Top 2024 academic topics unveiled

Wang Weisong, vice-president of the Shanghai Federation of Social Science Associations, says that since its launch in 2003, the annual selection of the top 10 academic topics in Chinese philosophy and social sciences has been carried out for 22 consecutive years.

The selection aims at cutting-edge, forward-looking academic topics that have been intensively discussed throughout the year and attracted a certain level of public attention, he adds.

In 2024, studies around AI value alignment focused mainly on its technical paths, ethical norms and the establishment of governance frameworks, apart from balancing the rapid technological development with social values.

According to Chen Changfeng, professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, these academic efforts emphasized realizing human values through technical approaches like machine learning and data-based governance and reconciling value conflicts ethically; dealing with the bias, misinformation and unclear accountability arising from the content generated by large language models; as well as promoting AI value alignment via ethical standards, legal policies and international collaborations.

She stresses the need to pay attention to the cultural and ethical differences between countries, which will be reflected in their generative artificial intelligence products and lead to the necessity of coordination.

Zhang Xiping, editor-in-chief of academic journal International Sinology, says that world China studies involve not only China studies by overseas scholars, but also Chinese scholars' research into overseas China studies themselves.

Over the past year, Chinese scholars have increasingly investigated the spread of Chinese culture abroad, compiling bibliographies for overseas Chinese texts, reprinting and publishing these texts, and translating important Sinological works, which all provide new materials for domestic Chinese cultural studies.