The Harmony between "Unity of Heaven and Man" and "Instrumental Rationality": On the Green Cultural Dimension of AI Governance

Generative artificial intelligence has promoted efficiency improvement in various industries, but the environmental risks it causes are becoming increasingly prominent. To develop sustainable artificial intelligence, some developers have proposed the concept of "Green AI", and governments around the world have also incorporated green thinking into their governance policies. Green concept is not only an inevitable requirement for AI governance, but also an inevitable choice for the sustainable development of AI. However, emphasizing green technology and policies alone is not enough. Green must be regarded as a value ethics and embedded in the cultural genes of AI development. The development and governance of global AI are being dominated by the ideology of "instrumental rationality", and the current challenges faced by post-regulatory governance models also reflect the limitations of this ideology. The wisdom of "Unity of Heaven and Man" in the Chinese traditional culture provides a new philosophical foundation for AI governance, and the organic holism, dialectical thinking, and ecological ethics contained therein can provide many inspirations for the green governance of AI. Creative reconciliation of the ideologies of "instrumental rationality" and "Unity of Heaven and Man" is proposed to construct an AI governance paradigm of "ecological rationality" and elaborates on the green cultural dimension of AI governance from three cultural levels: ideology, institution, and behavior.