Building an autonomous knowledge system for philosophy and social sciences in china
The history of human civilization is also a history of scientific and technological development. Today, technology-driven digital revolutions such as the internet, big data, artificial intelligence and block chains are driving human society into digital civilization. Digital civilization generally affects all fields, including the law, and as a result, digital law has emerged as the subject of research on the legal issues of the digital age. The opinion on strengthening legal education and legal theory research in the new era, issued by the central office of the communist republic of china and the office of the state council, proposes to accelerate the development of emerging disciplines such as social governance law, science and technology law, digital law, climate law and law of the sea law. The development process and size of china's digital economy determine that china's system of autonomous knowledge of digital law cannot and should not be based solely on western methodological knowledge and theory, but rather should be based on a clear and new relationship between subjects of law, objects and rights, together with a scientific paradigm of research logic that is original and universal in nature。
Core elements of an autonomous knowledge system for digital law
Data are the most dynamic factor of production in the digital age, and we have been the first to include it as a new production factor in policy documents, reflecting the chinese programme and wisdom of digital governance. The first task in building an autonomous knowledge system of digital law is to identify data as a central element of the legal issues of the digital age。
Value realization of data elements is the logical starting point for the construction of an autonomous knowledge system for digital law. Industrial civilization uses traditional factors of production, such as labour, land and capital, to produce productivity, while the digital age activates the new production factor of data. The non-physical, non-competitive and non-exclusive nature of the data elements determines the lower costs of replicating, migrating, integrating and dividing the data, and contributes to an economic model of orderly circulation and value cycles. The digital economy's “trading bang” driven by the data elements can generate digital platforms that aggregate the subject matter of the transaction and the behaviour of the transaction, which can have a significant impact on the value chain of the data elements, which may enhance the network and scale effects of the digital economy on the one hand, and impede the flow of data elements on the other hand through data control on the other。
The interest model of the data elements is the theoretical thread behind the construction of an autonomous knowledge system of digital law. The data elements and characteristics of the digital industry have shaped the interest model of digital law, mainly the “rights paradigm” and “interest paradigms”. The “right paradigm” is a model of legal governance inherited from the era of the industrial economy, centred on the logic of “capital element-right-price” by guaranteeing the freedom of the will of the subjects and the efficiency of decision-making through a typology and stable rules of rights. But the time lag in the “right paradigm”, the one-time conflict with the instant and cumulative demand created by the value of the data elements, and the difficulty of clearly defining the boundaries of rights like traditional assets, require a “interest”-based paradigm of equity in the digital economy. At the heart of the “interest paradigm” is the substantive distribution of factor value, which breaks through the formalization of rights and distributes the proceeds according to the dynamics of the contributions of the various subjects during the data life cycle, creating a “data element-benefit-value” logic. The digital age requires a combination of two paradigms that promote the integration of data elements into the production architecture, and that foster the formation of data resources, data products, data assets, etc., before transforming them into empowering objects and re-establishing dynamic and pluralistic rights mechanisms。
The distribution of the value of data elements is the focus of the construction of an autonomous knowledge system for digital law. Data values are created by multiple subjects, the exclusive ownership of a single rights holder inhibits value-sharing and ecological collaboration, and inherent weaknesses in data property systems may make it difficult for data values and development dividends to be shared by the entire population, and the wider distribution of benefits can be achieved only if data are fully mobile. It is therefore important to develop a model of development that is legally regulated, participatory and inclusive of the needs and dividends that are shared, to construct equitable, efficient, stimulating and normative data benefit-sharing mechanisms, to protect the output gains of the various participants in the data elements, to recognize and safeguard the data interests of different stakeholders and to stimulate community-wide participation in the creation of data values. The distribution of the value of data elements also requires scientific and technological assistance, and science-driven data governance brings together legal rules and technical tools in a digital society to ensure the orderly distribution of the value of data elements with technological rationality。
Paradigms for an autonomous knowledge system for digital law
At a time when digital technology is accelerating the formation of new qualitative productivity and further reshaping social production relations, china's autonomous knowledge system of digital law can only be the source of chinese digital governance practices, which are refined by continuous and repeated validation of theory and practice. The significance of building an autonomous knowledge system for digital law in china lies not only in abandoning the legal knowledge system of the industrial age of the west, but also in responding to the theoretical innovations and paradigm revolutions of law in the new form of human civilization。
The “model” is the sum of a set of generally accepted theoretical frameworks, mindsets, values and norms of conduct that can guide practice. From the evolution of the scientific paradigm, there are four types of paradigm for scientific research. The first category consists of an empirical scientific paradigm, in which lessons learned from rational thinking and research practice are used to sum up natural patterns; the second category consists of a theoretical scientific paradigm, in which the rationale for natural patterns is explained by theoretical models; the third category consists of a mathematical science paradigm, in which simulations of the real world are achieved through technical means such as computers; and the fourth category consists of a data science paradigm, in which emphasis is placed on data analysis methods to extract natural patterns. Today, new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, block chains, and more reliable data recording and flow, as well as the widening boundaries of human awareness, have laid the foundation for the formation of a new scientific paradigm。
