Beijing, March 3 (ZXS) -- ChatGPT has become phenomenal, should humans feel anxious?
——Interview with Zhu Jiaming, economist and chairman of the academic and technical committee of Hengqin Digital Finance Research Institute
Written by Xia Bin Xie Longfei
The birth of ChatGPT has "updated" people's understanding of the development of artificial intelligence, and at the same time raised a series of questions, will it cause unemployment? What are the possible risks? Is it "friend or foe" for us?
In the preface to the recently published book AIGC: The Age of Intelligent Creation, Zhu Jiaming, an economist and chairman of the academic and technical committee of the Hengqin Digital Finance Research Institute, called this intelligent digital transformation "comparable to the Neolithic civilization paradigm transformation".
He talked about ChatGPT in an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East-West Question" a few days ago, bluntly saying that this is a friendly competition between humans and artificial intelligence, rather than forcing humans to a dead end. Panic and anxiety about AI should not be overplayed, but should see the relationship between humans and it.
The following is a summary of the interview:
China News Agency: At present, among AIGC-related topics, ChatGPT is the hottest. You mentioned that it is too early to talk about it as a threat to humanity, so how should we see the emergence of such a new thing?
Zhu Jiaming: AIGC (the use of artificial intelligence technology to generate content) is an important and correct development direction chosen by artificial intelligence after long-term exploration, and ChatGPT is a milestone in the development of AIGC. ChatGPT has gone beyond the scope of artificial intelligence products, because it has directly led to the all-round combination of artificial intelligence with modern economic activities and economic development models, human daily life, and changed the traditional economic principles, which is a fundamental change. The so-called threat theory is too early to see. It is imperative to face a series of new technologies triggered by AIGC, and think about how to understand, keep up with and apply these new technologies, change the existing industries and industry models, and achieve innovation.
A laptop shows OpenAI talking to ChatGPT with Chinese Simplified. Photo courtesy of Visual China
China News Agency: Bill Gates believes that ChatGPT will be as important as the birth of the Internet and the development of personal computers. Do you agree with this view? What does ChatGPT really mean for the human development process?
Zhu Jiaming: From the history of scientific and technological development, Bill Gates' judgment is quite reasonable. Because AIGC technology is indeed a major revolution after the Internet and computer revolution, artificial intelligence has brought the Internet into a new stage. In the future, the main body of the Internet, in addition to human beings themselves, will largely be artificial intelligence products, especially artificial intelligence-led intelligent Internet.
At present, AIGC has entered a relatively important early stage. 2022 is a critical year, and the emergence of ChatGPT proves the great potential of artificial intelligence. At present, there are a series of company groups related to AIGC technology, which will accelerate this process and promote artificial intelligence into the important stage of "human-machine direct dialogue, like dialogue between people". It is foreseeable that in the next two or three years, AIGC will gradually enter a climax of development.
Some people worry that applications like ChatGPT will make humans less able to think. On the contrary, it will force and force humans to evolve their ability to think. Now, we've found that what humans can do, artificial intelligence can do, and humans have to think about what else they can do. When humanity raises this question and faces this problem, it is progressing.
Comics: ChatGPT ignites AI wind Artificial intelligence ushered in the spring breeze Visual China Photo courtesy
China News Agency: GhatGPT has also caused many controversies, including academic fraud, technology abuse, public opinion security and other risks.
Zhu Jiaming: Any technological progress and scientific and technological revolution will generate corresponding risks, which are mainly solved through two aspects. On the one hand, it is necessary to establish a regulatory system and form corresponding legal constraints. There should be no disconnect between scientific and technological progress and the evolution of government regulation and legal systems, but should keep the legal system and regulatory system in step with the times. On the other hand, many problems that occur in the scientific and technological revolution and scientific and technological progress ultimately need to be solved through the revolution and progress itself. Some of the problems that people think of today will disappear naturally when technology advances to the next stage.
China News Agency: ChatGPT has once again sparked a discussion about the development of artificial intelligence will cause some people to lose their jobs, which industries do you think are most susceptible?
Zhu Jiaming: In the next two or three years, there should be no large-scale and large-scale unemployment caused by artificial intelligence. Apps like ChatGPT don't pose a material threat to the overall job market. In the long run, the development of artificial intelligence has expanded the scope of human activities, changed the mode of activities, and there will be a historical stage of coexistence and mutual promotion with human beings. It forces human beings to develop in two aspects, one is to transfer the traditional creative activities of the past to higher creative activities, and to hand over the creative activities of the comparison terminal and the lower end to artificial intelligence. Second, artificial intelligence will be further combined with robots, so that robots can replace human manual labor in a larger area and to a greater extent, so that human beings can be freed from manual labor and improve the quality of life and work.
In this process, human beings themselves have to make better choices, because more entrepreneurs are needed to open up more new fields and new industries to gradually complete the migration of human beings from the pre-generation of artificial intelligence to the post-generation of artificial intelligence.
