In the current era of rapid development of generative artificial intelligence technology, the intrinsic relationship between Chinese characters and AI language models has become a new focus of interdisciplinary research. At the 9th World Congress on Sinology held this year, Igor Radev, a young sinologist and professor at the North Macedonia Sinology Knowledge Center, proposed the view that "Chinese characters are the first generation of generative artificial intelligence language models". He recently stated in an interview that Chinese characters are a system that imitates natural language, both in terms of their structure and creation methods. From this perspective, Chinese characters can serve as the world's "first generative artificial intelligence language model". The summary of the interview transcript is as follows: Reporter: What characteristics of Chinese characters do you associate with artificial intelligence? What are the connections between it and the operational mechanisms of modern artificial intelligence language models? Feng Haicheng: As the first generation generative artificial intelligence language model, Chinese characters may sound a bit strange, but they are actually not. French linguist Andr é Martinet believes that the expression of every language has two elements: ideographic and phonetic. Phonomes and syllables are meaningless elements, while words and morphemes are meaningful elements. The function of Chinese characters is to record the Chinese language. Chinese characters also have two structures. One is the formal structure, composed of strokes; The other is functional structure, constructed by expressing semantics (radicals) and expressing speech. In theory, Chinese characters can be constructed with limited strokes and functions, and an open system can generate infinite characters with certain rules. Meanwhile, Chinese characters have generative characteristics. If a new concept arises, a new word will be created to express it. This is different from other writing systems. For example, Macedonian language belongs to the Indo European language family and is a comprehensive language (also known as a "inflectional language"). Its word forms vary greatly, and the grammatical properties of each word can be intuitively judged through formal changes. Chinese, on the other hand, belongs to an isolated language, and the grammatical function of words is not reflected through morphological changes, but relies on syntactic structure and context to convey information. Therefore, when translating Chinese, it is often necessary to study and compare relevant literature in order to accurately interpret semantics and complete the conversion. The same applies to the processing of work by artificial intelligence. It can be said that Chinese characters are a system that imitates natural language, both in terms of their structure and the way they are created. From this perspective, Chinese characters can serve as the world's' first generative artificial intelligence language model '. Reporter: In your opinion, how does studying Chinese characters help the West understand China? Feng Haicheng: Chinese characters have a close relationship with Chinese civilization, and their influence cannot be ignored. As a symbol system for recording Chinese language, the function of Chinese characters is not limited to carrying information, but also deeply integrated into cultural construction. The highly respected art form in ancient China is undoubtedly calligraphy, which is relatively rare in other civilizations around the world. Most civilizations have not elevated calligraphy to such a high aesthetic level. Through the evolution of calligraphy art, Chinese characters have formed adaptive adjustments to cultural development, demonstrating a unique path of deep integration with civilization. The perspective of comparing Chinese characters to the first generation generative artificial intelligence language model is quite innovative, and in the current booming development of artificial intelligence, it can provide new ideas for the study of Chinese character history and cultural exchange. In the early days of Western academia, there was a cognitive bias towards Chinese characters, believing that they lacked rationality as a writing system, after all, the Latin alphabet only has more than 20 characters, while Chinese characters have thousands. But this view is not accurate and fails to objectively consider the adaptation relationship between the writing system and language characteristics. Chinese, as an isolated language, has no morphological changes in its words and is rich in synonyms, which is completely different from inflectional language. In fact, the internal structural logic of Chinese characters is highly reasonable. My research focuses on the interaction between Mediterranean civilization and China along the ancient Silk Road, such as the relationship between the Byzantine Empire and Tang Dynasty China. Research has shown that the communication between ancient civilizations was much closer than people's cognition, and exploring these historical interactions is of great significance for the mutual learning of civilizations. Faced with the divergence between American scholar Huntington's theory of "clash of civilizations" and the advocacy of civilization dialogue, scholars studying cross-cultural fields should respond to the era's proposition with the study of civilization mutual learning, and make efforts to promote civilization dialogue. Reporter: In the digital age, generative artificial intelligence is developing rapidly. What challenges and opportunities will the combination of Sinology and artificial intelligence technology face? Feng Haicheng: The challenges brought by artificial intelligence may manifest in multiple fields. Taking translation as an example, with the development of technology, will there be a day when all text translations can be completed without the need for translators or AI? We are currently unable to predict the development of artificial intelligence, but if such scenarios come true, will the necessity of foreign language learning be undermined as a result? All of these require us to think. In terms of opportunities, the auxiliary value of artificial intelligence in the field of Sinology research has gradually emerged. Specifically, when I study ancient Chinese classics such as the Book of Documents and the Book of Songs, artificial intelligence can undertake tedious basic tasks such as grammar structure analysis, while I can focus on the core academic aspects. At present, artificial intelligence does not have true thinking ability and can only simulate the thinking process. Although this kind of mental simulation is remarkable, the specific mechanism by which it mimics human thinking has not yet been fully understood in the field of computational science. The specific impact of the development of artificial intelligence still needs to be observed in practice. It may both reconstruct traditional research paradigms and open up new paths for academic exploration, but these need to be gradually clarified through continuous exploration. Reporter: How can we better explore and promote the value of Sinology, Chinese characters, and the Chinese language? Feng Haicheng: To promote the popularization of Sinology overseas, we need to think about how to attract foreigners, especially young foreigners, to learn Chinese. This requires leveraging the soft power of Chinese culture. Nowadays, many young people overseas are familiar with the Chinese animated film "Ne Zha 2" and the game "Black Myth: Wukong", which are meaningful cultural dissemination paths. In the past, I believed that China placed more emphasis on the external dissemination of traditional culture. Traditional culture is certainly good, but in order to attract the attention and understanding of contemporary youth, we cannot rely solely on traditional culture, but should also harness the power of contemporary culture. For a long time, there has been a cognitive bias in Western society towards terms such as "modernization" that are exclusive to the West, China, and other non Western countries, with only history and traditional culture. To dispel this bias, we should increase the overseas dissemination of contemporary Chinese culture, allowing Chinese films, electronic games, animation, contemporary literature and other cultural forms to receive more attention from overseas. Interviewee Profile: Igor Radev, Ph.D. in Chinese Language and Writing from Beijing Normal University, is a sinologist and translator from the Republic of North Macedonia. I have been studying Chinese and engaged in Chinese and Sinology research since 1997, with linguistics, philology, and other main research directions. He is the recipient of the 15th China Book Special Contribution Award (2021). The main translated works include: Laozi's Tao Te Ching (2012), Confucius: The Doctrine of the Mean in the Analects of Confucius (2013), Selected Ancient Chinese Poetry (2014), etc.