Join us for a hybrid event with Uluğ Kuzuoğlu of the University of Washington in St. Louis.
Register at the link above!
About the Speaker:
Professor Uluğ Kuzuoğlu is a historian of modern China and the world, currently teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. His research focuses on the history of non-Western information and communication technologies, spanning from printing devices to artificial intelligence, and their intersections with political ideologies and social imaginaries. His book Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age (Columbia University Press, c2024) traces Chinese script reforms from the 1890s to the 1980s within the context of the global emergence of information technologies. He is currently working on a new project exploring the history of cybernetics, systems engineering, and AI in the Sinosphere. In addition to his academic work, Kuzuoğlu leads several public-facing digital humanities initiatives, including the mobile app “Asia in St. Louis” and the Immersive Technology Collective, which explores the role of immersive media in the humanities.
Title: Organizational Nationalism and Computational Analysis
Authors: Uluğ Kuzuoğlu (University of Washington in St. Louis)
Abstract: In 1987, a team of Chinese and European engineers developed a distinctive computer program that pushed the limits of the era’s cutting-edge technologies. This international collaboration produced the first prototype for applying Artificial Intelligence to the governance of an entire Chinese province—Shanxi, home to the country’s largest coal reserves. Although the prototype never advanced beyond its initial stage, it posed a provocative question: could AI be harnessed to manage an economy on the scale of a province—or even a nation?
This presentation situates the 1987 prototype within a transnational network of scientists, economists, and futurists, exploring how AI—particularly in the form of expert systems and decision-support systems—was reimagined as a tool for large-scale governance in China. It traces two converging genealogies. The first is the history of economic cybernetics, introduced from the Soviet Union to the People’s Republic of China in the 1960s, which profoundly shaped Chinese economic management by the 1980s. The second is the story of Japan’s Fifth Generation Computer Systems project—its ambitious bid for global leadership in AI—which ignited a decade-long global AI race, including in China. The intersection of these two trajectories in the 1980s created the unique conditions that inspired Chinese engineers to place computational power at the very heart of governance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free speech and academic freedom are foundational to our university’s missions of discovery and exploration. Questioning ideas, posing alternative opinions and presenting different perspectives is how we create knowledge and help everyone to have more meaningful engagement with the world around them. Hosting an event does not imply or signify the university’s endorsement, sponsorship, approval or disapproval of the views expressed in the event.