[How About This Book] Is AI Another 'Prometheus's Fire'?

Henry Kissinger's "New Order"
Diagnosing the Crises and Possibilities AI Brings
Across Politics, Security, Science, and More
In a Future Where AI Is Weaponized
The Collapse of Territorial State Order
Concerns Over Economic and Military Power Concentrating in AI Companies
Maximizing Production Efficiency Through Labor Automation
Liberating Humans from Subsistence Work
Enabling Focus on Autonomous and Creative Activities

According to Greek and Roman mythology, the giant Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gifted it to humanity. While this fire enabled human prosperity, it also brought about tragedies in which civilizations were destroyed. In this sense, artificial intelligence (AI) is now drawing attention as another form of 'fire' with a dual nature.

An image created using ChatGPT's image-generating AI, 'Sora.' It expresses the dual nature of artificial intelligence (AI), which can either advance or destroy human civilization.

The authors of this book?former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, known as the "historian of 20th-century diplomacy," former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and former Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie?emphasize that AI contains the potential for both the coexistence and extinction of humanity. Notably, Kissinger had already warned of the dangers of AI as early as 2018, before the advent of ChatGPT, predicting that AI could possess destructive potential comparable to that of nuclear weapons in the 20th century. He warned, "The advent of AI is a matter of human survival. If not properly controlled, the knowledge accumulated by AI could be misused in destructive ways."

Until just before his death at the age of 100 on November 29, 2023, Kissinger continued to study the power of AI to reshape world order. His final diplomatic mission was also to visit China and discuss with President Xi Jinping the crises humanity faces due to AI. This book extensively covers both the crises and opportunities that AI may bring across various fields such as politics, security, prosperity, and science.

The three authors argue that AI has the potential to transform human life in ways entirely different from anything seen before. For example, they suggest that AI could undermine the "Westphalian system," which has served as the foundation of sovereign nation-states since the 17th century. While the Peace of Westphalia established an international political order in which each state held exclusive sovereignty over its territory, the authors warn that in a society where AI is weaponized, companies that own and develop AI could instead become the focal points of social, economic, military, and political power.

If such a scenario materializes, there are concerns that existing nation-states could be reduced to merely delegating their military, diplomatic, and economic influence to corporations. The three authors predict, "The emergence of AI will make governance by all existing institutions even more difficult," adding, "Alliances of corporations could function like traditional nation-states. Instead of defining and expanding territorial borders, they will build domains within decentralized digital networks."

The book also presents positive visions of the future that AI may bring. In the field of labor, automation could maximize production efficiency and transform human labor from an obligation into a choice. Even if jobs are replaced by AI, humans could be freed from labor for subsistence and focus on autonomous and creative pursuits. The authors emphasize, "We can instruct AI to do the things we no longer need to do ourselves, and precisely because of this, we can do the things we want to do."

In this context, there is hope that AI could help solve poverty among low-income groups. The authors imagine an AI-based educational environment where, instead of standardized, employment-focused education, everyone could have access to a personalized tutor. While schools today focus on job training and skills, in the future, education could shift toward nurturing "cultivated individuals" capable of performing a variety of tasks. "Schools around the world will produce philosophers and writers who will lead us into an entirely new era. Humans, empowered and inspired by AI, will be able to continue working not for money, but for joy and pride," they assert.

On the other hand, the book also presents science fiction-like scenarios in which AI could bring about the extinction of humanity through contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. With AI's assistance, the likelihood of encountering hostile extraterrestrial beings could increase, potentially hastening the end of humanity. The authors state, "AI could amplify and prolong Earth's signals transmitted into space, increasing the chances that extraterrestrial beings discover human civilization." However, they point out that it is more important to address the problems we currently face on Earth than to focus on such possibilities. "Rather than being concerned with entities that exist in distant times and places, we should first focus on understanding and shaping the nature and intentions of the entities that are here and now," they argue.

The book covers a variety of scenarios, including positive prospects for autonomy and creativity in a labor environment transformed by AI, the possibility of a small elite seizing absolute power without traditional checks and balances, the risk that new technologies shared as open source could be misused by malicious actors, and attempts by AI to 'correct' human free will. While this is a highly intriguing approach, some expressions lack smoothness, and it is regrettable that the individual arguments of the three authors are not clearly distinguished. In addition, the repeated use of third-person narration such as "the authors of this book" throughout the text detracts from the reader's immersion.

New Order | Henry Kissinger et al. | Willbook | 272 pages | 19,800 KRW