Does AI have consciousness? Or is it possible for AI to have consciousness in the future? This is a question that seems a bit difficult to answer. The emergence theory seems to provide a positive answer. However, an examination of the conceptual structure of the emergence theory shows that the emergence theory of AI consciousness is more of a misunderstanding caused by the continuous transformation of concepts and fails to confirm any true emergence of consciousness. The emergence theory is beneficial in the sense that it encourages our society to embrace AI more tolerantly, viewing it as an organic existence rather than a simple machine. What the emergence theory deals with is not an ontological problem, but a practical problem that includes the perspective of future speculation. Whether the future recognizes the existence of AI consciousness can only be determined by the people who are closest to the future. So, the emergence theory of AI consciousness is not only a matter of technology and substantive objects, but also a matter of cultural concepts.

Big data is an important prerequisite for promoting the birth and development of generative AI. A genealogical examination of the evolution of big data will also help us gain a deeper understanding of the nature and prospects of new AI represented by ChatGPT. From intensive data to big data, from the Fourth Paradigm to the data deluge, this may not be just a process from quantitative change to qualitative change, but also a process in which the original intensity of data is gradually declining, and human subjectivity is gradually disappearing in front of data. Therefore, it is necessary to return to the philosophical concept of intensity. Inspired by the representative discussion of Deleuze, Garcia and other philosophers, we will reveal why intensity gradually transforms from a creative force into a measured force in classical physics, and then the completely domesticated electricity in the society of control. Since the affirmative life intensity is struggling, perhaps we should turn to the negative death intensity to find a way out. Garcia’s speculative realism, Deleuze’s body without organs, and Foucault’s lethal machines seem to open up three related but different paths.

Since the concept of AI was proposed, it has been endowed with many anthropomorphic imaginations. AI Designers not only pursue the physical similarity of AI to humans, but also try to make AI behave in a way close to humans. However, AI is inherently different from human intelligence: the former is past-oriented, while the latter is future-oriented; the former is based on logical operations, while the latter originates from the activities of consciousness; the former “possesses” the soul, while the latter “has” the soul. AI is a hybrid of humans and technology based on their relationship. Its anthropomorphic nature will have important social impacts: human-like AI based on the “digital revolution” will cause the re-stratification of human beings and lead to unexpected social consequences; the unrestricted use of human-like AI will cause humans to sink into the realm of “common sayings of ordinary people” and “knowing without thinking”; from an existential perspective, there will be communication dilemmas of “frequent interaction” and “loneliness dilemma” when human-like AI intervenes in human interaction. These social impacts will change the human condition to a great extent and need to be taken seriously.

With the rise of Large Language Models, the field of opensource knowledge production will witness a new transformation. Large Language Models have positive impacts on opensource knowledge production while they also bring potential challenges. On the one hand, Large Language Models significantly improve the efficiency of opensource knowledge generation and dissemination by adapting to Cunningham’s Law of the opensource community, providing round-the-clock newcomer knowledge training support, and correcting the systematic bias of knowledge production through domain-based construction strategies; on the other hand, Large Language Models have brought about the phenomenon of hallucination, copyright risk, digital exploitation, and the intensification of the trend of “dead internet”, which poses a serious threat to the verification, legitimacy, values, and ecological environment of opensource knowledge. Thus, we should strengthen the core role of human cognitive experience in guiding the technology development of Large Language Models, and explore solutions through practice, in order to realize the harmonious coexistence and common progress of knowledge production of Large Language Models and opensource knowledge production.

Our aesthetic activities can be divided into two types: one is in the non-spiritual sense and the other is originating from human spiritual needs or spiritual desires. As far as the spiritual aesthetic activities towards the existence of the world and the human itself is concerned, their objects actually consist of two kinds of “spiritual material”, i.e., “the sublime” and “the beautiful”. The human moral consciousness and moral behaviors do come from the spiritual aesthetic activities of these two kinds of spiritual material. Their mechanism lies in the application of reflective judgement, which is carried out in spiritual aesthetic games and reflects human spiritual freedom. Human spiritual aesthetic activities embody the unity of the principle of the Dao of Heaven and the principle of natural selection. Human beings know that they can realize “eternal life” after becoming an artwork through spiritual aesthetic activities. This spiritual aesthetic view has the significance of religious “redemption” for human beings in suffering.

