COMPARED with other literature genres, science fiction is best able to transcend cultural boundaries because it typically depicts a universal crisis facing the entire human race, China’s leading sci-fi writer Liu Cixin told Xinhua.

    “For instance, the doomsday portrait in a sci-fi novel is an apocalyptical scene descending on the entire human race, rather than a single race,” he said.

    From this perspective, science fiction is capable of being understood by people from all nations, Liu said at the just-concluded Book Expo America (BEA) 2015 held at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

    A computer engineer by profession, Liu is now China’s best-selling science-fiction writer and winner of numerous literary awards, including China’s Galaxy Award.

    His most popular science-fiction series — “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” — sold more than 1.5 million copies in Chinese after the first title in the three-book series was released.

    The trilogy tells the story of a civilization in another solar system that is facing extinction and chooses to invade the earth to save itself.

    The English translation of the first book of the series, published by Tor Books in the United States last November, has also gone down well with foreign readers, with more than 20,000 copies sold, Liu said.

    Liu’s growing popularity among readers beyond China was also evident at a book-signing event organized by Tor Books on the sidelines of BEA. A large crowd of foreign readers lined up at the bookstore for a chance to meet Liu and get their books signed.

    “Nearly 100 books were signed out within half an hour, with more than 90 percent belonging to American readers,” a fan of Liu said.

    While the series is doing well in overseas markets, Liu said Chinese science fiction still has a long way to go before reaching world-class levels.

    Recently, warnings about the prospects for artificial intelligence took on a new weight following dire predictions from heavyweights such as Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates that the full development of supercomputers could lead humanity to extinction, words usually seen in sci-fi novels or movies.

    On the hotly debated topic, the sci-fi author shared his insights with Xinhua: “I think such words are alarmist.”

    There are formidable challenges that hold back human beings from obtaining the power to build a computer with human-level intelligence in the foreseeable future, he said.

    For instance, the human brain contains 100 billion neurons, and that makes the task of developing software that could mimic the brain’s neural network seem like a hopeless project, Liu said.

    “There is a mistaken assumption that all the technological obstacles that are theoretically solvable will be solved in reality sooner or later,” he said.

    Meanwhile, Liu warned, “We have underestimated the power of the machine, as people tend to associate it with emotionally intelligent robots that we can communicate with.”

    However, once it is created, there is no way for people to understand what it will do, he said. “Its increased cognitive ability over us would be vaster than the anti-human gap.”

    BEA is the most important international book fair in North America, dating back to 1947. This year, China was invited as a Guest of Honor for BEA’s 2015 Global Market Forum. Twenty-five renowned Chinese authors held dialogs and interacted with their foreign peers and readers during the expo.

    (Xinhua)