The Paper's reporter Xu Xiao intern Li Lingling
Europe in 2221 is the domain of young people. Danny, who has just graduated from college, with all kinds of questions about the bizarre surprise of his best friend, has passed the parliamentary draft and entered the power center of European federal parliamentarians. Behind the seemingly thriving society, artificial intelligence is controlling everything in Europe, machine life is awakening, the secrets behind the youth revolution are gradually emerging, and a new world war is imminent.
The above setting appeared in the long science fiction novel "Young Generation" published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House a few days ago, written by Li Jiapeng. In the book, the author constructs a society dominated by young people and artificial intelligence. Draft politics, AI parliament, senior tax... Through these novel imaginations, the novel explores the scientific and technological forms, political systems, social relations and civilization development of human beings, and in this way, reviews the reality and puts forward a vision for the future.
Around the world, science fiction writing is increasingly used as a "vehicle for thinking", and senior traditional writers such as McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro have also begun to deal with this aspect. Graduated from oxford university in mathematics, Li Jiapeng has lived in many countries around the world, and also holds a degree in statistics and medicine. Currently specializing in financial investment, he has a wealth of cross-disciplinary experience, which has also put a unique mark on his science fiction novels.
On the afternoon of September 4, author Li Jiapeng, poet Hu Sang and writer Sansan visited the Jingshe Store of Shanghai Dayin Bookstore to share and interpret the novel with readers.
The sharing session is on-site
Is youth draft politics an ideological experiment or a realistic irony?
Similar to 1984 and The Curious Man of the High Castle, The Young Generation divides the world into several "internal circulation" large federations, each of which develops without interference. The main storyline focuses on the European Federation, where young people become the political subjects of the dominant country, which is one of the most ingenious ideas in "Youth Generation".
In the novel, young people take power from the older, and the old are exiled to the bottom of society. More and more young people are taking the political stage through the draft game, and young people have more weight in the voting.
Li Jiapeng said that this idea can be traced back to his personal experience when he studied in the UK. Europe is a society with a serious "politics of old age", and when he left Europe in 2016, he found that young people voted at 30%, and most of them supported staying in Europe, while the older people voted at 70%, and most supported Brexit. But in fact, the drawbacks or benefits brought about by the decade or more after Brexit are borne by the current young people, so this matter is equivalent to the elderly deciding the fate of young people.
"It's a thought experiment," Mr. Li said. In today's society, it must be the middle-aged and the elderly who have more resources and power. Therefore, in "Young Generation", he slightly reversed the existing social form, hoping to explore the contradictions and games between different generations of social subjects through stories.
The realization of youth politics in the novel is through the entertainment form of the draft, which Hu Sang believes contains a strong irony. Whether young people can represent the future is one of the themes that the novel wants to explore.
From the overall dimension of the world's modern and contemporary history, Hu Sang believes that young people have gradually become the main body of social practice. Hussan said that young people have the strongest social productivity and the strongest desires, but it is precisely because of their shallow experience that they are easily seduced and exploited, "just like the youth movement in Germany at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, young people originally wanted to rebel against the older generation's antiquated system, but they were used to sacrifice their own blood." ”
Sansan believes that the portrayal of youth and old age in the novel actually continues the thinking of many current practical issues, and under the social topics such as the three-child policy and aging, intergenerational contradictions may become a strong social focus.
"Youth Generation"
Civilizations may "hug" each other, the universe is not necessarily a "dark forest"
Liu Cixin's classic science fiction work "Three-Body Problem" proposes a far-reaching concept of "dark forest", arguing that once a cosmic civilization is discovered, it will inevitably be attacked by other cosmic civilizations. In Li Jiapeng's "Youth Generation", a contrary "hugging theory" is proposed, which holds that the various cosmic civilizations are not necessarily antagonistic to each other, but are more likely not to interfere with each other, or to cooperate.
Li Jiapeng knew that this concept would meet with many objections, but he still insisted on putting forward this different hypothesis of cosmic civilization. In his view, it is not a good thing that many people regard the "dark forest" as the only criterion, and although these assumptions cannot be confirmed at present, the ideas in science fiction should also be treated more openly and inclusively, just like values.
Although many species on Earth have gone extinct, humans still coexist with many species. Li Jiapeng's view of the universe civilization is optimistic, he feels that there will be no competition between two civilizations with too large a gap, "when ants evolve to have the consciousness of occupying the earth, human beings may have disappeared long ago."
On the other hand, the proposal of the theory of hugging in the book is essentially to explore the possibility of human coexistence with advanced artificial intelligence. In the novel, the author sets up two different artificial intelligences, one is the self-conscious artificial intelligence represented by "Europa", and the other is the advanced life form with autonomous consciousness represented by "Adeva".
In fact, the business investment work that Li Jiapeng is doing now is inevitably dealing with various cutting-edge technologies, which makes him have a richer understanding and imagination of the future of AI, and firmly believes that there is a possibility of super artificial intelligence in the future.
In the book, he avoids the hollywood science fiction routine as much as possible, does not talk about the situation after human enslavement in general, but tries to explore whether slavery can happen. "Artificial intelligence does not have to enslave humans, as in the book 'Adeva', it exists as a higher form, with a stronger ability to access more resources, there is no need to compete with humans." Li Jiapeng explained.
The imagination of science fiction lies in transcending the current vision
"Traditional literature is the imagination of human emotions, or the imagination of language itself, but science fiction works require the imagination of the re-engineering of human civilization." Husan believes that excellent science fiction literature, especially the examination of the author's ability to imagine beyond human self-centeredness, the novel "Young Generation" is detached from the anthropocentric narrative, beyond the daily thinking framework to explore the cosmic space in the novel, which is very valuable.
Li Jiapeng said that the point that science fiction works have been criticized by many people is that they simply hype the concept, but they are still telling the story of modern people, like many science fiction movies such as "Star Wars" on the shaping of other civilizations or species, the result is still similar to us humans. However, he also acknowledges that this situation is difficult to avoid, and before the technology develops to a certain extent, people will inevitably be limited by cognition.
Because man always has a paradox, "We are in a very low dimension, and the other world operates in a higher dimension, and man's imagination cannot reach that height." Husan said.
Why the introduction of "Adeva" in the book, such an all-knowing and all-powerful "god", Li Jiapeng said is also based on the pessimistic attitude towards this issue, "If there is no external force to promote, there will be a pool of stagnant water." The author believes that human nature is immutable, unless at a certain critical point in time, human beings and thinking suddenly expand countless times, then the relationship between people may change. The introduction of super artificial intelligence in the novel is precisely an attempt to explore the possibility of human nature changing.
"Young Generation" has many topics that can be discussed in depth, and in Hu Sang's view, it involves mathematics, physics, computer knowledge, and the imagination of people and society.
Talking about the original intention of the creation of the novel, Li Jiapeng said that he did not want to create a complete system, but also wanted to trigger the reader's thinking. "I don't necessarily write all these things right, but I hope to use this to provoke the reader to think for himself, which is the value of my work."
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Jia
Proofreader: Shi Gong