Beyond Technological Intelligence: Cultivating Societal Wisdom for Human Flourishing and Its Values, Logic, and Pathways

Hong Chen (陈红)

Abstract

Smart society has been positioned as a key vehicle for building an innovation-driven nation. However, the arrival of a complex ‘singularity era’ has brought unprecedented uncertainty and governance challenges to its development. The root of these challenges lies in the linear thinking inherent in technological determinism, a paradigm that has long dominated the field. This study systematically traces the developmental trajectory of smart society and posits that technological iteration, while advancing the liberation of productive forces, inevitably reconfigures the objective ethical relationships among humans, between humans and society, between humans and nature, and even between humans and technology. On this basis, we propose that governance of a smart society centres on fostering a higher-order ‘societal wisdom’ that transcends technological intelligence and aims for human flourishing. For this purpose, a core of societal wisdom integrating values and logic has been constructed, which combines the three spheres of production, living, and ecology and achieves the five-element synergy of people-centredness, Techno-Wisdom, Socio-Regulation, Physio-Resilience, and Info-Integrity. This study further provides a systematic theoretical framework and corresponding practical pathways. It helps to address the increasingly complex and dynamic risks and challenges of smart societies, and offers theoretical support and policy implications for the modernization of global governance systems and capacities.

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