Dialogue Li Xiaodong: We need a digital civilization enlightenment 丨 Yuli 2022

Economic Observer reporter Chen Bai Intern reporter Xiao Luyan/Wen

"No big data, only data."

Today, big data has become an extension and no digital tools. Today, we are almost difficult to do. Li Xiaodong believes that our perception of data is still in a very early stage. There is no accurate influence on data that may have the influence of data. judge. "Everyone is talking about the concepts of big data, data lakes, etc., which helps spread and understand, but in fact, there are already data when some people have. From an academic perspective, big data is actually a market concept."

Li Xiaodong is the founder and director of Fuxi Think Tank, Director of the Internet Management Research Center of Tsinghua University, a part -time professor of the School of Public Management, researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and experts from the State Council.

These labels mean his professionalism in the field of digital economy, but in our interviews, Li Xiaodong's expression rarely has those too professional words. He likes to tell in an analogy way, which makes some complicated and obscure information. Technical theory and controversy can be minimalist as a metaphor for him.

Li Xiaodong believes that "the basic value of data lies in exchange, and the premise of exchange is to confirm power. If you don't clarify these big data and data governance, you will not be able to see the direction."

Data value

Li Xiaodong believes that data actually runs through human history. It's just that the different technological methods have changed the way of data presentation. Li Xiaodong divided data processing into three stages: "digital, network, and intelligent", and we are in the process of webly moving from networked to intelligence.

Among them, Li Xiaodong made an analogy for the data transactions and data price issues that received much attention, "This is like in the vegetable market. Some people are willing to buy and some people are willing to sell. As long as the price of the marketization is within the scope of pricing. "As for data supervision, Li Xiaodong said," The so -called data element market -oriented configuration is not what the government needs to control, but what the government is, this is like our parents, and the child grows up is a process of gradually letting go. You always interfere or restrain him, but it is not good for his growth. "

In his opinion, data as a production factor can only generate value. But the important question may be the boundary issue of rights.

Regarding the ownership of the data, Li Xiaodong also metaphorized by the relationship between husband and wife and children. Data occurred during the use of users and platforms. So how do we confirm the ownership of data? "This may not be a very appropriate metaphor, but it can help more people understand the complexity." Especially the personal information and privacy issues involved in the data, Li Xiaodong believes that the data assets we have mentioned in recent years have come to enterprises. There may be variables in the future. "For example, anti -monopoly, platform economic supervision, etc., is a restructuring of the platform value. The problem of data attribution in it is a key point." He believes that the model of "separation of application and data" may be the mainstream direction in the future. Essence

And if this trend is established, for most Internet companies at the moment, the business model will mean a great change.

But from this perspective, Li Xiaodong believes that "We are in the newly erupted dawn of wealth. The development of human technology will definitely subvert our existing business model and vested interest framework, so as to discover new growth points, so we think from from the from It must happen for a long time, because this is an economic law. "

Connector

In addition to the identity of scholars, there are more labels around Li Xiaodong: for example, he is also the former vice president of the World Economic Forum Global Young Leaders and the International Internet Name and Address Distribution Agency.

Li Xiaodong, who defines himself as "digital immigration", and his partners founded the Fuxi Think Tank, a non -profit -making characteristic Internet research institution with the mission of narrowing digital gaps and promoting interconnection. This think tank is located in a small courtyard of the Internet park in Beijing. In the early autumn of the summer heat, almost the gourd vines all over this courtyard were covered with drooping fruits.

The land in Haidian District, Beijing has been regarded by the outside world as the birthplace of my country's information industry. As early as 1991, the Shanghai Earth Information Industry Base officially became China's first comprehensive high -tech industrial park with the electronic information industry. In the past thirty years, the Chinese digital economy represented by the Internet industry has been rapidly taking off. Today, as the world's largest digital user market with more than 1 billion netizens, we have completed the transition of "digital survival" to a certain extent.

But this is still a brand -new continent -in the view of Li Xiaodong, although there are more than 130 countries and regions, or are formulating data governance and data security related laws and regulations, it has not yet formed clear international rules. These laws and regulations The "maximum number of conventions" is unclear. "How to form a certain consensus on the digital economy, especially in data governance rules, will be a very worthwhile thing."

