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One of the most discussed topics lately is when AI will take people’s jobs and which jobs are the most at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence. It is pretty much clear that AI is becoming a tool used in most companies (Melendez, 2025).

During the summer, I worked as an intern on a project that involved coding in VBA. When this project was first assigned to me, I did not even fully understand that I actually had to write code myself, since I clearly told my manager that I did not have any experience with coding. I had a few classes in high school and it was not really clear to me the logic behind it and how to code. Despite this, my manager told me not to worry, I could easily use the company’s AI to write the code, fix bugs and improve its functionality.

At the beginning, it was extremely difficult for me to understand how coding works since my knowledge stopped at “Hello World” type of coding. Time passed, I started to paste on the chatbox random bugged codes and try to fix them. At first, my queries were mostly “Fix bugs from this code” or “rewrite without mistakes”. Time passed and I understood that solving these bugs in such a way was possible only if the bugs were typos or wrong format of coding.

Even more time passed, and I realized that the key to effectively use AI with coding was to use it as a personal teacher able to explain to me, without any judgment, the code. At the end of the day, AI used in their terms is not possible to replace my human work,  but just to help me develop my coding skills, clarifying doubts  and brainstorming possible solutions. 

Overall, this experience that I had during the summer changed my view on coding. Contrary to my high school experience, this time I understood the logic behind it, which is the most important aspect that I think beginners tend to underestimate. Although before AI coding was mostly about remembering the rules and codes, I can certainly declare based on my own personal experience that logic is what is important to understand. 

Do you think AI will replace the role of teachers or just be an extra help? Do you think this outcome can change based on the topic?

I feel like an AI tool, such as ChatGPT, can be perfect as an extra help so basically replacing the role of tutors. However, I do not think that AI will replace teachers’ job, especially for some specific subjects that require more emotional intelligence and critical thinking.

References:

Melendez, S. (2025, June 6). Will AI improve or eliminate jobs? It depends on who you ask. Harvard Business School. https://www.hbs.edu/bigs/will-artificial-intelligence-improve-or-eliminate-jobs 

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One of the first countries banning TikTok is India, in 2020. When the app started being extremely popular among the social media users. This resulted in the creation of some apps that had the goal to replace the most famous Chinese app on the market, like Moj and Chingari. These Indian apps and the rise in popularity of Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts demonstrated how users’ demand for short-form video has been rising in popularity and is now requested in most of the entertainment social media apps (Time, 2024; Garg, 2023).

It is often heard how Western Countries are questioning if TikTok should be regulated or even banned due to privacy concerns. However the only Western Country that actually nationally fully bans it is the U.S in early 2025, to protect Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Application App (POFACA). The country forced ByteDance, which is the company that owns TikTok, to either divest the app or to face federal ban (Reuters, 2025a). Since the extreme popularity has been extremely stable for the past years since the COVID-19 quarantine, many users started looking for backup platforms where it could be still possible to share and post short-video content. Some of the users found a substitute in Western platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube (Reuters 2024; AP News, 2025). However, millions of users opted for the Chinese app Xiaohongshu which is mainly known internationally as “Red Note” (Reuters 2025b).

Red Note gained around 3 millions American users in just one day and downloads were up by 200% (Reuters 2025b).

Interestingly, many American users joined Rednote as a form of protest to the ban while others just joined to preserve their audience. The American users proclaimed themself as “TikTok refugees” using hashtags. Since American TikTok content is among the most popular within the app, other nationalities decided to join the app hoping to keep seeing American content. 

The reasons why Americans choose this app apart as a form of protest is due to the similarity that the format the app promotes. The main content focuses on lifestyle, reviews, shopping and authentic storytelling (Forbes, 2025; Proton, 2025). 

Despite the similarities, the app was not a perfect substitute. Although, the moderators translated content as more foreign users joined the app, the app was still not as English friendly as Tiktok. In addition, new users had different expectations about the app while the app is actually very controlled especially in some certain topics such as politics (Reuters 2025c).

The U.S. policymakers banned the app due to privacy concerns and access of data from the Chinese authorities. However, the American government realized that the situation created led to another issue: users shifting to an app which is even more aligned with Chinese regulations and government (Forbes, 2025; DFRLab, 2025). 

Finally, the TikTok ban lasted only for about a day and quickly most of the “refugees” left Rednot since most of the content is targeted towards China and the app feels more like an hybrid content and commerce model compared to the never ending short video scroll of TikTok (Axios, 2025; TechCrunch, 2025). The reaction of many Chinese users was welcoming towards the internationalization of the app while others feared that the U.S. users would bring up sensitive topics such that could draw the scrutiny of regulators (Reuters 2025c).

As a user from both platforms, I am happy that most of the new users that initially thought of RedNote as a replacement left the app since I have noticed that the content that I was interested in and as a consequence algorithm was highly modified with the new users joining. Even though the platforms share similarities, the content is quite different and especially focused on Chinese taste. However, from the point of view of Chinese users, I think that they might have enjoyed some new international content showing on RedNote since most of the Western content is either banned or restricted by the government. 

References:

AP News. (2025, January 14). A TikTok ban is just days away. A list of other apps available. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/49af1bfd2a1543a09b327544c380f217

Axios. (2025, January 13). TikTok ban timeline. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2025/01/13/tiktok-ban-timeline

DFRLab. (2025, February 24). What the TikTok ban and Xiaohongshu’s brief popularity reveal. Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab. https://dfrlab.org/2025/02/24/tiktok-xiaohongshu-rednote-us-china/

Forbes. (2025, January 17). With a TikTok ban imminent, RedNote is emerging as a top alternative. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2025/01/17/with-a-tiktok-ban-imminent-rednote-is-emerging-as-a-top-alternative/

Garg, S. (2023). Unpacking the impact of the TikTok ban on local content creators and the rise of Indian social media apps. In Social Media and Society in India (pp. 66–72). University of Michigan. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/177335

Proton. (2025, January 19). TikTok ban: Switching to RedNote? Your privacy is at stake. Proton. https://proton.me/blog/tiktok-ban-rednote-privacy-concerns

Reuters. (2024, December 7). U.S. TikTok content creators warn followers to find them on Instagram, YouTube. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-tiktok-content-creators-warn-followers-find-them-instagram-youtube-2024-12-07/

Reuters. (2025a, January 6). What happens after the TikTok ban? Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/what-happens-after-tiktok-ban-2025-01-06/

Reuters. (2025b, January 16). Chinese app RedNote gained millions of U.S. users in one day as ‘TikTok refugees’ joined. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinese-app-rednote-gained-millions-us-users-this-week-tiktok-refugees-joined-2025-01-16/

Reuters. (2025c, January 15). China gives wary welcome to influx of ‘TikTok refugees’ to RedNote. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-gives-wary-welcome-influx-tiktok-refugees-rednote-2025-01-15/

TechCrunch. (2025, January 24). U.S. users dumped RedNote after Trump paused TikTok ban. TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/24/us-users-dumped-rednote-after-trump-paused-the-tiktok-ban/

Time. (2024, July 9). Here’s what happened when India banned TikTok in 2020. Time. https://time.com/7208112/what-happened-when-india-banned-tiktok/