Comics: AIGC applications continue to heat up What changes will it bring to the lives of ordinary people? Photo courtesy of Visual China
China News Agency: From a global perspective, what is China's position in the artificial intelligence track? Does China have the ability to achieve a leading position?
Zhu Jiaming: In the field of artificial intelligence at this stage, it must be admitted that the gap between China and Western developed countries is still relatively large. OpenAI, which released ChatGPT, is almost dominant. After that, there will be quite a few companies to follow, including Microsoft and Google. The West will set off a wave of artificial intelligence industry chain with AIGC as the framework and ChatGPT and other similar products.
Therefore, we have to make all-round adjustments from the underlying technology to the large model to the application. Constant speed catch-up is not enough, acceleration is necessary to shorten the distance, and acceleration requires coordination and policy systems. China should choose the "backward model", that is, strengthen the application of AIGC technology, and ultimately promote the development of industries that support the application through application. From basic research to applied research, China now urgently needs to build an industrial policy system that catches up with AIGC.
At the same time, enterprises should increase application efforts and expand application space; Researchers should be able to solve information symmetry and basic research problems; Under the guidance of the state, investors should turn relevant capital investment into long-term capital behavior, and have the awareness of supporting investment in related industries for 3 to 5 years or more. If the pursuit of capital return is too early, enterprises are likely to have to adjust their direction and lose historical opportunities at a critical moment when they have seen the light of day, because they do not have enough capital support.
In the late 20th century and early 21st century, in the process of scientific and technological revolution, the biggest characteristics of investment were long cycle, high risk and slow return. As long as technology reaches a certain height, it will naturally produce a huge "spillover effect", and commercial activities are the inevitable result of the spillover effect of technology. Pursuing business goals too early will not produce sufficient spillovers, and if the "spillovers" are small, the commercial benefits must be very limited.
China News Agency: Looking at the development of new technologies in recent years, Western countries are actually ahead of China in the underlying technology, and we may be better at the practical application of technology.
Zhu Jiaming: The important reason for this difference is that we don't have enough talent in basic research. However, after all, China has a large market and a perfect industrial system. At the engineering level, China has considerable advantages and potential in the field of technology development. Now it is necessary to choose the strategy of "horse racing" and give full play to its own advantages in the development process of AIGC to make up for its disadvantages.
The education system should also be reformed, and the period of cultivation and maturity of first-class scientific and technological personnel should be shortened. If you analyze the founding team of OpenAI, very few have completed the so-called long cycle from undergraduate, master's, PhD, and postdoc. The key to future talent is to maintain the imagination, creativity and explosiveness of students. Explosiveness is the passion, ability, physical strength and state of being physically and mentally engaged and breaking through something around the clock.
Good people are like athletes, and their high explosive period is actually very short. The integrated circuit revolution and semiconductor revolution of that year were also led by young people around the age of 20 to 30. The combination of the three forces of imagination, creativity, and explosiveness is not particularly long for each generation. The same is true of today's scientific and technological innovation, which must give young people the opportunity to stimulate their explosive power. Today's cutting-edge technology feels like it has entered the state of sports competition, requiring fast, strong and breakthrough.
In October 2018, Beijing, as one of the activities of the Zhongguancun Double Innovation Season, Zhongguancun Chuangye Street International Talent Market was opened. Photo by Yuan Yi
China News Agency: You are known as one of the "Four Gentlemen of Reform." In your opinion, what spirit of China's reform and opening up can help China achieve scientific and technological innovation and self-reliance?
Zhu Jiaming: The most important experience of China's reform and opening up is to emancipate the mind. The first step in China's reform actually begins with "scientific and technological reform". The earliest national conference of great historical significance in reform and opening up was the National Science Conference in March 1978. Its core idea is what Deng Xiaoping called "science and technology are productive forces." At that time, Guo Moruo delivered a passionate written speech entitled "The Spring of Science".
In my view, modernization is first and foremost scientific and technological modernization, and the initial driving force of reform and opening up lies in the scientific and technological revolution. Today, 45 years later, we must renew our call for the "spring of science". Today's world competition is scientific and technological competition, and it is the competition at the forefront of science and technology. (End)
Respondent Profile:
Zhu Jiaming, Ph.D. in Economics, Professor, Chairman of the Academic and Technical Committee of Hengqin Digital Finance Research Institute, Visiting Professor of Southern University of Science and Technology, Advisor of Zhuhai and other local governments; Academic fields are broad, including economic growth, industrial structure, scientific and technological innovation, financial and monetary history and policy, spatial economics, history of China's reform, etc., especially groundbreaking research and practice on digital economy, digital currency and blockchain; Representative works include "A Brief Introduction to the Structure of the National Economy", "Reality and Choice", "Non-Balanced Growth", "From Freedom to Monopoly: Two Thousand Years of China's Monetary Economy", "A Collection of Books", "The Future Determines the Present: Blockchain, Digital Currency and Digital Economy", "Metaverse and Digital Economy", etc.