Clarify the early development context of Chinese intelligence

Clarify the early development context of Chinese intelligence

——Read "A Brief History of Chinese Intelligence: From 1979 to 1993"

Author: Sun Shuqiang (Ph.D. in Economics, Peking University)

At the end of 2022, the natural language processing tools developed by OpenAI were born, which stimulated great interest in artificial intelligence from all walks of life. There are supporters and opponents. Since the new development of artificial intelligence has challenged human capabilities and cognition in many aspects, society has a great sense of crisis and unpredictability about what impact artificial intelligence will have on human beings. The development of AI is not only about its capabilities and prospects, but also about how humans use it. One example is the advent of natural language processing tools that make people feel like they are at the mercy of the enemy.

"A Brief History of Chinese Workers' Intelligence", by Lin Juncenfeng, People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House (books on the July Guangming Book List)

From the perspective of development, artificial intelligence is a more traditional field, not a new thing as some people think, but it has not attracted so much attention from society in the early stage. As early as the summer of 1956, the term "artificial intelligence" was officially proposed at an academic conference held in Dartmouth, USA, and this conference was also regarded as a symbol of the birth of artificial intelligence. In this way, the development of artificial intelligence has a history of nearly 70 years, but the speed of development during this period has been fast and slow, and the direction of different periods is different. Although the development of artificial intelligence in the mainland is a little later, it is not too late, since the late 70s of the 20th century, the mainland has begun to appear research and application related to artificial intelligence in the academic field, and a large number of scholars have made indelible contributions to the development of the field of artificial intelligence in the mainland.

It is advisable to learn from the past and learn from the past. Knowing where we came from gives you a better idea of where we're going. Co-authored by Lin Jun and Cen Feng, "A Brief History of Chinese Intelligence: From 1979 to 1993" reproduces the early development process of artificial intelligence in mainland China with vivid penmanship in the order of time evolution, with major historical events and characters as the starting point, personnel blending, allegory with events, and vivid brushwork. This book will help AI researchers and the public in the new era to better understand the development of the field of artificial intelligence in mainland China in the early stage, and will also deepen the general public's understanding and awareness of artificial intelligence, so as to avoid people following the crowd and following the trend.

Starting from the use of computers to solve mathematical problems, pattern recognition, expert systems, computational theory, computational vision, intelligent computers, robots, sound-image and text combinations, intelligent speech, natural language processing, artificial neural networks and other later different research directions, constitute a simple picture of the development of artificial intelligence in mainland China from 1979 to 1993, and the two authors review these aspects in detail in the book.

Now the artificial intelligence research promoted by commercial institutions is more focused on commercial applications, but the earliest batch of artificial intelligence scientists in the mainland are mostly mathematicians and logicians, who combined computers with their own research after the birth of computers, and more used computers as tools to solve practical problems in research. For example, mathematician Wu Wenjun used computers to prove machine theorems and pioneered the "Wu method". But Wu Wenjun has always considered himself a mathematician, and the machine theorem proof is only for mathematical research, and he believes that he is studying "mathematical mechanization", not "artificial intelligence", so that when a scholar invited him to give an academic report for an artificial intelligence seminar, he declined the invitation.

Artificial intelligence is an interdisciplinary research field involving many disciplines such as computers, mathematics, psychology, logic, simulation recognition, and systems engineering. This nature of AI also requires scholars in different fields to participate in it, or contribute in some way. In Qian Xuesen's book "Engineering Cybernetics", there is a lot of content about artificial intelligence, neural networks and image recognition, but Qian Xuesen does not take artificial intelligence as his important work to study. Herbert Alexander Simon, an important social science scholar of the 20th century, was very friendly to China and admired Chinese culture so much that he gave himself the Chinese name Sima He. In 1994, Sima He was appointed as a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His achievements, including in the field of artificial intelligence, are jaw-dropping! In 1975, Sima He won the Turing Award, the highest award in the field of computer science, for his many contributions in the field of artificial intelligence, but at this time he felt that the computer field was too unchallenged, so he went to study psychology, so he won three important awards in the field of psychology: the Outstanding Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Psychological Foundation in Psychological Science and the Lifetime Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association. Of course, he did not give up his old economics profession, and won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1978.

In March 1986, the mainland launched the "National High-tech Research and Development Program", also known as the "863 Plan". In the "863 Project", there is a theme in the field of information is intelligent computers, codenamed "863-306", through the in-depth study of the theme of intelligent computers, the mainland has made a number of major research results in high-performance computers, intelligent interfaces, intelligent applications and other aspects. What is more valuable is that this has cultivated a large number of talents for the development of artificial intelligence in the mainland and laid a relatively solid talent foundation. Today, the mainland can occupy a place in the global artificial intelligence field, and the "863 Project" is indispensable. For example, under the situation of lack of talents and funds at that time, researchers overcame difficulties to develop the supercomputer "Dawning-1", which significantly narrowed the gap between the mainland and the world's advanced level in this field, and later launched "Dawning 1000" on the basis of "Dawning-1", laying a solid foundation for the commercialization of Dawning.

At present, the artificial intelligence we know seems to be more promoted by commercial institutions, but in fact, the basic research of universities and scientific research institutions has laid a solid foundation for the development of artificial intelligence. Peking University, Tsinghua University, Jilin University, Zhejiang University, University of Science and Technology of China, Harbin Institute of Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc. have made great contributions to a certain aspect of artificial intelligence. For example, in the 80s of the 20th century, when preparing for the establishment of the State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Technology and Systems, scholars such as the "Four King Kongs" of the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University, the "Four King Kongs" and "Four Little King Kongs" of the Department of Automation worked together, laying the foundation for Tsinghua University to thrive in the field of artificial intelligence today. For example, Harbin Institute of Technology proposed the concept of "sound and graphics", that is, the use of computers for intelligent calculation and recognition of sound, images and text, which makes Harbin Institute of Technology a leader in this field.

In the early days of the development of artificial intelligence in the mainland, there is also an interesting background that in the late 70s and early 80s of the 20th century, many people felt that "how can machines have intelligence", so it was necessary to debate philosophical ideology. This has also led many researchers not to use the term "artificial intelligence", but to use the term "intelligent simulation", which is not easy to misunderstand.

Throughout history, human society has undergone many subversive technological changes that have significantly affected the direction and process of human development. Artificial intelligence is booming, and this technology has the potential to change the way our societies are structured and operated, revolutionizing vast fields and having profound social, legal, philosophical, moral and spiritual implications. In the future, it is important to guide artificial intelligence to play a positive role and avoid its negative effects. We may not be able to refuse AI, but we need to prepare for the advent of AI to better adapt to the impact of AI.

Guang Ming Daily(2023-08-26, 12th edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily