Human and Machines

This book shares Chinese scholars’ philosophical views on artificial intelligence. The discussions range from the foundations of AI—the Turing test and creation of machine intelligence—to recent applications of AI, including decisions in games, natural languages, pattern recognition, prediction in economic contexts, autonomous behaviors, and collaborative intelligence, with the examples of AlphaGo, Microsoft’s Xiao Bing, medical robots, etc. The book’s closing chapter focuses on Chinese machines and explores questions on the cultural background of artificial intelligence. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for all members of the general public who are interested in the future development of artificial intelligence, especially from the perspective of respected Chinese scholars.

Jun Gu is a professor at School of Social Sciences, Shanghai University, China, an independent planner, and a freelance writer. Prof. Gu graduated from East China Normal University, China, in 1989. He has been following the social transformation and public governance in contemporary China for a long time, focusing on the study of social science and technology and its application in social governance. He has served as an advisory expert for decision-making of the Chinese government at all levels and special commentator of a number of Chinese media. Prof. Gu planned and presided over a series of courses on Major Country Strategies, authored books “State Operation and Relief for the People - China's Solution to the Mystery of China”, and edited “Major Country Strategies - the Road to the World” and “the Great Craftsman on the Road to Innovation”. He is fond of wisdom research, exploring the thinking methods and solutions of different culture to basic human problems, and the contemporary applications of traditional wisdom. He published monographs including “Personality· Ethical Interaction· Community: the Wisdom between Human Beings”, “Jewish Wisdom: Human Wisdom that Created Miracles”, “the Resourceful Structure of Traditional Chinese Merchants”, “Community Mediation and Social Stability”, “Flow and Order”, “Vitality and Order”, and “Harmonious society and public governance - a collection of Jun Gu's political comments”.

Yike Guo received his B.E. degree in Computer Science from Tsinghua University, China, in 1985 and his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Imperial College London, UK, in 1993. He is a tenured professor at Imperial College London, UK, and the director of the Institute of Data Science and Academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is one of the first distinguished professors in the Shanghai Thousand Talents Program and was appointed as the dean of the School of Computer Engineering and Science at Shanghai University in 2015. He is one of the first members of the big data expert committee of China Computer Association, a general consultant of China Science Data, a distinguished expert of Shanghai, Beijing, and Jiangsu, a chief scientist of Big Data of Shanghai Industry Research Institute, and a chief scientific consultant of artificial intelligence of Vivo Mobile Communication Co., Ltd. He is a member of the Royal Academy and the chair of the top international conference on data science, KDD 2018. He has made a series of important achievements in data science and its applied research. As the project leader, he received more than 130 million pounds of research funding from the British Engineering and Physical Science Foundation, the British national Medical Research council and the European Union Foundation. He has rich experience in organizing large-scale interdisciplinary research projects and the ability to lead world-class research institutions. The research institute of data science of Imperial College under his leadership has made outstanding achievements and has become an important center of Data Science Research in the UK. His data economy laboratory has done a lot of pioneering work on blockchain and virtual currency and has good cooperation with enterprises such as CCB International and HNA group. His scientific research insight and international vision are very prominent among Chinese overseas scientists, and he has an important influence in the world. He is a leading figure in international data science and artificial intelligence research.

The translator of the book, Dr. Jiajun Xu, graduated from Shanghai International Studies University, China. He presided over and participated in 4 projects of the Ministry of Education and Municipal Education Commission. Dr. Xu published 4 monographs and 1 translated book. His main direction of studying includes linguistics, translation, and cultural industry management.