Page 26 - Zenith 2023-웹용

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Zenith 2023 ↘ 2) Global Issues 26

A New Religion

Dominates the 21st

Century

For a long time, humans have served gods who are smarter and more intelligent. As
time goes by, we gradually believe that the sovereignty of life lies in each human and
start to listen to our own thoughts. That’s because I’m the one who knows myself
best. So, we vote on our leader directly. Then democracy was established. What
more people think is right is considered right, and what more people think is wrong
is considered wrong. Who determines what is right and wrong is neither God nor the
stars in the sky but us, humans.

This fact seems very natural. What animal is smarter than humans? Who knows more
about us than ourselves? Is there even a possibility that there is someone who knows
more about us than ourselves?
Since the 1800s, the age of the great discoveries by Charles Darwin, life science has
been summed up in one sentence: “Organism is an algorithm”. What does this mean?
In every living creature, there is a manual called DNA that makes up every part of
the body; from something as simple as our eye colors to the complex synapses in our
brain. It is made of just four letters: A, C, G, and T. If you combine these letters, you
can make any creature, from ants to humans.

How are these letters combined? For example, animals that didn’t fear cliffs
approached them fearlessly and died. While some animals started to fear cliffs
because their DNA letters had been changed. These animals were less likely to die.
Through natural selection, a file called DNA was filled with these algorithms. It ordered
us to fear when we see a cliff, to feel delicious when we see high-calorie food, to feel
wariness when we see strangers and to feel dearness when we see our DNA.

The fact that organisms are algorithms is not the real problem. Then the real problem
comes from that we started to make algorithms by ourselves. The inside of the
computer was made up of two numbers, 0 and 1. How are these numbers combined
and make algorithm? The “YouTube” algorithm remembers how long the user watched
each video, when the user clicked “Like”, how long the user stayed in a comment,
even which part user watched repeatably, which part the user pulsed videos, and
which part the user turned off videos. Algorithms learn about us.

According to Facebook, when Facebook algorithm has one’s 10 “Likes”, it can know
about him more than his co-workers, 70 “Likes”, more than his friends, 150 “Likes”,
more than his family, and 300 “Likes” to know more than his wife. Algorithms can
know better than who lived with him for many years with just 300 “Likes”.