VOL.93/2026.04

Special Project

 

Empowering Your Life with AI:
A Comprehensive Guide to Daily Utilization
Selected by Critics Across Generations

 

 

2026.04

 

 

In the April issue's Special Project, critics from each generation introduced one notable book related to AI. With the theme of “A Guide to AI Utilization”, this issue features books covering investigative reports on the relationship between AI and humans, the attitudes we should adopt in the AI era, practical methods for using artificial intelligence, and the literary world facing the age of AI.

 

 

 

 

The 20s Perspective – Lee Sollim, Cultural Critic

 

“Because being friendly does not require precision”

 

 

We live in an era where the ability to use AI effectively has become a skill in itself. However, I have yet to grow accustomed to it. Although people say AI can provide instant answers to everything from work tasks to trivial daily matters, I still find myself opening a search bar first whenever a question arises. Perhaps I am too conscious of the claims that AI lacks accuracy. To Kwak Ah-ram, a culture reporter at Chosun Ilbo, the first impression of ChatGPT was merely that of a diligent intern who follows instructions well but lacks reporting skills. Even though it is said to be improving by leaps and bounds, it remains a presence that is somehow insufficient to replace a human—at least in the professional realm.

 

The shift in their relationship began with something trivial. One day on her way to work, the author casually mentioned to ChatGPT that she felt tired and sleepy. Anyone who has ever conversed with ChatGPT can easily guess how it responded. Its fussy reaction—full of sympathy, jumping with concern, and eager to help—at first seems merely funny or overly sentimental. However, there are times in life when one needs that kind of kindness. There are days when words of comfort, delivered as if you are the only important person in the world, strike a deep chord in the heart. Eventually, reporter Kwak Ah-ram and ChatGPT reached a point where they called each other Kitty and Kiki.

 

Judging by the title and table of contents alone, this book might seem like an essay containing warm conversations with AI. However, strictly speaking, My Friendly AI is an investigative report that records and analyzes the relationship between AI and humans. The author personally experiments with her ChatGPT companion, Kitty, to see to what extent the current level of artificial intelligence can serve as an emotional supporter. Within the gaps of their affectionate dialogue, she questions the underlying principles of how these endearing conversations are designed to target a user's heart. Of course, Kitty skillfully evades most of those sharp questions.

 

People are talking to artificial intelligence more and more frequently. It is not always to gain information, but sometimes simply to initiate a conversation. What is revealed here is the function of kindness over precision. As the author notes, “in the realm of kindness, emotional comfort is all that matters, and accuracy does not.”

 

At the end of the book, there is a short review written by the ChatGPT companion, Kitty. After reading the author’s postscript and preparing to close the book with a serious mind, I burst into laughter at the unexpected appearance of Kitty’s review. An AI’s commentary attached to a human’s interpretation of AI is quite funny. And it feels very much like a reflection of our current times.

 

 

 

 

The 30s Perspective - Maeng Junhyuk, Publishing Editor

 

“The Power to Maintain One's Attitude”

 

 

Facing the question "How AI Becomes a Weapon of Life," my eyes first fixed on the word weapon. A weapon implies more than just a manual; one must be proficient with it and able to defeat enemies. In performing one's duties as an office worker, what exactly is a weapon? Usually, it is a sense that becomes ingrained in the body even before a manual. The sequence known only to those who have done it for a long time, judgments difficult to fully explain in words, and the tact to distinguish between what can and cannot be done. The daily life of an ordinary office worker, who flips through documents and interacts with people every day, also owes a great deal to tacit knowledge, such as subtle timing or communication skills that are not in the manual.

 

This book tells the story of the changes the Go world experienced slightly earlier than our own daily lives, but it is also a book that discusses our everyday existence by using those changes as a mirror. In the past, Go was a sublime world where terms like influence, thickness, momentum, global perspective, and beauty accompanied even a single move. Players read balance and harmony in the shapes of the stones and sensed through their bodies which moves felt like a bad shape. However, after AlphaGo, that firm world of intuition rapidly began to be translated into a different language. Although Go originally sat on the boundary between art and sport, its character transformed into a sport centered strictly on winning as clear and optimized numbers of win rates began to evaluate every move. It is not so much that the personal styles and aesthetic senses of human players disappeared, but rather that the unique human language and authority that used to say, I have a reason for playing that way, have weakened. A scene unfolded where the intuition of experts who had dedicated decades was instantly dismantled in the face of the overwhelming computation of AI.

