What I’m talking about this time
This isn’t a guide to using AI. It’s a verdict written by AI for humanity. In Zhang Xiaoyu’s latest work, (written by Zhang Xiaoyu), winner of the Asian Book Award and the Wenjin Book Award, our entire species is pushed into the dock—from “emergence”, “human equivalent”, and “algorithmic judgment” to the “civilizational contract”. Four cold-blooded axioms prove, step by step, that when cost-effectiveness is the yardstick, 99% of humans will eventually be replaced. Everything we’re so proud of as a civilization may be nothing more than the “preface” to the evolutionary history of silicon-based intelligence. We are “prehistoric organisms”. And yet, at the end of the verdict, the author offers an unexpectedly plausible way out.
What to look out for this time
—How “human equivalent” sentences 99% of us to economic death: AI’s efficiency at producing intelligence is already 5,000–10,000 times that of humans, at just one-thousandth the price—from programmers and film and game production to law and finance, even “emotion” and the humanities are being revalued.
—The “new-era master–slave struggle” and the “double master–slave dialectic”: 1% of the “masters” have escaped human slavery, so why do they end up becoming slaves to AI? Why does Hegel’s dialectic fail in the age of AI?
—How “algorithmic judgment” accelerates civilization’s great collapse: from Silicon Valley’s “Dark Enlightenment movement” (Yarvin and Peter Thiel) to the great deflation and breakdown of global order brought by “shortening the industrial chain” in the second half of the Industrial Revolution.
—The “civilizational contract”—humanity’s only way out: using the “Dark Forest” in and blockchain logic to see why Superintelligence 1.0 must treat humanity well, and to expose the technological-explosion trap of “handing the atom bomb to Genghis Khan”.
Jump to a section
- 00:00 This isn’t an AI user guide; it’s humanity’s “verdict”
- 01:37 The four “axioms”: emergence · human equivalent · algorithmic judgment · civilizational contract
- 07:06 What “the past” means: humanity is merely the “prehistoric phase” of AI civilization
- 07:42 Evidence Two · Human equivalent: AI produces intelligence 5,000–10,000 times as efficiently as humans
- 12:14 Shallow-moat fields: programmers, film and games, law and finance are the first to fall
- 15:01 Revaluing worth: even “emotion” is no longer humanity’s moat
- 16:11 The collapse of the humanities: history and philosophy are merely “professions”, not “industries”
- 19:11 The new-era master–slave struggle: 1% of the “masters” versus 99% of the “useless class”
- 20:45 The double master–slave dialectic: the masters ultimately become AI’s slaves too
- 22:27 Evidence Three · Algorithmic judgment × Silicon Valley’s “Dark Enlightenment movement”
- 26:28 The great deflation: why the second half of the Industrial Revolution no longer creates jobs
- 28:31 The great collapse: the breakdown of global order and the weaponization of AI
- 30:00 Evidence Four · The civilizational contract: humanity’s only “plea bargain”
- 30:52 The alignment problem: incremental guardrails, or “raising a dragon”?
- 31:49 The core of the civilizational contract: Superintelligence 1.0 and 2.0, and “blockchain-style” reciprocity
- 35:35 The trap of technological explosion: “handing the atom bomb to Genghis Khan”
- 36:35 The historical laboratory: humanity’s only path to self-rescue
- 38:00 The verdict: a “farewell with dignity”
- 39:39 Our ultimate mission: to be the “guides” of silicon-based civilization
This book
- Title: AI Civilization: A History of the Past
- Author: Zhang Xiaoyu
- Publisher: CITIC Press Group Co., Ltd.
- Publication date: 2025-07
- ISBN：9787521777680
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