"The Match of the Century Against AlphaGo" Lee Sedol Says AI Will Widen Social Gaps

【Jeju=Jo Eun-hyo】 Lee Sedol, the former professional Go player who announced the dawn of the AI era with his match of the century against AlphaGo 10 years ago, said on the 16th that "conviction, philosophy and narrative are things only humans have" and that "although the AI era is accelerating, I believe that if those three things are clear, we can get through not only the AI era but any era."
At a lecture titled "In the AI Era, the Common Trait of Companies That Survive Is a 'Leader'" at the 29th CEO Jeju Summer Forum hosted by the Federation of Korean Industries at Lotte Hotel in Seogwipo City, Jeju, Lee stressed that "this has become an era in which conviction, philosophy and narrative, the greatest strengths and weapons humans have, are becoming even more important." He was describing the paradox of AI advancing so rapidly that it is encroaching on everything from manufacturing to the arts and even replacing human thinking and labor.
Lee predicted that "a new 'gap society' will emerge because of AI, and the widening of those gaps will accelerate further." He meant that there will be a growing divide in results between people who actively use AI and those who do not. "At first, I thought that once AI programs were introduced in the Go world, the level would rise across the board and there would no longer be an absolute champion, but the opposite happened," he said. "It became almost impossible for lower-ranked players to beat top-ranked players. The top players used AI better and understood it better." He added that "now even professional Go players study with AI, and commentators explain games by asking AI."
He also said that "as the saying goes, 'the age of new illiteracy has arrived,' the gap between people who simply use AI to ask questions and those who actively use it like an agent will become as wide as the gap between people who can read, write and understand and those who are illiterate."
Explaining the rapid development of AI, Lee said, "When AlphaGo Master came out in 2017, I was amazed, but when AlphaGo Zero appeared six months later, I could not even be amazed anymore. That was because I could not understand the intent behind the moves AI was making. In other industries as well, it seems that people are using AI without really understanding it." He was pointing out that humans can be swayed by the results AI produces.
Lee said that to navigate the AI era, people must let go of fixed ideas. He stated, "We must preserve our conviction and philosophy,
but we need to shed our fixed ideas in order to make decisions suited to the AI era. We will only be able to do business that fits the times if we combine and integrate knowledge in diverse ways."


ehcho@fnnews.com Jo Eun-hyo Reporter