Where Is AI Taking Humanity?
There Is No Future Prepared for Those Who Fail to Ask Questions.
In an age when AI delivers the answers, the true value of humanity is revealed in the questions we choose to ask.
Will we surrender the initiative, or shape the future ourselves?
The defining questions for a truly human life in the age of the AI transformation
Since the emergence of generative AI, technology has been evolving at a breathtaking pace. Yet we still lack a broader understanding of how AI is transforming the realities of our everyday lives and what we should be preparing for. In our workplaces, communities, and relationships with one another, many of us are still unsure how to meaningfully integrate AI into our lives. At times, vague expectations and fantasies about technology take hold; at others, we are confronted with pessimism and anxiety about a seemingly apocalyptic future. Amid this uncertainty, one fundamental question demands our attention: What does it mean to be human? This book begins with that very question.
Where Is AI Leading Humanity? is the culmination of the AI Coexistence Society research project conducted by the Seoul National University Institute for Future Strategy. It brings together insights from 27 leading scholars at Seoul National University, working at the forefront of fields ranging from engineering and medicine to the arts, social sciences, and humanities. Rather than asking the outdated question, “Should we use AI or not?”, they pose a new one: “How should we work, learn, and live in relationship with AI?”
Although written by scholars, this is not a book weighed down by complex or lengthy theories. Each topic is distilled into its essential ideas in a concise and accessible format, inviting anyone to read, reflect, and engage with the questions together.
The picture painted by Where Is AI Leading Humanity? is clear. The AI era is an immense wave that cannot be turned back. But whether we allow ourselves to be swept away and surrender the initiative, or ride the wave and design our own future, ultimately depends on how we prepare and the choices we make. This book offers six compasses to help us navigate that choice.
