Pythagoras, AI and Han Kang

We must not forget the underlying profound religious and ethical contexts of these works of art.

KIM SEUNG-JUNGThe author is a professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto. Hearing the phenomenal news that the honor of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature went to Korean writer Han Kang, I was once again impressed by Korea’s international status. At the University of Toronto, where I teach, Computer Science Prof. Geoffrey Everest Hinton became the fourth University of Toronto professor to win a Nobel Prize, as he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Princeton University Prof. John Hopfield.

Known as the godfather of AI, Prof. Hinton was recognized for his contribution to establishing the foundation of artificial intelligence machine learning by inventing a network called a “Boltzmann machine” which can identify data such as images and generate new examples.

The fact that the Nobel Prize in Physics went to AI-related computer engineers proves the significance of the technology on our society as a whole. AI technology is also used in important research such as electronics and automobile technology, basic science research, climate modeling and medical image analysis.

Interestingly, both Nobel Prize winners — Prof. Hinton and Prof. Hopfield — warn about the dangers of AI. They said that the tendency of overly relying on AI’s technological prowess beyond human understanding and morality is at a historical tipping point which could threaten the survival of humanity.

Modern society’s tendency of trying to resolve all matters with calculation originates from the ancient Greek Pythagorean school, which is the foundation of Western intellectual history. While we simply know them as the pioneers of basic mathematics, the positivist concept to explain the essence of all things and the structure of universe with numbers became the basis of not only philosophy but also astronomy, engineering and physics, and laid the foundation for artistic traditions as well.

For example, the Parthenon was build with thousands of mathematically proportional marble stones and famous Greek sculptures were based on proportions of the ideal human body. But we must not forget the underlying profound religious and ethical contexts of these works of art. Han Kang’s literature asks about human reflection over the sweeping trend of history and its values.