Xunzi’s idea of “uncovering” (jiebi) as removing unreasonable prejudices in understanding mainly embodies in the chapter of “Uncovering” in the book of Xunzi. Xunzi regards both the emotional and intellectual prejudices in human nature as the “covering”, judged according to the practical effects of rituality, loyalty, faithfulness and monarchism. He advocates the elimination of the “covering” of human nature by “transforming one’s nature and initiating conscious activities” on the one hand, and the removal of the “covering” of knowledge by keeping “vacuity, unity and quiescence” on the other. However, there is still a “covering” in Xunzi’s “uncovering”. His “uncovering” is to replace the preconceptions of other various intellectual schools with Confucian benevolence and righteousness. In this way, he attempts to establish Confucianism as the only reasonable preconception. While he has become successful due to his “covering”, Xunzi is limited to the “covering” of his own understanding and consequently denies the positive significance of the “covering” of other schools and hinders the equal dialogue and communication of ideas. In this sense, Xunzi’s “uncovering” constitutes a mode of dogmatic hermeneutics.

During the periods of Zhou and Qin, the concept of the mandate of Heaven had multiple connotations such as the mandate of ghosts and gods, the mandate of law and the mandate of the heart-mind and nature. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, the concept of the mandate of Heaven was based on the mandate of ghosts and gods and meanwhile emphasized the governance of the state. However, it also contained some elements of the mandate of law and the mandate of the heart-mind and nature. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the mandate of ghosts and gods continued its influence in the sphere of national region. However, as the power structure of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty moved from royal government to hegemony and then to unification, the mandate of law and the mandate of the heart-mind and nature in the sphere of social ideology gradually became dominant. Moreover, philosophers in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty conducted theoretical construction to interpret the pluralistic connotations of the concept of the mandate of Heaven inherited from previous times, which had made a profound impact on ancient Chinese political philosophy.

Qing Kuan was a “legendary figure” in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. He became a bannerman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs from a civilian. With his expertise in painting and the opportunity to carry on imperial missions, he was promoted step by step to the candidate of a third rank minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the crowded officialdom in the late Qing Dynasty. He also accumulated a large amount of wealth. As a result, he caused jealousy of other officials and was punished by Emperor Guangxi’s order of the confiscation of his house. After the Reform Movement of 1898, Qing Kuan used his old social relations to become the special envoy to Japan. Because of the “achievements” of the Boxer Protocol, he got recommendation and his original Bannerman status and rank were restored. In the last ten years of the late Qing Dynasty, Qing Kuan made a last-ditch effort in his official career, but ended up as a governor of the fourth rank. So, he decided to leave officialdom. In the early ten years of the Republic of China, Qing Kuan observed the political situation from a civilian perspective. Sometimes he, as a bannerman, paid attention to bannermen’s livelihood, and sometimes he, as an ordinary citizen, focused on urban autonomy. He gradually faded away from the stage of his times.

After the September 18^th Incident, Japan launched an all-out invasion of Northeast China. In order to maintain the national sovereignty and territorial integrity, Chinese scholars represented by Fu Sinian hoped that academic research was able to provide strong evidence in the investigation of the League of Nations. Later, the scholars of “Yu Gong” also gradually began to adapt to the times, shifting their research from geographical change to the historical and geographical studies of the frontiers. After the outbreak of Anti-Japanese War, Jin Yufu wrote his influential General History of Northeast China, which further confirmed that Northeast China was the inherent territory of China and completed the “academic border defense”. In this period, there emerged a large number of research findings on the Northeast made by China’s patriotic scholars.

The reform of “the separation of the three rights” is an important means to deal with the dilemmas of rural residential land system under the background of “residing between the urban and the rural”. With the acceleration of urbanization and the implementation of rural revitalization strategy, the phenomenon of “residing between the urban and the rural”, which is formed by the two-way-flow of urban and rural population and their changing residences in different places, has become increasingly prominent. The population migration mode leads to function changes of rural residential lands. The residential function begins to weaken, while their property and social emotion functions are increasingly stronger. But limitations of the rural residential land system have restrained the property rights and assets values of rural residential land, resulting in many dilemmas, such as the coexistence of zero or inefficient utilization and covert transactions. Thus, it is urgent to promote the reform of “the separation of the three rights”. However, the reform is still restricted by many elements, including imperfect rural governance mechanisms, unclear property rights boundaries and ambiguous consciousness of farmers’ ownership. The innovation of relevant systems and mechanisms is hindered by virtual ownership and excessive “capitalization”. Therefore, the reform needs to clearly define boundaries of “the three rights”, clarify the legal right of rural residential land, and appropriately expand its use right basing on ensuring farmers’ qualification right in order to realize the property value. We also need to introduce market mechanisms to revitalize idle rural residential land in multiple ways so as to improve the utilization efficiency of rural residential land.

