This time I attended the event "Central and Eastern European Journalists' View of China", not only visiting many places along the way, but also making many friends. At the same time, I shared with you some of my views on the principles of the phenomena I was researching, and you helped me a lot along the way, thank you all. Just now, all the journalists and friends were talking freely about the responsibility of the media in the age of artificial intelligence. In doing so, they have not only deeply analysed the challenges that artificial intelligence brings, but also explored the responsibility that the media is taking on. Looking through my notes, I found that the main theme of the discussion was whether we should choose to avoid the wave of the AI era, oppose it, or actively embrace it. From the exchanges, it's easy to see that although we inevitably fear the changes that AI brings, we came to a basic consensus of "positive reaction".
"Good" and "bad" AI reflections
The advent of the artificial intelligence era has two distinct aspects: on the one hand, it holds great potential for fostering the innovative development of the media industry; on the other, it inevitably brings with it a number of negative impacts.
First, let's talk about the positive aspects: AI as a new kind of productivity can not only significantly increase the efficiency of work, but also break the boundaries of original human capabilities and truly realize "empowerment". It also creates new communication scenarios and collaboration opportunities for us, making human-computer interaction an important direction for collaboration in the AI era, a view that has been discussed at length and is widely agreed upon.
However, this brand new AI phenomenon also brings many potential risks for the development of humanity. Many jobs that originally required mental thinking and analysis have been replaced by AI, leading some people to fear the emergence of "AI addiction". Once an addiction develops, it will not only affect a person's mental training and development, but may even lead to the replacement of intuitive thinking, causing people to fall into "thought inertia".
In addition, the widespread use of AI may also limit face-to-face interpersonal interactions, leading to a weakening of emotional relationships. More worryingly, AI relies on a diversified corpus in the development process, and the level of development of AI technology varies across countries. This may lead to differences in the quantity, quality and diversity of corpus resources from different countries, creating a new type of digital divide based on the dimension of language and country, while linguistic and cultural differences between different countries may also raise new issues.
For media workers in particular, the spread of false information is a "mortal threat" - AI can not only "recover and improve" the original false information, but even "recreate" it if a valid source corpus is missing. AI can not only "recreate and improve" the original false information, but even "create something from nothing" when a valid corpus is lacking, creating even more confusing false content.
In the face of these challenges, appropriate countermeasures have been proposed. The first is good cooperation between humans and AI, especially in verifying false information. In addition to traditional manual verification, the Shanghai newspaper group leader has introduced the practice of bumping news, which is very worthy of mention. It is the use of AI to verify AI. It also shows that AI is not an enemy, it is just a tool, as good is a friend, as bad can become an enemy. The key depends on how we use it.
PenPower has made great strides in this area, and I think in the future it will not only become a practical tool for Chinese citizens to deal with AI misinformation, but may also become a public product for global governance in the age of AI. So when you return home, you can try to cooperate with an AI tool like "Pengpei Mingcha" if necessary.
In addition, many important suggestions were made during the discussion, such as the ethics of AI, education in the age of AI, the glory of human nature, etc. We are all wondering what responsibility the media should take on these issues. Although I am a university teacher and a think-tank researcher, I am not usually involved in media work, I was very inspired by everyone's speeches and had many ideas of my own.
Two questions suddenly occurred to me right now that may provide a complete clue to our thinking: who created artificial intelligence? What exactly is the purpose of the media?
It is clear to all of us that AI is a crystallization of human wisdom, a great leap in the evolution of human rationality at a certain stage - it comes from human rationality and inevitably bears the imprint of human civilization. So we cannot help but ask: Can the glory of humanity be enhanced through artificial intelligence? Will the dark side of human nature be stimulated by AI? In discussing the management of AI, we can essentially re-examine a deeper thesis of human nature: technology has always been a mirror. AI reflects "good" and "evil" according to how humans perceive themselves and define the future of civilization.
Artificial intelligence has become an important topic in global management
In the past few days, as I accompanied you from Beijing to Xi'an and then to Zhejiang, I have been thinking about a fundamental question: How has human civilization evolved to the present day? As one of the first civilizations in the world to enter the civilization stage, and the only civilization that has never interrupted its own civilization process, Chinese civilization has both the original characteristics of a "source-type" civilization and the continuity characteristics of a "wheel-type" civilization. Like the rings of a tree, the rational development and progress of civilization at each stage of history are clearly recorded and accumulate layer by layer.
