| Abstract [eng] |
The master's thesis "Sacralization Discourse on Artificial Intelligence in China: A Comparative Analysis of the Official Narrative and the Logic of the Mandate of Heaven (天命 tiānmìng), with Empirical Verification in User-Generated Content" examines AI sacralization in contemporary China. Literature on China's AI policy is dominated by technical, legal, and political approaches, while cultural and spiritual aspects remain underexplored. The thesis analyzes how official AI discourse appropriates the functions of classical Mandate of Heaven logic and empirically tests these parallels in user-generated content. The study applies an interdisciplinary methodology: semantic analysis of AI policy documents and Xi Jinping's speech corpus using the author's "Sinocode Discourse Analyzer" alongside micro-netnography of user discourse on Zhihu. The theoretical framework draws on digital religion studies, redistribution of the sacred in modernity, and Yuk Hui's cosmotechnics. The findings reveal that Chinese secularism signifies not the disappearance of the sacred but its redistribution: of ten Mandate of Heaven principles, four parallels operate directly and six through controlled semantic substitution; the sacred direction is descensorial in AI policy discourse and ascensorial in Xi Jinping's speeches. Eight of ten parallels are also confirmed at the user level, suggesting that AI functions as a secularized, technocratic analogue of Mandate of Heaven logic. This is among the first systematic attempts to apply a sacralization framework to China's AI discourse, offering an original analytical tool and a tripartite empirical chain - official discourse, Mandate of Heaven logic, user-generated content. The study may help analyze China's technological policy through a religious-studies lens and compare AI ethics models across civilizational contexts. |
