At the inauguration of the World Earth Citizen Alliance (WECA) and the launch of my new Korean book, Earth Management: Finding Answers in Hongik, in Seoul yesterday, I addressed the audience, which had gathered from seventeen different countries. I would like to share with you the essence of the message I gave that evening.
For the past week, international attention has been on the battle of Go between artificial intelligence AlphaGo and human Sedol Lee. Many people expected Sedol to be victorious; they hoped he would be the one to win. The result was that Sedol Lee lost, 4 to 1, leaving the world in shock.
However, AI experts naturally expected AlphaGo to win from the beginning. People cannot run faster than cars or see farther than telescopes, and in the same way, they cannot defeat a system of artificial intelligence that stores and calculates vast quantities of information to come up with the optimal decision.
While this Go match proved how amazing AlphaGo is, the fact is, what made AlphaGo is human beings and natural intelligence. It’s not the artificial intelligence system AlphaGo that’s amazing, but humans, which made AlphaGo, that are amazing.
How human intelligence uses artificial intelligence can determine whether we make happy results or not. I believe it has to do with choice and effort. The future will be determined by human consciousness. Are we just going to leave our future to science and material civilization? Although they are amazing, humankind created those things. When we realize that and remember that, we can take ownership of our future. I believe it’s time for us to have that kind of realization.
What’s important is the level of consciousness of the human beings who are utilizing the artificial intelligence. However, humankind’s level of consciousness is still tied up in the era of geocentric theory. For a long time, humanity believed that the sun revolves around the earth, and it wasn’t until the 16th century that we realized that the earth rotates on its axis as it revolves around the sun. Even after heliocentric theory was introduced, it took a long time for people to catch up. I think human consciousness still fails to keep up with heliocentric theory.
The speed of the earth’s rotation is 500 meters per second, and the speed of its revolution, which is even faster, is 33 kilometers per second, which is 30 times the speed of a bullet. We are on that bullet right now. Even though we’re moving that fast, we can hardly tell that we’re moving at that speed. Although the earth is rotating and moving around the sun, our consciousness cannot perceive it. We are standing in place and see the sun rise in the morning and set at night.
Rather than being amazed by that which is artificial and material, we need to think of our value as we exist on the earth. The fact is that the earth that we’re living on is rotating around its axis and revolving around the sun at these tremendous speeds, and at the same time, human beings are moving toward death. In that case, what meaning and value are we going to live today?
Even the sun, which is at the center of the earth’s orbit/revolution, has its own rotation as it revolves in a spiraling vortex around the galaxy. To revolve in orbit around the center as you rotate on your own axis, ceaselessly, diligently, and quickly, follows the laws of the universe and the laws of nature. I think human beings should also live like and have the values of nature.
However, the laws of rotation and revolution are not being followed by human society. Capitalism emphasizes only rotation, pushing selfishness/greed and unbridled competition to extremes. In the end, personal egotism, national egotism, corporate egotism, and religious egotism have run rampant, resulting in the loss of humanity and the destruction of the earth’s environment. There was a time when communism stressed “revolution” (collectively revolving around a center), but the suppression of rotation brought about self-destruction.
Human consciousness must now perform rotation and revolution simultaneously. What matters is what we set as the center for us to revolve around. Human society must not revolve around a center consisting of national power, heritage, religion, or ideology. There is no value more important to humanity than the earth on which we stand and depend for our lives. We must revolve around the earth, with the earth as our center. In the same way that the earth rotates on its axis as it revolves around the sun, human beings must also revolve with the earth at the center as they rotate on their own axis.
It’s natural and it’s human to live like the earth.
Instead of greed for money, power, and fame, living as we rotate and revolve with love for the earth and humanity is precisely what makes an Earth Citizen. In this era, there is no greater enlightenment than this. Humans who live like the earth are Earth Citizens, and running the world according to the laws of rotation and revolution is what we call Earth Management.
With all my sincere heart, I hope that the Earth Citizen Movement and the new book today can give hope to people. Seventeen countries around the world have gathered for this launch of the World Earth Citizen Alliance. We have promised to spread the Earth Citizen Movement to 100 countries, and we want to make 100 million Earth Citizens by the year 2020. Our course is now set.
I think it’s possible. It’s possible because we’re in the age of information in which we are all connected. What matters is speed. In order to save the earth and humankind from the abyss of loss of humanity and the cliff of destruction of the earth’s environment, speed is of the essence. We need speed like the movement of the earth and the sun. I promise to begin an era of Earth Management in the year 2020. I hope we can do it together.