In Li Xiaodong's view, this mutual trust and consensus in the Internet of the Internet is one of the sources of the rapid development of the dividend. "We review the development of China's Internet industry. From the earliest Zhang Chaoyang and Li Yanhong, we have returned from abroad. Our technology, talents, and capital are the dividends of globalization. That is also the era of acceleration of China's economy integrating globalization."

To this day, Li Xiaodong said that he still hopes to break and communicate through these tender connections and communication scattered on these returnees to break the blockade, opposition, and decoupling of today's existence. "When I was engaged in international exchanges and cooperation, I got a lot of the help of the masters of the Internet today. Even today, it is this kind of interpersonal trust that allows them to cross the ocean far away from the ocean. Come to China to help us. "Now Li Xiaodong hopes to take this stick and continue to leverage the power of the digital aborigines under the age of 35, but he refuses to use the word to describe what he is doing. "We may not be able to change the big environment, but we hope that when the world changes, the interpersonal mutual mutual trust established between the young people standing at the forefront of technology and industry in various countries can become a one can become a one The tough network of resistance to conflict. "

Li Xiaodong (Photo Conferring in the Interviewee)

【dialogue】

Assets and liabilities

Economic Observer: What is the data?

Li Xiaodong: Once you mention the data, you often refer to data in the digital era, but the data is not only digital version. If we want to pull away the fog to see the real thing, we must clarify these concepts.

In fact, the data runs through the history of human history, and human beings in the era of agricultural civilization are also generating data; but after the informatization process, we pay special attention to data because the data form has changed a lot, and the "digital-network-network-network-network-network-networked- Informatization process of intelligence. Now we are in the evolution of data networking to intelligentization.

It is precisely because the data can be network and intelligent that we can talk about data as a production element. We know that a item can only generate value when exchange. To understand the marketization of data elements from the perspective of exchange, you will clearly see the future development direction.

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee proposed that "the mechanism for the production of labor, capital, land, knowledge, technology, management, data and other production factors that are contributed by market evaluation and rewards are determined by contributions", and the data is established as a production factor for the first time. 2020年3月《中共中央国务院关于构建更加完善的要素市场化配置体制机制的意见》进一步明确提出“加快培育数据要素市场”，“研究根据数据性质完善产权性质”和“建立健全数据产权交易和Industry self -discipline mechanism.

Putting data as a new type of production is a major theoretical and institutional innovation. Its core topic is data confirming the right, especially based on shared exchange to reasonably define and configure the property rights of data, but simply talk about a single ownership.

Economic Observer: How to understand data governance?

Li Xiaodong: The data I just talked about itself will definitely involve many recipes, data owners and users, and then there may be platform services and government supervision in the process. Therefore, the core of data governance is how to balance all parties, promote its sharing and exchange, and maximize the benefits and efficiency of data. In this process, we must see what kind of role of all parties should play, which can be conducive to the achievement of this goal.

Data governance covers the entire life cycle of data, including both data collection, transmission and storage, and data processing, application and demise. Therefore, from another perspective, the scope of data governance includes not only the data itself, but also the algorithm of processing data and the intelligent application of data -based analysis results. From data production to circulation involves participation in multiple parties, applying traditional governance methods may not work. The huge user group has accumulated a huge amount of data. How the platform plays a key role in governance is worthy of in -depth discussion.

Data exchange is the core value that runs through the Internet. The model of the beginning of the Internet is a data exchange and data transactions. It is not an exchange and transaction that is only generated by the establishment of an exchange to this exchanges. In the Internet field, there is a governance model called multi -interest related parties. Model requires full play to give full play to the role of the industry. Although this model cannot be simply applied to data governance, it is important to learn the role of the industry in the past. A large amount of data in the multi -interest -related model is not in the hands of the government, so the government's collaboration with platforms and private sectors during the supervision process is very critical.

Only by doing data governance and building a data element ecology can we talk about the activation and activation of data resource elements.

Economic Observer: At present, Chinese Internet companies are suffering from data belonging. For enterprises, is data assets or may become liabilities in the future?

Li Xiaodong: In the era of digital economy, all relevant parties are advocating data ownership, especially on the enterprise, and everyone is talking about data assets. For enterprises, data to become assets also needs to go through a process to complete the data, asset -based and capitalization of data.

There is not much controversy about the clear data assets, but the controversy is that the Internet platform is a big problem with data holders or owners, so the relevant parties need to be communicated and coordinated.

