探索AI实践论

In Volume I of Selected Works of Mao Zedong, On Practice describes the process of knowing and transforming through the practice of changing nature and changing society. A similar process of knowing and transforming is unfolding in the social and commercial changes brought by AI.

In the process of knowing, the text describes two stages: perceptual knowledge and rational knowledge. As AI has developed to where it is today, most of its users remain at the stage of perceptual knowledge. Knowledge at this stage depends mainly on direct or indirect experience. In my view, in the B2C domain, users' perceptual knowledge has become relatively mature, especially when it comes to using AI tools in daily life, work, and programming. In the B2B domain, by contrast, perceptual knowledge is still relatively lacking. Many B2B users are influenced by their experience with the B2C tools they use.

Many AI developers and companies building AI tools, however, have already made the transition from perceptual to rational knowledge—that is, from experience to theory. Many developers can now apply those theories to reshape their own products.

"Yet with respect to the course of development, the movement of human knowledge is not complete. ... During a revolutionary period, circumstances change very rapidly; if the knowledge of revolutionaries cannot keep pace with these rapid changes, they cannot lead the revolution to victory." The same description can also be applied to today's AI revolution. Within the ranks of the AI revolution, there are "die-hards, whose thinking cannot advance with changing objective conditions." For example, there are many software engineers who are unwilling to admit that AI tools are changing the way they work, and who see AI as just an ordinary tool.

At the same time, there is also "empty talk. Their thinking runs ahead of a given stage of development of the objective process, and some treat fantasy as truth." But we should also be careful to distinguish the fantasies of empty talkers from the visions of pioneers. The former are often detached from reality, like castles in the air. The latter are often based on their existing knowledge and experience, and can be realized under certain assumptions and premises.

Today, "the world has reached an era in which all of humanity consciously transforms itself and transforms the world." There are still "people who oppose transformation," but they cannot stop themselves from "being transformed." The development of technology itself is unstoppable, like rain that is bound to fall. Undeniably, AI's impact may be even more far-reaching than that of the Industrial Revolution. AI can replace not only some physical labor, but also some mental labor. Lawyers, engineers, writers, designers, analysts, and other middle-class or even elite professionals may all be affected. Inevitably, die-hards and Luddites will emerge.

On Practice points clearly to the practical process of the AI revolution over the next decade: "Discover truth through practice, and verify and develop truth through practice again. From perceptual knowledge, actively develop rational knowledge; and from rational knowledge, actively guide revolutionary practice to transform both the subjective and objective worlds."