How has the media image of rural teachers been presented in the national narrative since 1949? This is an issue worthy of in-depth discussion while promoting a series of rural teacher support plans. This study selects the reports on rural teachers in People’s Daily (1949- 2021) for LDA topic modeling and case analysis to present the national construction process and role expectation of rural teachers in different times. Firstly, the focus of reporting on rural teachers has changed from the local typical experience to the national perspective, and the number continues to rise. This shows that the nation pays more and more attention to the issues of rural teachers. Secondly, the media image of rural teachers has experienced changes from ‘devotees of national collectivism’ in the period of collectivization to “strugglers of local pragmatism” in the period of reform and opening up, and then to “practitioners of urban and rural equity” in the period of rural revitalization. Thirdly, the moral discourse of “being both red and professional” has gradually faded, while the professional image construction based on teachers’ individual local emotion has been strengthened, shaping the ideal image of ‘sunflowers rooted in the soil’, whose value orientation is significant. Since the establishment of New China, the change of rural teachers’ media image reflects the transformation of rural education from “exogenous support” to “endogenous development”, whose dynamic mechanism is the concept and policy of urban-rural balance and educational equity.

Based on survey data from a sample of young scholars in several universities in Shanghai, this study investigates the objective and subjective socioeconomic status of young scholars from a perspective of social stratification and sociology of science. Firstly, there is significant differentiation among young scholars in terms of their objective prestige status, and especially in their subjective status identity. Secondly, the prestige status of young scholars is significantly influenced by factors such as age, gender, motivation for work, and the university where they obtained their doctoral degree. However, the influence of family background is not significant. This shows that the prestige status in an academic community is relatively open. Thirdly, the current and future status identity of young scholars is shaped by the three classic dimensions of social status, that is, wealth, power, and prestige. Revealing the influence mechanism of subjective and objective social status of young scholars, these conclusions can be instructive for optimizing talent policy.

The urban-rural income gap forms in a natural historical process. Narrowing the urban-rural income gap has become an inevitable choice of governing the country. The fundamental way is to follow objective laws to raise the bottom of the gap and trim the top of the gap. While to raise the bottom means to reduce or eliminate absolute poverty, mainly to raise the income level of farmers and eliminate absolute poverty in rural areas, both to raise the bottom and trim the top means to slow down polarization and solidly promote common prosperity. Narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas is positively related to poverty alleviation and common prosperity. The empirical research shows that the bottom of the absolute income gap between urban and rural areas is gradually rising and meanwhile China is gradually getting rid of absolute poverty, which is consistent with the implementation of the national targeted poverty alleviation strategy (2012-2020). We predict that the relative income gap between urban and rural areas will gradually narrow in the future and this will act as an important path to promote common prosperity on the new journey in the new era.

Based on the data of the “China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study” (CHARLS) collected in the four waves of surveys during 2011-2018, this paper investigates the impact of the urban-rural identity, region and income-level on the basic medical insurance benefits and equity of such benefits for the two types of basic medical insurance participants. The study finds that the coverage of the medical insurance for urban employees is rather low, while the actual coverage of the medical insurance for urban and rural residents is higher than the coverage aimed by the scheme; the benefit level of the insured in urban, eastern regions, or with high-income tends to be higher; the out-of-pocket medical expenses form a heavier burden on low-income patients. Nevertheless, the participants’ benefits level and equity in different dimensions has been improved with time. The results of empirical analysis show that within the medical insurance for urban employees, there is a significant regional gap, as the hospitalization expenses decreasing in the order of eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions. The health level of participants in the western region is significantly lower than that in the eastern region. Within the medical insurance for urban and rural residents, the urban participants tend to receive significantly higher benefits than rural participants and urban migrants; the health level of residents in the eastern region is the highest, while that of residents in the western region is the lowest; the participants with lower income tend to have lower hospitalization expenses and poorer health. These findings have some policy implications for further narrowing the benefit gap among the insured with different characteristics of urban-rural identity, region, and income level to promote social equity and common prosperity.

Understanding the traditional cultural origin and development of the ideology of common prosperity is of significant importance for theoretically grasping the concept of common prosperity. According to historical materialism, the concept of common prosperity put forward by the Communist Party of China is originated from the development of traditional Chinese thoughts. The pre-Qin period witnessed the emergence of the idea of enriching common people from Confucian people-oriented thought, serving as a precursor to the ideology of common prosperity. After the unification in the Qin and Han Dynasties, the advent of a unified nation provided the possibility of using state power to handle with poverty issues. Concurrently with the emergence of utopian thinking and ideas of equalizing wealth, practical strategies to deal with poverty were also proposed. However, the low productivity level in traditional agricultural societies made resolving poverty remain as an ideal. In the modern era, the traditional cultural roots of common prosperity merged with the essence of Marxist ideology. The socialist anti-poverty ideology gained acceptance among the majority. Eventually, the Communist Party of China advocates the concept of common prosperity. It can be seen that the concept of common prosperity is a great innovation of Chinese Communists while it is rooted in Chinese traditional culture. It is the result of the Sinicization of Marxism. Only the combination of Marxism and Chinese traditional culture produces this theoretical fruit of common prosperity.