The chinese digital governance practice has led to a digital legal paradigm of chinese character. The paradigm of digital law is one of integrating new generations of information technology, such as artificial intelligence, block chains and big data, into scientific research, with structural, integrated and normative features, by reshaping the boundaries of disciplines and research methods to address the opportunities and challenges of the digital economy. In particular, the structural dimensions of the digital legal paradigm are reflected in the three-dimensional structure of the platform as a new body of law, with data as the object of new laws, which codifies legal acts to influence the generation of new legal relationships, and together shapes the legal framework for digital law; the convergence of the digital legal paradigm requires breaking down barriers between disciplines, technologies and norms, integrating legal knowledge and methodological approaches based on a clear technical nature, integrating comprehensive legal issues related to platform competition, data elements, artificial intelligence, etc., into a unified framework of digital law analysis, creating a systematic path to the rule of law; and the normative character of the digital legal paradigm is that it is not bound to static texts, but rather emphasizes the synergy between legal and scientific governance and the prevention of technological risks while enhancing governance effectiveness。
The vitality of the digital legal paradigm is evident in practice, with its early typical case being the regularization of third-party payments. In order to meet the robust payment needs arising from e-commerce, in 2011 the people's bank of china issued a third-party payment licence to enterprises under the non-financial institutions scheme for the regulation of payment services. Clear regulatory rules further facilitate the evolution of third-party payments to platforms and take advantage of data flows to become a central business practice linking various financial technologies. The electronic commerce act, introduced in 2018, is the first law in the country to regulate electronic payments, and some of its provisions are of global value. The normativeization of third-party payments is characterized by legal and scientific synergy and cross-disciplinary boundaries. In addition, judicial decisions such as the hangzhou network water force civil benefit litigation and the beijing artificial intelligence model tort no. 1 have shown that the paradigm of digital law is not abstract, but is constantly shaping the rules of governance of the digital age through specific rule of law practices. As new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, meta-cosm, become more embedded in the real world, the paradigm of digital law continues to drive adaptive changes in the legal system around a digital society and the shift from a culture of rule of law to a digital and intellectual one。
Directions for improving the autonomous knowledge system of digital law
The autonomous knowledge system of digital law should be a dynamic and evolutionary system based on china, an age-oriented system aimed at solving real problems. This knowledge system should focus on the following directions。
The first is the cultivation and development of new quality productivity in services. The rapid development of new quality productivity has laid the material and technical foundation for digital law, and the autonomous knowledge system of digital law and the scientific paradigm should be constantly adapted to the development of new quality productivity, the most critical of which is the building of a system of basic digital legal relationships centred on data elements, with the rule of law ensuring that the potential of new quality productivity is fully realized. In response to technical standards, the division of responsibilities and regulatory synergies arising from the characteristics of cross-cutting integration of new quality productivity, the structural, integrated and normative principles of the digital legal paradigm should be applied in order to break down the barriers to discipline, sector, technology and law and to facilitate the formation of production relationships more compatible with new quality productivity。
Second is the promotion of innovations in the system for allocating benefits to data elements. The “interest-right” binary interest model of the data element resolves the dilemma that the single-right paradigm of the industrial economy cannot effectively activate the value of the data element, while the equitable distribution of the value of the data element requires further theoretical and institutional innovation. The construction of an autonomous knowledge system for digital law should focus on advancing theoretical research on the distribution of data proceeds, guided by scientific paradigms, and promoting the equitable sharing of the benefits of data elements among diverse subjects through the integration of legal and technical means。
The third is to direct artificial intelligence towards good. With the widespread application of generating artificial intelligence in all spheres of society, the whole industry is moving towards “smart interconnectivity” with high performance, low-cost artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence platforms can become new “metaplatforms”. In the case of the large base model, for example, whose data, technology and financial advantages give it a natural monopoly, its data aggregation behaviour leads to the loss of space for data rights due to structural breakdown, and the existing legal framework is extremely limited in its effectiveness in addressing artificial intelligence challenges with data aggregation and algorithms. How to avoid the monopolistic tendencies of artificial intelligence platforms needs to be responded to by using autonomous knowledge of digital law, which differs from traditional legal thinking, to direct artificial intelligence towards good, based on respect for objective patterns of artificial intelligence development。
Fourth is the creation of an enabling environment for the rule of law abroad. In recent years, for example, china's “going out to sea” enterprises have been repeatedly fined by the european union's data enforcement agencies for their daily prices, and the data have become a common tool for foreign countries to enforce political intentions and suppress chinese enterprises. Foreign digital asset disputes should be handled with caution to enhance the impact of our international rules in the field of digital finance. The autonomous knowledge system of digital law emphasizes the original wisdom of china, which must be able to withstand domestic and international tests. The autonomous knowledge system of digital law should include elements to address transnational digital legal risks and further provide an autonomous knowledge system of digital law as a global institutional public good, conscious of its historic mission to bridge the digital civilization transition divide and improve digital governance deficits。
(by mayan yang dong, lecturer and dean, chinese people's university law school)
