[Kim Seong-kon] Our future with AI and drones

Recently, DeepSeek, a one-year-old startup Chinese artificial intelligence company revealed a ChatGPT-like AI model called RI. CNN reported that DeepSeek “threatened the aura of invincibility surrounding America’s technology industry.” Due to the DeepSeek shock, the world suddenly seemed to jump into intense competition over AI technology, instead of conducting research into the problems AI may entail.

Indeed, we are now living in an era of AI and drones. Chatbots have become our daily consultants as we ask for help or seek advice from them to find answers to our queries or solve our problems. Drones, too, are familiar to us these days. Experts say that drones will be pivotal in modern warfare with their superb capability of undetected surveillance and accurate target strikes. Drones can also be used for fast air delivery, as well, replacing slow-paced conventional delivery systems.

Although both AI and drones can be beneficial to us, they entail problems, too. For example, AI is capable of not only translating but also writing essays and even composing poems. These days, therefore, college professors are cautious about grading students’ term papers because some of them may be written by AI. At poetry contests, too, judges may want to check entry poems to see if they are the work of AI.

There was a time when it would be unthinkable that AI could compose classical Korean sijo poems or Japanese haiku, but it is now possible. Recently, the Sejong Cultural Society in Chicago, which sponsors domestic and international sijo contests, decided to post a warning about the use of AI for the contests. At the 2024 international sijo contest, there were as many as 324 entries from 27 countries.

Drones can be problematic, too. Drones can be used for unauthorized surveillance, clandestine smuggling or even targeted attacks. In military operations, drone attacks may be executed without the pilot’s discretion at the scene because unmanned drones are controlled from a faraway command center. In addition, flying private drones near airports may endanger the safety of commercial flights.

Despite such flaws and problems, we must live with AI and drones, taking advantage of their merits and capabilities. If we cannot dismiss them, we must cope with them. Besides, it is humans who misuse them. If we use them for good purposes, they will be greatly beneficial to us. For example, AI-operated cars can save lives.

Someday, AI may outsmart humans. When that day comes, AI may replace teachers, judges and doctors, not to mention technicians and factory workers. The problem is that, unlike human vision, AI’s powers of perception are based on binary oppositions, such as right or wrong, and seriously lack the capacity for qualified, nuanced considerations or middle-ground perspectives. Moreover, in the future, it might be hard to distinguish humanoid AI from human beings because they will look alike. Futuristic movies have already depicted such a future when lifelike AI androids will live among humans.

In “Subservience,” a 2024 American science fiction film, AI androids replace human workers, such as maids, surgeons and construction workers. When his wife Maggie is hospitalized for a heart transplant, Nick purchases a pretty "gynoid" to take care of his children and perform domestic tasks. Although initially helpful, the AI female humanoid’s behaviors become annoyingly unsettling. She seduces Nick sexually, develops jealousy, and tries to replace Nick’s wife with the excuse of pleasing her primary user, Nick.

From drones, we can learn to see things from high above. Then, we will be able to see things from a wider perspective. From a drone’s viewpoint, we can also see hidden things that we cannot see otherwise. Such a bird’s-eye view is imperative for all of us who are living in this luminously changing, electronic era. Our military, too, should be ready for a drone war because unmanned drones can significantly reduce pilot casualties.

AI and drones are already included in the 4th Industrial Revolution: AI, the internet of things, driverless cars, 3D printing, augmented reality, drone technology, nano and bio-genetic technology, and 5G LTE. Currently, we are witnessing all the above eight phenomena occurring around us.

To cope with these dazzling changes, we should anticipate the future of technological development, revolutionary ideas and quantum leaps in thinking. Instead of going back to the past, we should keep moving on toward the future of cutting-edge technology with minds that are suited to the digital era.

Regrettably, some of our politicians still seem to be hopelessly stuck in the past, in an obsolete, 19th-century political ideology that is no longer valid today. However, if we indulge in the past and do not act swiftly, we can neither survive nor thrive in this era of AI and drones.

Experts have pointed out that our future depends on AI and drone technology because we will have to live with them every day and everywhere. So, we must prepare for it now, before it is too late.

Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.