The Power of Ideas

As the first academic monograph that a Chinese scholar discusses the histories of thoughts and ideas related to the development of digital economics, this book aims to make research from the perspective of the history of ideas and discuss the ideas influencing the development of digital economics and the evolution of related theories and thoughts with the methodology of interdisciplinary research.


The human society is in the stage of major historic transition and enters the digital world with the main goal of developing the artificial world. In this world, the development of digital economics is significantly characterized by the deep interaction between the real and the virtual worlds, while the key triggering this paradigm reform is the evolution of ideas since the modern times. While involving the field of computer, these thoughts are also related to the fields of philosophy, ethics, communication and economics. Therefore, the results of the research onthe history of ideas related to digital economics are required to really understand the depth of this discipline. If computationalism is the most important paradigm evolution of natural science, the most important paradigm evolution of social science is interdisciplinary complex science. In the meantime, this book is the most significant in understanding the nature of paradigm evolution related to the development of digital economics from the perspective of complex science and interdisciplinary systematic researches.


Digital economics is in the foundation-laying phase, while this book mainly aims to historically narrate the thoughts of this discipline and hopes that readers can understand the influence of ideas in the old era on shaping the disciplines in the new era while exploring this new discipline. The construction of digital economics is a process of evolution. This book will be helpful to understand the underlying logic of the ideas constructed by the thinkers in different fields.

Zhiyi Liu, digital economist ,Executive Director of Shanghai Jiaotong University Computational Law and Artificial Intelligence Ethics Research Center, Shanghai Jiaotong University Antai AI and Marketing Research Center Distinguished Researcher, Member of the AI Ethics Committee of the Chinese Society for Artificial Intelligence, National AI Trustworthy (Ethics and Safety) Standard Working Group Expert, AIIA Alliance Trusted AI Expert Committee Member, Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Technology Association Expert Member, his main research fields include Artificial intelligence, Intelligent economy and Digital economics, etc. His personal academic monographs include "Intelligent Economy", "Digital Economics", "AI and Blockchain Intelligence", etc.