상상의 수고를 빼앗은 너 [슬기로운 기자생활] (hani.co.kr)
You robbed me of imaginary labor [The Wise Journalist].
'Dynamic eyes'. In high school, my English teacher often called me that. I would often get unfocused and dazed in class, and she would yell, "Hey, Shin Hyung-chul, you've got dong-dong eyes again. What are you thinking!" She would yell at me. Well, I don't remember exactly what I was thinking at the time. However, if I gathered my vague memories, I think it went something like this. "If I could be Messi for a day, what would I do? Aha! Transfer 10 million euros to my Korean account. But how do I get the money from Spain to Korea, and can I talk to the banker since I don't speak Spanish?" etc.
As you can probably tell from the above examples, I'm an MBTI "Power N", an expert in delusions. The MBTI divides personality types into S, which focuses on what actually exists, and N, which focuses on possibilities and imagination, and I have a much higher N than S reading. Because of this characteristic, I sometimes unintentionally create friction with people even after I start socializing. I often embarrass people by asking silly questions like, "If a crow and two magpies fight, who wins?" while walking down the street. My acquaintances, who are Power S, always stop my rant by saying, "Anyone can win."
I'm also a Power N when it comes to reporting. This is not to say that I make up all my stories. However, it often starts with an idea. For example, I would start with a hypothesis that goes something like this: "The yen is weak, Korean prices are high, Japanese working in Korea will have a hard time making ends meet, and the number of foreign students in Korea has decreased. Then, when they investigate and report on the actual situation, some of their hypotheses are wrong and some are right. But in the life of a journalist, who is always on the lookout for a story, my delusional nature has served me well.
But lately, I've had a friend who's been stealing my imagination. Artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, it hasn't been that long since I've had a meaningful conversation with it. A year ago, the problem of halucination, or the creation of misinformation, was so severe that the "King Sejong MacBook Throwing Incident" actually existed. The AI friend has reached a point where it can no longer be ignored. For example, when I asked for some ideas for a wise journalist's life, the A.I. came up with ideas such as the shadow of diplomacy, the tears of an interpreter, how to use Twitter as a journalist, and the newsroom through the eyes of a MZ generation journalist. These are all good ideas, even if they aren't immediately applicable.
Of course, we don't use AI directly in our work yet. I'm just playing around with various generative AIs. However, I can't help but think, "I wonder if the ideas I hear while talking to my A.I. friend will stay in my head and influence me," or "I wonder if there are ethical issues if I refer to them while writing an article. I think our industry, and indeed our society, needs to accelerate the discussion about AI and professional ethics. How far are we willing to go to share the imaginary labor?