China Workshop II
AI Narratives in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction
On Tuesday November 17, more than 12,000 people tuned in to the second Global AI Narratives: China workshop run by the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (University of Cambridge) in collaboration with the Berggruen China Center (Peking University).
AI Narratives in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction featured Chinese science fiction scholars Wu Yan (吴岩) and Sanfeng (三丰) and prominent science fiction authors Baoshu (宝树), Hao Jingfang (郝景芳), Xia Jia (夏笳), Fei Dao (飞氘), and Chen Qiufan (陈楸帆). The purpose of the workshop was to explore how artificial intelligence is portrayed in Chinese science fiction literature, to understand what cultural, social, and historical factors influence the portrayal of AI in science fiction, and to discuss similarities, differences, and interactions between Western and Chinese AI science fiction narratives.
Why Science Fiction?
When different cultures see Artificial Intelligence through different lenses (e.g. diverse religious, linguistic, philosophical, literary, and cinematic traditions) diverging conceptions of what AI is and if and how it should be regulated emerge. Therefore, the Global AI Narratives (GAIN) research project aims to understand how different cultures and regions perceive the risks and benefits of AI, and to better understand the influences that are shaping those perceptions.
Science fiction literature is a key driver of public imagination, expectations, hopes, and fears regarding speculative futures and emerging technologies. The genre provides a platform for preemptively engaging with difficult ethical questions, exploring anxieties, and experimenting with regulatory interventions in possible futures. It is also noteworthy that the influence between technological advances and science fiction is not unidirectional. Popular science fiction can also influence the direction of future technological development.
The GAIN workshop series have explored how AI is represented in science fiction and cultural narratives around the world. Other recent workshops include those held with our partners in Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
A summary of the proceedings of GAIN China (II) can be read here. In this post we focus on insights offered by the workshop into comparisons and influences between Western and Chinese AI Narratives.
Early days of modern Chinese science fiction
Following the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949) science fiction literature primarily served a political role. Keynote speaker Sanfeng explained that Chinese Science fiction of the time was heavily influenced by Soviet science fiction that aimed to popularize science and to promote the country’s socialist future.
Our second keynote speaker Wu Yan (Research Center for Science and Human Imagination, Southern University of Science and Technology) explained that at this time Chinese science fiction authors produced stories about artificially intelligent machines built to solve problems - to take care of the elderly, to teach children, etc. In these stories autonomous humanoid robots are helpful and obedient servants to their creators. However, with the beginning of the cultural revolution (1966-1976) science fiction writing was suppressed along with all other non-revolutionary material.
The Reform and Opening Up (since 1978), known in the west as ‘the Opening of China’, marked the revival of science fiction in China. The Opening was a time of rapid economic reform within China that saw the emergence of a flourishing private business sector and the opening of the country to foreign investment and businesses. At the National Science Conference in 1978, Kuo Mo-jo, president of the Chinese Academy of science, gave a speech entitled “It is Springtime for Science” calling for rapid modernization and scientific and technological advancement in China.
At this time Science fiction was again revitalized in China as a means of popularizing science, but this time around it also served to address anxieties surrounding rapid technological development. Until 1966 stories about AI-like autonomous machines described subservient and helpful robots while, after The Opening, AI narratives began to engage with fears about machine domination and concerns about how humans are distinguished from mere intelligent machines. Wu Yan provided a few examples such as Zheng Yuanjie(郑渊洁)’s The Riot on the Ziwei Island that Shocked the World (震惊世界的紫薇岛暴动), which recounts a tale of scientists being imprisoned on an island by their intelligent robot creations and used as experimental subjects, and Wei Yahua (魏雅华)’s Dear Delusion (温柔之乡的梦) and I Decided To Divorce My Robot Wife （我决定跟我的机器人妻子离婚）.
Following the opening up, Chinese science fiction also began to engage with more modern notions of AI. In earlier science fiction intelligent humanoid robots were the primary embodiment of Artificial intelligence, but more modern literature has moved to more closely reflect reality in describing AI’s as algorithms and now as autonomous learning systems.
What makes Contemporary Chinese science fiction ‘Chinese’?
In the second half of the workshop a panel of prominent Chinese science fiction authors addressed the question: what makes contemporary Chinese science fiction literature uniquely ‘Chinese’? A few key themes emerged.
First, Feidao noted that much Chinese science fiction is influenced by the period of rapid modernization experienced by many authors in the 80’s 90’s and early 2000’s following the Reform and Opening Up. China has quickly emerged as a world leader in science and technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. However, despite the country’s breakneck pace of modernization and technological advancement, there is a persistent cultural awareness that China is a latecomer to the world of modern technology and science. Consequently, the underlying ethic that hard work is needed to catch-up so as not to fall behind or be placed at a disadvantage is widely experienced and frequently embodied in science fiction writing.
Second, it was theorized by Sanfeng and Baoshu that Chinese science fiction likely depicts stories of reunions between the living and the dead differently than Western narratives. Sanfeng notes that in Western narratives religion often plays an important role in uniting families while no such trope is emphasized in Chinese science fiction. Furthermore, Western reunion narratives tend to be highly emotive while Chinese narratives are more reserved. Though no less profoundly felt, emotions tend to be more privately held.
Most interesting to us however, was the panelists’ discussion about how similar Chinese narratives are to Western narratives and how it would be misguided to insist that there exists some otherness or identifiable “Chineseness” to contemporary Chinese science fiction.
During the Reform and Opening Up, not only did China open to external economic influence, but it became more permeable to international cultural influence as well. An influx of Western science fiction literature into China was no exception.
Contemporary Chinese science fiction and science fiction writers are heavily influenced by Western science fiction. For example, Sanfeng explains the popular British TV series Black Mirror is a major source of inspiration for Chinese science fiction writers. Sanfeng noted that many contemporary writers wish to produce stories in a Black Mirror style but within a Chinese context.
The influence of western science fiction on Chinese literature is undeniable, and as panel moderator and well-known science fiction author Hao Jingfang explained, adding Chinese settings or symbolism to a science fiction story does not make it ‘Chinese’. It only constitutes a superficial application of Chinese features to an imported Western narrative. Jingfang argued all science fiction writers pull inspiration from their lived experience and in this way naturally incorporate any elements of their culture into their writing.
However, panelist and science fiction writer Chen Qiufan engaged with the idea of developing a uniquely “Chinese” science fiction genre at greater length. As a starting point, Qiufan suggested that we speculate about what the world would be like if the foundations of modern science and technology had originated out of China instead of emanating from the West. China has a long and rich history of scientific research and technological development that extends back hundreds of years and which has operated independently of western influence. By exploring potential futures stemming out of China’s unique past, a truly Chinese science fiction genre might be developed.
Written by Elizabeth Seger