On the afternoon of September 19, the 14th, Zhongnanshan Forum was held at the Hongshi Academic Lecture Hall of Huyi Campus Library. Victor Mayer-Schönberger, an internationally renowned authority in data science and technology, professor at the University of Oxford, visiting professor at Yale and the University of Chicago, and author ofBig Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, delivered an academic report titled “Decision-Making in the Age of AI”, offering a thought-provoking exploration of data, AI, and human decision-making wisdom. Nearly 400 attendees, including officials from the Research Office and School of Computer Science, as well as faculty and students from the Schools of Computer Science, Electronics Engineering, and Science, participated in the event.
Prior to the lecture,the university’sPresident Wang Jinfu met with Professor Mayer-Schönberger in the reception room of Huyi Campus Library. Vice Presidentof the university,Zhang Xiaoyong also attended the meeting.
President Wang warmly welcomed and thanked Professor Mayer-Schönberger for his visit. He briefed the guest on the intelligentization challenges facing the energy industry, the development of China’s smart oil and gas fields, and the university’s ongoing reforms in AI teaching and research systems. President Wang expressed hopes that the exchange would further advance our university’s disciplinary construction and scientific research in AI. Professor Mayer-Schönberger reciprocated gratitude for the invitation and shared insights on enhancing the university’s oil/gas energy and AI disciplines, research, and talent cultivation.
The lecture started with a series of interactive questions. Through practical issues such as global poverty, child vaccination rate and income distribution, it revealed the current situation that human decisions are often disturbed by misinformation, reflecting the importance of information quality in the decision-making process. Professor Mayer-Schönberger pointed out that data is the raw material for decision-making in the AI era, but “owning data” and “utilizing data” are two dimensions. He emphasized that the value of data lies not in storage, but in circulation and analysis. Only by activating “dormant data” can it provide accurate support for decision-making, and the emergence of AI has provided new solutions for data processing. From a dialectical perspective, Professor Mayer-Schönberger affirmed AI’s absolute advantages in repetitive and high-data-density decision-making scenarios, and at the same time warned of the potential traps it may bring. He focused back on the unique mental models of human beings and put forward the argument that AI can optimize known decisions, but human beings can create unknown options. At the end of the lecture, Professor Mayer-Schönberger proposed that decision-making in the age of artificial intelligence is a dance between data efficiency and human imagination. He called on us to use data and AI to consolidate the foundation of decision-making, and to use human imagination to build the “dome” of decision-making.
In the final question-and-answer session, the on-site atmosphere was extremely warm. Teachers and students actively spoke around issues such as AI decision-making bias prevention and control, response to information overload, and the boundary between AI and human decision-making. By sharing his personal research experience, Professor Mayer-Schönberger answered the questions of teachers and students in detail patiently.
This lecture is not only an academic feast, but also an exploration of the future decision-making paradigm. The successful holding of this forum has provided a new perspective for teachers and students in scientific research decision-making in the interdisciplinary field of energy and information and also pointed out the direction for cultivating compound talents with “data thinking + innovative imagination”.
