The Chinese writer Chen Qiufan analyzes the science fiction novel at the crossroads of technologies and human sciences.
Chen Qiufan (g.), The author of the island of Silicon, meets the public to promote his book in a bookstore in Shanghai, September 14, 2019.
Liu Cixin, a famous Chinese science fiction writer, one day said that artificial intelligence (AI) could already generate logically rigorous novels, capable of replacing human creation in the future. From October 2023, the novel The country of machines memory Created by the team of Professor Shen Yang of the Tsinghua University of Journalism and Communication using the generative AI participated anonymously in the competition of popular scientific and science fiction works of Jiangsu and won the second prize. Can we talk about competition when science fiction meets AI? What should we expect from the relationship between science fiction, technologies and human sciences?
Chen Qiufan, great Chinese science fiction writer, vice-president of the Science Fiction Literature Commission of the Association of Writers of China and Honorary President of the World Association of Chinese Science Fiction, estimates in an interview with China in the present that science fiction cannot replace the unique character of human expression. The novels of this representative of the new generation of Chinese science fiction writers are known for realism and the new wave, deeply influenced by French philosophical thought. “Science fiction can become a space for synesthesia in cultural dialogue between China and France,” he notes.
The Zhongshuge bookstore, designed on the theme of SF, in Huai’an (Jiangsu)
China in the present: AI is now widely used in literature, cinema and television, and has entered the writing of science fiction novels. What type of relationship is it? Does AI change the methods of creation? Is it a competitor or a creative assistant?
Chen Qiufan: AI changes the way in which science fiction is created. Since 2017, I have explored the use of AI to help creation in different scenarios, such as the use of language models to help simulate the dialogues of the characters, or generate a certain vision of the world, or even images and videos from scenes descriptions. These tools are like a kind of catalyst for inspiration which can cause new avenues in terms of imagination. But that does not mean that AI can replace writers. Writing science fiction is not only to fill up with imagination and universes. This also requires the integration of cultural sensitivity, emotional depth and philosophical thought, which AI is difficult to achieve today.
Will AI replace science fiction authors? It doesn’t concern me. What matters most is the way we interact with it and create a creative tension. It is also the initial intention of my proposal for “antagonistic generation”: do not use AI to write a book in my place, but engage in a complex game with it which forces me to think about what the unique character of human expression is.
Silicon Island
When you were 16, your first novel Bait won the Young Verne Award awarded by Science Fiction World. Your science fiction novels are known for realism and the new wave. How did French philosophy inspire you?
When I was a child, I really liked Jules Verne. He was one of the first foreign science fiction writers that I discovered. I have not systematically studied a large number of contemporary French science fiction novels, but French thought has had a deep influence on me. For example, the “body without organs” of Deleuze and Guattari allowed me to understand on new bases the mobility of the human body in the post-technical era. The theory of “disciplinary society” of Michel Foucault also helped me build the social structure under algorithmic control in Life algorithm. The theories of philosophers like Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze and Bruno Latour also allowed me to have a deeper understanding of the world in which we live. I have always thought that French philosophy was more sensitive and more poetic than the criticism of the instrumental rationality of the English -speaking world when it comes to questions of technological alienation and individual destiny.
The Sun That Fella series of SF micro-films generated by AI, was broadcast on the Internet on April 27, 2025.
Your novels describe the balance between technologies and humanist thinking, as Silicon Islandwhich combines imagination and depth. How do you see the relationship between science fiction, technologies and human sciences?
The creative context of Silicon Island Understands Guiyu, a real city in the Chaoshan region in the province of Guangdong, my hometown, and its history. I did research in the field by novelizing in a non -fictional way. I tried to understand how local power, the economy, and the ecological and cultural environment are built around “recycling of waste” and to deduce possible future scenarios through my imagination. This research has provided me with a realistic basis to build the framework of “the island of recycling of electronic waste”.
I have always thought that science fiction was not responsible for exaggerating technologies, but to allow people to see social structure, human emotions and ethical limits behind technologies. For me, the tension between technologies and human sciences is at the source of the structure of the novel.
Aerial view of the Chengdu Science Museum, place of reception of WorldCon 2023
What is the return on Silicon Island Among foreign readers? Do you think that science fiction can become a privileged vector for cultural dialogue between China and France, or more broadly, between China and the West?
Silicon Island has been translated into more than ten languages, including English, German, French and Italian. The French version of the novel was published by the Maison d’Editions Rivages. Overall, the reaction abroad was good, receiving many praise and also attracting the attention of certain literary criticisms. Of course, I think it is largely thanks to the French translation, which has precisely returned the essence of the original text. You know, translating science fiction works is not easy. In 2023, the French translation won the prize for the best translation at the Grand Prix of the Imagination at Utopiales de Nantes.
Science fiction can become, or even started to become, a space of synesthesia for dialogue between Chinese and Western cultures. We have technological journeys, a social evolution and unique historical memories, which can express themselves through the imagination to evoke the future. French-speaking readers have a strong tradition of reading on humanism and social issues, and Chinese science fiction is also moving from technological optimism to complex humanist thought, which makes communication possible and full of meaning.
Chen Qiufan
As the sciences and technologies progress, we are Faced with structural anxieties in cognitive, emotional, ethical and institutional terms. Ten years ago, you said that “science fiction is tackling this type of anxiety”. If you had to describe the human human in the era of AI in a sentence, what would you say?
As Kai-fu Lee and I considered it in AI 2042: Ten scenarios for the futurethe symbiotic man-machine society of the future is full of opportunities and challenges. The key lies in the way we learn to coexist with another form of intelligence and to use others to strengthen our agency feeling and our level of consciousness.
If I had to summarize the human in the era of AI in a sentence, I would say that humanity will rediscover the faults and the poetry of existence in the mirror image of intelligent machines.
Algorithms can predict us more and more precisely, and our emotions, our preferences and our decisions can all be quantified. But it is precisely in these “faults” – these emotional fluctuations, these ambiguous choices and these cultural metaphors that algorithms cannot grasp – that we can still redefine the meaning of what is human. Science fiction is a literary form that helps us to identify these flaws. Whatever the technological advances, the heart of science fiction always lies in man. It reflects the orientation of values and the human condition of our time through the representation of the future.
