China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence
* Book: Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence. Ed. by Benjamin Bratton, Bogna Konior, Anna Greenspan, Amy Ireland. Urbanomic, 2025
URL = https://www.urbanomic.com/book/machine-decision-is-not-final/
Abstract
Visions of the contested future of AI veer between common planetary goals and a new Cold War as culturally-specific models of intelligence, speculative traditions, and thought experiments come up against the emergence of novel forms of cognition that cannot be reduced to any historical cultural tradition.
This uniquely-positioned volume provides expert insight into this tension, using China as a touchstone for rethinking ‘artificiality’ and ‘intelligence’ as sites of difference in a way that is already present in the difficulty of precisely translating the Chinese term 人工智能.
Spanning borders between different worlds, histories, futures, and foundational models, Machine Decision is Not Final is not only a timely reappraisal of the stakes of AI development, but a toolbox for constructing more global imaginaries for the future of AI.
Moving beyond the clichés that still dominate the contemporary debate, this interdisciplinary, cross-cultural collection decenters familiar narratives to provide a fresh perspective on what artificial intelligence is today, and what it might become.
CONTENTS
Introduction Anna Greenspan Bogna Konior
- Translating Chinese AI Shuang L. Frost
- Between the Human and the Machinic: Qian Xuesen and AI Bo An
- Five Moments in the History of Chinese Cybernetics Hongzhe Wang
- Automaticity and the Mystery of State Vincent Garton
- Sinofuturism and AI Steve Goodman Lawrence Lek Anna Greenspan
- Cultivating Intelligence Anna Greenspan
- The Dark Forest Theory of Intelligence Bogna Konior
- Afterword: Apology for Western Theory of AI Benjamin Bratton