE.

Dressed in a Vuori navy T-shirt with a tiger-adorned canvas tote slung over one shoulder, Chen heads downstairs and settles in at a dark corner table. Sipping a small green tea “because ordering coffee here takes too long,” the founder and CEO of Surge AI, a data labeling and AI training firm, then launches into a nonstop two-hour discussion about everything from Silicon Valley culture (he hates it) to his rivals (“they're all body shops”) to how humans might interface with aliens if they came to Earth. “They don’t speak English. So how would you communicate with them? How would you decipher their language? Hopefully there'll be some mathematical way to do it.”

This dilemma is also explored in his favorite short story, a 1998 piece by science fiction author Ted Chiang. “Story of Your Life” became the basis for the movie