It’s by now cliché to say that China develops faster than perhaps anywhere else in the world.Therefore, it should surprise no one that China has become the world’s largest market for AI “smart” speakers,and home to its biggest companies in facial recognition technology.

Yet while we applaud these cutting-edge advancements for their convenience, contribution to public safety and pandemic control, or sheer coolness,privacy and exploitation of personal data have become real concerns. Our first cover story of 2021 looks at the (human)risks of sharing more of our biometric data, personal details,and even romantic desires with technology—and what happens when innovation outpaces regulation and our awareness of what it means to have AI transform our lives.

Back on the human side of the equation, we see how rehabilitation centers bring China’s mental health patients back into society, ride with motorcyclists from Beijing to the Tibetan highlands, and hear a powerful first-person account of the last lumberjacks in northeastern China. Our writers dive under Qiandao Lake to explore submerged villages, revisit old classics from the “golden age” of Chinese animation, and more.