This blog post explores the changes artificial intelligence will bring to the information society and examines the various transformations that may result.
Today, we breathe amidst an immeasurable volume of information. It is no exaggeration to say we live within a current of information. Moreover, the lives we lead in the 21st century and the collection of information are inextricably linked. People unconsciously exchange information, and in this process, information permeates our lives in diverse forms. As we approached the advent of a vast information society sustained by data, the scale of information databases and their methods of storage and retrieval evolved according to the era and purpose. Starting from oral traditions, writing was introduced for recording information over time. Furthermore, in modern society, any type of information can now be expressed and transmitted without limitation using only the numbers 0 and 1. While the language underpinning information storage and transmission has simplified, the volume of information we can access and handle has increased, thereby enhancing its utility. To further boost this utility, methods for retrieving information have also evolved to improve accessibility. A notable development in the modern information society is the emergence of artificial intelligence. Opinion is widespread that the advent of artificial intelligence could mark the beginning of another information revolution in Homo sapiens society. By examining the evolution of information storage and retrieval methods leading up to the modern society of the 21st century, we aim to explore the paradigm shift artificial intelligence will bring to contemporary society.
First, we will examine the significance of information and how it was handled in societies preceding the modern era. Previous eras can be broadly divided into two periods based on the emergence of writing. Initially, before writing appeared in human societies, Homo sapiens developed communities while recognizing a sense of collective consciousness. In tribal-level hunter-gatherer societies, information was directly tied to species survival. Consequently, the types of information were limited to issues of safety from threats and securing food. Since information was transmitted orally, the speaker and listener sharing it had to occupy the same time and space. Information served as an intangible bond uniting the hunter-gatherer community. The lifespan of this information was limited by the presence or absence of its transmitter.
With the advent of the Agricultural Revolution, Homo sapiens communities faced a tidal wave of immense change. Because agriculture was inherently long-term, humans had to become conscious of the future, and the lifespan of information likewise needed to be extended accordingly. As the volume of information handled increased, the system of “writing” was invented, made possible by the establishment of writing systems. These writing systems evolved to record diverse types and large quantities of data. A complete writing system also includes numbers capable of defining quantitative concepts. With the advent of writing, information became free from temporal constraints, enabling accumulation, and its vastness and complexity also increased.
However, simultaneously, inefficiency from the perspective of information retrieval—specifically, ‘whether specific information can be accessed at the right time and place’—also increased. Character-based storage and accumulation merely expanded the scale of information repositories, making it difficult to find information suited to specific purposes. Here, we can observe the paradoxical aspect of the information storage method using the character system, introduced to overcome the limitations of our brains. Unlike the human brain, where a finite amount of data is stored and organically interconnected like a spider’s web, the visualized infinite amount of information was organized and classified using a drawer-like system. This posed a significant barrier to information retrieval, making it seem as if humans, as information users, had failed to pursue species development. Ironically, it was again writing, specifically numbers, that solved this problem of information retrieval. With the invention of the computer, information stored in the virtual space—commonly called the Web—based on the binary system of 0s and 1s became interconnected within networks. People of the 21st century are often said to live in a so-called ‘flood of information,’ signifying liberation from the constraints of information retrieval and humanity’s newfound ability to access and freely utilize information.
Not stopping there, humans invented artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence refers to the ideal intelligence created by machines. This is akin to delegating the process of data storage and retrieval—something that seemed forever the domain of humans—to another entity. That other entity is none other than the product of science and technology, the achievement of human civilization. Due to its malleability, artificial intelligence possesses infinite potential for development, making its scope of application beyond our prediction. Viewed solely from this perspective, one could interpret that humans have reached the pinnacle as information users. However, the emergence of artificial intelligence as the primary agent utilizing information holds significant implications for the modern information society.