In general, I think that in the future, the application and data separation of the platform will be a general trend, and it is also the solution for the controversy you say.

Let me give an example, for example, I used idle fish some time ago, and then found that I basically had no credit at all. Because I used Taobao and Alipay less, they did not obtain my consumption data, and they could not judge my credit reporting. But in fact, I shopping on other platforms a lot, but because the data is not open, neither of them can get my consumption data. And for external innovators, if there is no data, then he is useless to have powerful technology. This is not open, which will eventually hinder innovation.

This is also the original intention of antitrust in the field of platform economy some time ago -hopes to say that this market can constantly cultivate and innovate the subject. This antitrust is not deliberately breaking the original rules, but to help introduce new innovation subjects and allow this industry to develop healthily.

But this is not to say that we advocate all the data to return to the government or state supervision. Regulatory rights do not mean to say that taking it into ownership. It is also used in a sense of regulatory rights, that is, you can get these data, but it does not mean that you take the data away.

Because the premise of data generation is still use, if the data cannot bring value to the platform, then these commercial platforms have no meaning. In this way, it is actually not conducive to promoting the active market development.

Therefore, how to master a boundary, both data protection, and maximize the value of data assets is important. At present, giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, etc. are already discussing the problem of data that can be carried out, and how to do data protection. In the "Personal Information Protection Law" released by my country in 2021, it is also clearly given to personal data to transfer rights. The way we expect in the future is that the data generated by users should be shared with different conditions under certain conditions. Application.

Still returning to us before, our current awareness of data is very limited. Data show different characteristics and interests and corresponding rights due to the continuous changes in its application methods, scope and scale. This is essentially a process of continuously enriching data property rights. It can also show that data property rights are not fixed rights beams, but in the process of continuous change.

In addition, the definition of property rights is directly related to transaction costs. Only when the property rights definition of the data is greater than the cost of the property rights, the relevant interest subject has incentives to formulate rules and define property rights. In this sense, promoting the release of data value is the prerequisite for the allocation of property rights, and data property rights are continuously improved with the release of data value.

Digital rules

Economic Observer: In recent years, many policies and regulations have been introduced in the field of digital economy, but from a global perspective, it seems that there is no clear consensus.

Li Xiaodong: In recent years, China has clearly developed the digital economy based on data. On the one hand, it revitalizes data elements and strengthens data governance. On the other hand, it has initially established a relatively complete data governance rule system with Chinese characteristics. With the introduction of basic laws such as data elements such as data elements, the introduction of basic laws such as the "Data Security Law" and "Personal Information Protection Law", and the construction of platforms such as the Beijing International Big Data Trading Center, China has gradually improved the rules in terms of data governance and accelerated The construction of data ownership has initially constructed the data factor market.

However, from a greater perspective, the degree of understanding and direction of data between regulations for regulations is different. For example, Europe, the United States, and China have different requirements on data ownership and privacy borders, which also directly determines the development boundary of the digital economy industries of various countries.

In fact, the process of digitalization is only decades. Our cognition of the data itself is in the process of progress; but if we think that the next digital economy will create a new digital civilization, then a good data element ecological ecology will Or the digital economy ecology requires a construction process.

Previously, the Central Cyber ​​Security and Information Commission issued the "Outline of Improvement of Digital Literacy and Skills Action", and the role of personal digital literacy in data governance has also been further emphasized.

Economic Observer: Does this mean that we need an enlightenment for digital civilization?

Li Xiaodong: In the data management, there are four roles: owner of data, data holder, data regulators, and data users. These four characters need to constantly update their awareness of data.

I don't know how many people have seriously seen the "Personal Information Protection Law" and "Network Security Law" we have introduced. Among them, the provision, acquisition, and protection of personal information have been clearly defined. For example, if we live in the hotel, what information is needed, no information is provided, and what personal information is necessary to provide, these requires the owner of the data to have a clear understanding, which is the first step in the protection of personal information.

The rules of digital civilization are a gradual process of establishing a gradual process, which requires all parties to participate. The four roles we are talking about need to clarify our power and responsibility boundaries.

However, it should be noted that when everyone is more and more realized that the digital economy is based on data, the value of the data is getting greater and more and more, they hope that the data is in their hands, so the Internet is becoming more and more fragmented. And sharing has become a problem. In the long run, the phenomenon of data islands will be further intensified.

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