“Artificial intelligence (AI) is ‘intelligence’. Humans should have “intelligence,” not intelligence.”

In a recent Mail Business interview, Yoo Young-man, a professor of educational engineering at Hanyang University, cited “intelligence” as a unique human ability that AI can never replace. The difference between intelligence and intelligence he says is clear. Intelligence is ‘quick calculation’ and intelligence is ‘deep thinking’.

Professor Yoo published this year’s book, “All of them have been vaccinated against artificial intelligence, but no one has become smart,” and delivered a warning message to the AI era. He explained the meaning of the book’s title, “Just as people get COVID-19 even after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, people should be smarter as they use AI, but they are going the other way.” It’s a word about the attitude of people who take AI uncritically.

Concerned about the reality of mass production of “copy humans” that accept AI without criticism, Professor Yoo stressed, “People should have the wisdom gained from the experiences of blood, sweat, and tears that AI cannot do.” Wisdom is not made at a desk, he explained, but is gained by hitting it directly with the body.

These arguments are by no means ideological. Professor Yoo’s life itself proves the message. After graduating from a technical high school, he worked as a welder and took his first steps into society. After a young man who was a little far from studying, he went on a path that was never smooth until he entered university late and received a doctorate in educational engineering.

Professor Yoo introduced his nickname, “Knowledge Ecologist,” saying, “It is to study the process of converging knowledge in the ecology of people and society and changing organizations.” He has written more than 100 books so far. He has presented a different perspective to readers with his unique sense of language, crossing various disciplines such as “unexpected thinking guidance” and “writing books is hard work.”

Professor Yoo, who has expanded his field in this AI era, says what is needed at this point is “labor of interpretation.” “I need to add my ideas to the answers given by AI and melt the traces of my hard work to make it irreplaceable content,” he said. In other words, the wisdom he emphasizes every time arises only when he can add his own interpretation to the information provided by AI.

Professor Yoo was strongly wary of the social atmosphere that depended too much on AI. He said, “There was a time when I went to the library or thought about it with people if I had any questions, but now when I have a question mark, I immediately ask ChatGPT. This is an era in which the distance between question marks and exclamation marks is missing,” he diagnosed.

Referring to Oxford University’s selection of “brain rot” as the word of the year last year, he said, “When information comes into the occipital lobe, you have to go to the frontal lobe to analyze it, but when I omitted the process and asked AI everything, the word ‘brain rot’ comes out.”

Professor Yoo asserted that AI’s answer is only a ‘period’ and cannot be a ‘feeler’. “When you ask AI why they have 10 fingers, AI can only answer in the same frame as ‘it’s the way it is’, but people can answer with the imagination that ‘it came out for 10 months with 10 months of grace in my mother’s belly,’ he said. “AI can impress, but it cannot impress.” In the end, his message is that humans should become beings who take exclamation marks in a different way than AI.

As an educational engineer, he argued that the role of education should also be newly defined. Professor Yoo said, “AI can replace teachers who only teach.” Teachers should be asking questions to students and looking at their minds, he said, adding, “The ability of teachers to care for children’s minds will become more important.”

The students emphasized their attitude of asking questions above all else. Professor Yoo said, “The reason for human existence is to ask a question, and the reason AI exists is to find the correct answer to the question asked by humans,” adding, “There is no need for ‘model students who find answers well.” The talent to be nurtured in our society is a person who throws problems well, so-called “problematic”. He then stressed, “You have to ask the question of getting rid of your family with curiosity, and you have to have a lot of in-depth knowledge to ask good questions.”

[Reporter Ahn Seonje]