사진 확대 After sleeping, new artificial intelligence (AI) versions are poured out. Even the people of “Hurry, hurry” are too fast to follow. In an era when AI answers any questions right away, people who are accustomed to immediate questions no longer think deeply alone.
Cho Young-hun, a professor of history education at Korea University, said, “The more chaotic times like now, the more time you need to think deeply by yourself. We need to develop ‘historical intelligence’ to judge whether the current change is really new.” It is time to calmly look at the changes that AI will bring, just as historians read numerous historical sources and read the overall flow.
Professor Cho compared AI to a meteorite. Now, the meteorite suddenly falls and the impact is swirling, so it is only when time passes and the dust settles so that you can understand the meaning of the impact. He said, “AI is causing a new phenomenon, but time has to pass to know if it is really a new ‘civilization’, and now no one is torn apart without knowing the substance.”
Professor Cho emphasized, “Historical intelligence is needed in times of confusion like now, especially ahead of the AI era.” This is because macro and future-oriented thinking skills are needed to prepare for “after AI” beyond the wave of AI without being swept away by the AI wave.
Historical intelligence, as he refers to it, is the ability to determine whether the current phenomenon is really new in the long run. It is to distinguish whether only the outer packaging is a different phenomenon or whether it is a phenomenon that will bring about a new civilization through structural change. “People living in the present are always new in the present,” he said. “You need a long-term sense of time to detect changes to not be deceived.”
Books such as Gun, Germ, and Iron and Sapiens are all products of historical intelligence. This is because it distinguishes between new and continuous in the past and looks to the future. Professor Cho said, “As today, the more information there is, the less sense of direction disappears. In this case, history can serve as a compass,” he stressed. We should be able to distinguish important changes, just as historians identify meaningful ones among numerous historical sources, he said.
What is needed to develop historical intelligence is persistence. It is the most vulnerable concept for AI natives who are accustomed to speed today. Professor Cho pointed out, “When you meet students these days, the problem is that you can’t find materials, but you can’t read them for a long time even if there are many materials.” He said, “Don’t you watch shorts because you can’t watch long videos, let alone long novels. However, only when we can defeat the so-called thick ‘brickbook’ will we have the ability to distinguish between true and false.
This is a concept that also connects with literacy. Professor Cho has a habit of writing more than half of A4 pages in person since 1998 for literacy. So far, more than 1,700 pages have been accumulated. Professor Cho said, “The temptation to use AI easily and quickly is also intense, but overcoming this temptation is also a new capability in the AI era.”
It is for the same reason that Professor Cho and his family have been making the family newspaper “Pigeons House” together for 35 years. They turned what happened to their families into newspapers every month or every four months. It is a historical document that gives you a glimpse of the history of the family as well as the times of the time. Professor Cho said, “It is worth trying to make a family newspaper beyond reading a paper newspaper. “It is a job to develop training to keep the deadline, planning to arrange and control texts according to the format of newspapers, and insight into looking back on past events,” he said. “The biggest advantage of family newspapers is to translate my experiences into meaning and a good training method to cultivate historical intelligence.”
He pointed out that the education system should also change. Many point out that unique thoughts, not the amount of knowledge, should be evaluated in the AI era, but Professor Cho’s point goes one step further. Professor Cho said, “The time has come to go back to the old way and need a oral test.”
Professor Cho said, “Unexpressed knowledge cannot truly be seen as mine,” and diagnosed, “The more advanced science like AI comes out, the more we will return to primitive ways and evaluate knowledge.” AI is used when studying, but evaluation is done alone without AI. Professor Cho added, “Educators should also be able to wait for slow responses from students.”
[Reporter Choi Wonseok]