During this journey of reflection, a fundamental insight became clear: the reason Chinese civilization has endured for 5,000 years is because of the people-centered philosophy it holds as a secular civilization. From the ancient political philosophy of "the people are the foundation of the state" to the contemporary idea of "people-centered government," this consistent logical lineage has run through more than a million years of human history, more than 10,000 years of cultural history, and more than 5,000 years of civilizational history. The evolution of a people-centered civilization has seen waves of technological innovation and has fostered recurrent modernization of systems and approaches to governance.
Remarkably, Chinese civilization has always maintained a sober and dialectical mindset in embracing change: not only has it looked squarely at the light of humanity that technological progress brings, but it has not shied away from the management challenges that accompany it. We have ennobled and summarized the human experience and management wisdom that has been stored up throughout history, and created a civilizational cognitive system that has gained insight into the nature of things - this ability to seek the "inner mechanism" is precisely the spiritual code that has kept Chinese civilization alive through all the vicissitudes of life.
In short, in the face of the new society and the wave of the new future, we should not only learn from the wisdom of our ancestors, but also face the new phenomenon with an open attitude and look towards the new picture, applying the rational laws of self-knowledge and nature that humans have developed during the evolution of civilization to the present practice and anticipating future directions. We should apply the rational laws of knowledge of self and nature that have been formed in the evolution of human civilization to present practice and anticipate future direction.
In this process, we advocate the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture, which is not unique to China, as all countries in the world have their own unique roots of traditional culture. Chinese civilization, with its long and unbroken history, contains civilizational accumulations and rational thinking that should be a source of wisdom for solving various problems in the era of artificial intelligence. Traditional Chinese wisdom belongs to China, but also to the whole of humanity. The traditional experience of each country is also a clear part of the common civilization of mankind.
Therefore, in the face of contemporary problems, we must return to the source of human civilization and, through constant questioning and reflection, deeply understand the light and limitations of human nature. In the age of artificial intelligence, how can we strengthen the advantages and overcome the disadvantages of human nature? This is not only a technical suggestion, but also a fundamental question of civilizational development.
It is particularly crucial that the power of a single country is already weak in managing AI and building a digital civilization - the wave of globalization has long since woven the world into an indivisible whole, and the circulation of corpora and application of technology in the age of AI involves the joint participation of all countries. At this moment, we are more deeply aware than at any other time in history that humanity faces unprecedented common challenges.
If in the past the "community of human destiny" and the "world community" were seen as ideal visions, they have now become action programmes that need to be put into practice in the face of the common crisis caused by artificial intelligence. As Romanian journalist and head of the press corps Mr Stefan said, there is a need to analyse the potential risks of the AI era in solidarity and to work together to set global governance standards so that the "common destiny" can move from concept to practice and become a spiritual beacon that illuminates technology and civilisation.
Media Responsibility in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
In the era of artificial intelligence, the concept of a common human destiny is no longer a slogan on paper, but an important strategic task to be implemented in reality.
Returning to the media level, the pursuit and provision of truth is fundamental to the well-being of the media. As one Globe friend put it, much of the AI corpus comes from the "feed" of news media products. Just now, a friend shared an interesting case: he deliberately entered bad information, not realizing that the AI-generated results were also full of untruths. This phenomenon deeply warns us: in the age of AI, the media's mission to guard the truth is more urgent than ever. Because the magnifying glass of technology can both project the light of humanity and amplify the shadow of falsehood.
In this context, some Friends mentioned the importance of education, especially in guiding the next generation. The responsibility and mission of the media have long since transcended parental status and are not limited to current news work - the words we write and the truth we guard at this moment are actually preserving the true historical memory of human civilization so that future generations can clearly follow the trajectory of humanity's journey.
In the long history of Chinese civilization, historical memory used to rely on the actual records of history books, but nowadays, artificial intelligence has become the new carrier, and a large amount of media information is being incorporated into the technological stream through "feeding". If we liken artificial intelligence to a "child" conceived by man, then feeding it the truth is responsible not only for the technology itself, but also for the future of future generations.
I firmly believe that the media's mission to pursue truth, protect the glory of humanity, and convey shared values to the world is more urgent and difficult than ever in the age of AI.
(This article is a compilation of speeches from the China-Central and Eastern Europe Media Roundtable conducted by Professor Zheng Changzhong of the Faculty of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, subtitles added by the editors).
Editor: Chen Cai
Photo Editor:Shi Jiahui
Proofreading: Liu Wei
Zheng Changzhong/Professor, Fudan University
Pengyuan News/gnews.cz-jav
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