A robot is pictured during the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's largest mobile fair, in Barcelona on March 3, 2025.
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom, led by tech giants such as OpenAI and DeepSeek, is sweeping the globe, raising AI ethics concerns worldwide amid extensive corporate adoption and inconsistent cross-border regulatory governance.
Most existing debates center on technological upgrades and commercial potential. Yet a new monograph released by China Translation & Publishing House this May targets the core dilemma of the AI era—human values and spiritual order.
In their co-authored book Neo-Generativism, Jiao Juan, Chief Analyst of Internet Media at Founder Securities and Head of AI Ethics Research and Yu Hao repeatedly underscore the underlying "human-centered" logic throughout the book, cautioning against the blind pursuit of pure AI technological advancement.
The authors construct four spiritual dimensions, offering clear paths for individuals to cope with information overload and cognitive anxiety. The book presents an inspiring framework and practical guidance for humanity to retain subjectivity and achieve self-improvement in the artificial general intelligence (AGI) era.
On the human side, the authors argue for a human-centered orientation aligned with the evolution and iteration of human subjectivity. On the AI side, they outline multiple constraints, including academic theories, international governance rules, industrial standards, and corporate regulatory clauses.
Regarding the intersection of humans, AI firms and society, they propose that AI will drive a holistic paradigm shift in "productivity × space × relations of production," profoundly reshaping supply-demand dynamics and social evaluation systems.
Defining 2023-2032 as the Neo-Generative Era, the authors put forward the necessity of AI ethics for two core reasons. First, AI infrastructure is set to be largely completed between 2023 and 2026; we are now on the eve of an explosion in AI applications and content. Second, academia still debates whether AI is merely a tool or can possess human-like subjectivity, with discrepancies between AI's defined positioning and its real-world performance.
Notably, the authors regard AI ethics as valuable reference material for future cross-border AI governance talks. For instance, should China and the US launch official intergovernmental dialogue on AI regulation, the monograph may serve as a reference for China's negotiations based on its domestic realities.
Reporter | Zhang Ruijun
Photo | CFP
