[Kim Dae-sik Column] Humans Resembling Rome, AI Resembling Dubai

⑩ Archaeology of Imagination

What is the biggest difference between Dubai, bustling with many tourists, and Rome, the capital of Italy? There are many differences such as history, region, food, and weather, but perhaps the biggest difference lies in the geographical characteristics of the two cities. Dubai is a perfectly planned city filled with the most dazzling and tallest buildings in the world. In contrast, the streets of Rome, where people have lived for thousands of years, are narrow, complex, and illogical. In fact, Rome might not be a single city but rather a collection of multiple cities built, destroyed, and rebuilt over the same location throughout thousands of years.

Even when new buildings and roads are constructed, not all of the old city’s roads and buildings disappear. Demolishing existing structures also requires a lot of time and effort. It might be more efficient to cover the old buildings and roads with soil and stones and build new structures on top. This is why Emperor Nero’s “Golden Palace” was able to be preserved until today, buried beneath buildings constructed on the same site. Because the present city and the past city coexist, spatial movement in Rome is always a kind of time travel.

Planned Dubai, Complex and Illogical Rome

Now, an interesting question can be asked. Is the human brain more like Dubai or Rome? The brain was not planned or designed. Was it a collaboration of chance and necessity? Hundreds of millions of years ago, new cells began to appear in response to changes in the external world. These were nerve cells. Early nerve cells were simple. They only reacted when the light brightened or prey was nearby.

But mere reaction was not enough. Specialized motor neurons emerged that moved the body according to what was happening in the world, enabling living beings to get closer to what they wanted or escape from dangers. However, if the brain only perceived the world and reacted automatically, it would repeat the same mistakes. Memory, learning, and the ability to predict the future were also necessary.

Through the evolutionary process of mutation and natural selection over hundreds of millions of years, Earth’s living organisms began to develop increasingly complex and advanced nervous systems and brains. Homo sapiens, in particular, have brains more developed than any other animals. But wasn’t evolution said to be like changing an airplane engine flying in the sky? You cannot neatly repair and upgrade it after landing, nor can you stop the engine even for a moment.

As a result, the product of evolution is astonishingly inefficient and irrational. Neural circuits with the same functions exist in multiple places, and the same neurons often perform multiple roles simultaneously. Especially, brain structures and connections used in the past do not completely disappear but continue to operate alongside upgraded neural structures. This means that the brain of the primate Homo sapiens includes significant parts of the mammalian brain, the avian brain, and even the brains of reptiles and fish.

The Result of Inefficient Evolution and the Difference with Artificial Intelligence

The world is one. Yet we have multiple brains that perceive, remember, and imagine the world differently. When seeing high-calorie food, the ancient brain commands immediate eating, but the current brain worries about dieting. When meeting a stranger with a different skin color, the 21st-century brain pursues diversity and globalization, but the ancient brain chooses discrimination and annihilation. The imagination and hope for the future are similar. The past brain, which never knew when it might be eaten, probably did not care about the future. The past was more important than the future, and the present was more important than the past. However, Homo sapiens, who developed writing and civilization, can remember the past and imagine the future. The present is merely a link between the imagined future and the remembered past.

Homo sapiens, in whom the present self and the past self coexist. Recently, however, we have begun to create a new existence called artificial intelligence. Unlike artificial intelligence, which is designed based on efficiency and purpose, like Dubai, Homo sapiens have intelligence that is as flawed and chaotic as Rome. The difference between Rome and Dubai may become the difference between humans and artificial intelligence that we will experience in the future.