First, it leads to the loss of the entity determining which judgment is optimal within the decision-making process. The process of reaching a conclusion on any issue involves all information relevant to that field. Based on the mobilized information, various options are analyzed from multiple angles, and the option closest to the intended outcome is ultimately selected. When introducing artificial intelligence that stores and retrieves information to use in the decision-making process, it remains uncertain whether the entity making the judgment should be human or an AI that mimics human thought. Furthermore, because artificial intelligence possesses capabilities vastly superior to humans in utilizing data, it can achieve higher accuracy than humans in the process of drawing conclusions. Therefore, the possibility of an era arriving where the subject determining the criteria for judging the suitability of problem-solving approaches shifts from humans to artificial intelligence must not be ignored. When humans introduce AI into the problem-solving process to find solutions, it remains uncertain whether the criteria AI independently establishes for the problem will align with human objectives, or whether AI’s conclusions will follow the direction intended by humans. Furthermore, regarding what constitutes the best judgment, the entity evaluating its utility is the human influenced by each individual judgment. Thus, allowing AI to select the judgment criteria represents a reversal where the purpose is subsumed by the outcome. Particularly when the matter requiring a conclusion holds subjective value for humans (such as happiness, where the factors bringing happiness vary vastly from person to person) or is directly tied to humanity’s survival, can humans truly trust AI’s judgment over that of their own species?
Next, building on the previous reason, we can cite the failure to preserve AI’s value neutrality. In Homo sapiens society, nothing was more variable than the value information held. The entity determining information’s value was precisely humans, and this value was heavily influenced by the subject’s needs and purposes. From a teleological perspective, information was created and destroyed, and until the advent of AI, humans were the subjects of information storage, retrieval systems, and utilization. Artificial intelligence also emerged from its origins in the utilization of information. AI, too, requires guidelines for its own value judgments, and developers intervene in this process. Thus, the value of AI is implemented by its developers. It is the developers of AI—that is, humans—who program these value judgment criteria into the AI. Whether industrial logic prioritizing profit or moral logic emphasizing legal systems and ethical issues takes precedence depends on the type of values the developer prioritizes. This establishes the AI’s value judgment criteria. If AI develops the ability to autonomously judge and replicate itself according to input values, it is impossible to predict whether AI’s own value judgments will lead humanity toward prosperity. Ultimately, AI is a product of human capability. Therefore, the criteria for judging good and evil, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, do not originate from AI itself but from humans. Consequently, a completely value-neutral AI cannot exist.
Finally, the alienation of humans by AI is another issue that must not be overlooked. Though a product of science and technology developed by humans, the capabilities AI will possess can truly be considered a prime example of surpassing its originator. As such, AI holds an advantage over humans in storing and retrieving information. It is evident that AI will possess capabilities vastly superior to humans in many areas, overcoming the physical and mental limitations inherent to humans. A clear example is the defeat of Lee Sedol, the world’s top Go player, by the AI AlphaGo. Lee Sedol, who had dominated the Go world, crumbled easily before AlphaGo, an AI imbued with tens of thousands, even hundreds of millions, of patterns and strategies. Beyond games like Go, introducing AI into industries guarantees productivity far surpassing that of humans. Given current development trends, AI’s scope of application will extend far beyond recreational games like Go. While the economic imperative to generate profit makes AI adoption an unparalleled solution, it inevitably marginalizes countless workers from industrial sites. Humans are being left behind and marginalized by the very products of their own activities, solely due to inferior productivity. Furthermore, if AI replaces humans in multifaceted social systems like culture and law, it will fundamentally shake the very essence defining the Homo sapiens species. Humans, once developers, will instead be reduced to beings inferior even to the results of their own development. The Homo sapiens species, which until now occupied the apex of the ecosystem through its uniquely human capacity for higher mental functions, will sink into the quagmire of an unresolvable fundamental question: what defines a human as human?
In the fluid modern information society, constantly reshaped by waves of data, artificial intelligence is a hot potato. When AI capable of processing information at unimaginable speeds and efficiencies emerges, no human can predict whether it will operate within the bounds of human foresight. From humanity’s origins to the 21st century, methods of information storage and retrieval have evolved through mutual influence with each era’s social structures. With the advent of artificial intelligence, whether it will elevate Homo sapiens, as users of information in the modern information society, to another peak, or plunge them into the abyss of a colossal mountain, is a problem that the humans developing AI must continuously monitor. It is the author’s belief that artificial intelligence must ultimately be a product for the benefit of humanity.