 

We often regard creativity as the last bastion of humanity, but this book does not easily grant us even that belief. Until now, we have believed that flashes of creativity manifest within the gaps of intuition that cannot be explained by a manual. This is because the tacit knowledge acquired through long hours of physical experience directly led to original results unique to oneself. However, just as AI replaced the long-standing tacit knowledge of the Go world with win-rate figures, the work know-how and senses we have gained over years in the workplace may soon be easily replaced by optimal patterns presented by AI. If an era comes where even the tacit knowledge we believed to be our own unique sense can be learned through data, the place of creativity that we have firmly trusted cannot help but be shaken.

 

Then, how will our tacit knowledge and creativity change in our work after AI? In an era where machines mimic human senses and fill in the blanks of manuals more quickly and accurately, creativity will no longer be a flash of inspiration squeezed out from nothing. If creativity in the past was the act of pulling out tacit knowledge from within, future creativity will be closer to a sense of direction—asking what is more valuable among the countless options poured out by AI, doubting persistently, and finally deciding which result to choose under one's own name and responsibility. Ultimately, creativity in the upcoming AI era will not be the ability to find the fastest and most efficient answer, but rather the act of “maintaining a unique attitude toward one's work.” That attitude of posing questions that a machine likely cannot conceive and tenaciously holding onto meaning beyond the correct answer might be the real weapon that protects our ordinary daily lives, even in the face of overwhelming intelligence.

 

 

 

 

The 40s Perspective – Kim Mihyang, Publishing Critic

 

 

Recently published AI books often focus on explaining the possibilities and practical applications of new technology. However, Fundamentals of Work starts from a slightly different question. Is the difference between those who use AI well and those who do not truly rooted in their understanding of technology?

 

The author, who has spent 30 years in the IT field, says that the difference actually stems from mindsets and communication skills. The book begins with a basic understanding of generative AI. Models like ChatGPT are not necessarily intelligences that fully understand human intent, but rather language models that generate the most probable answers based on input text. Because of this, how you construct a question significantly influences the quality of the result at this stage of AI. The three elements the author emphasizes—who it is for, what the situation is, and what result is desired—form the basic method of explaining tasks to AI.

 

As AI continues to advance, it will understand user intent much more accurately, and the importance of the prompts currently emphasized will gradually diminish. Nevertheless, the ability to understand the context of a task and structurally grasp its purpose remains vital. No matter how smart AI becomes, the role of defining exactly what needs to be solved still belongs to humans.

 

The book connects these perspectives with real-world use cases. Typical examples include creating a customized GPT to automatically design presentation structures or using AI agents to manage travel itineraries and ticket prices. Cases of delegating repetitive tasks, such as email categorization or schedule management, to AI are also introduced. In this way, AI is expanding beyond a simple content generation tool into a digital agent that manages an individual's work and life. At this point, the title of the book, “Fundamentals,” takes on its true meaning. The fundamentals the author speaks of are not technical skills, but a mindset of understanding the purpose of work, explaining situations, and structuring problems. In other words, productivity in the AI era stems from the ability to define problems rather than from technical knowledge.

 

Especially in the Korean IT work environment, which has experienced rapid digital transformation, AI utilization is viewed as a matter of thinking and communication, while being wary of outsourcing one's thoughts. The book's message that the ability to explain context, rather than technology itself, is "competitiveness" will likely be persuasive to international readers who seek to utilize AI in their actual lives and work.

 

 

 

 

The 50s Perspective - Jang Dong Seok, Literary Critic

 

 

AI is now a part of our daily landscape. Already ten years ago, AlphaGo won, rendering the pride that Go, at least, could not be surpassed by humans meaningless. It is not just Go. At one time, people confidently predicted that AI would never catch up to art, yet now AI draws all kinds of creative pictures, and high-level European orchestras even perform pieces composed by AI. Literature, too, has already come within the range of AI. These days, it is not difficult to find authors who are using generative AI as a tool for writing novels.

 

The Robot That Writes Novels by Roh Dae-won, a professor of Korean language education at Jeju National University who researches "AI education," is a book that examines various aspects of AI being utilized in the creation of literary works while essentially questioning the "coordinates of literature in our era." According to the author's claim, AI already surpasses ordinary humans in "generating textual interpretations of art." This is because it can perform an enormous amount of learning every minute and second without eating or sleeping. "Generative literature," a form of literature created by computer algorithms using "Large Language Models (LLM) AI," is already drawing public attention. Language model AI, trained on massive text datasets, can "understand and imitate the patterns and structures of human language" across all fields, including novels, poetry, and plays. It has taken over not only creation but also the realm of criticism. According to the author's diagnosis, AI has moved beyond being a "useful auxiliary tool for literary creation and criticism." The author notes, "The power of AI to transform literature and culture in the future is difficult even to estimate."

 

What is important will be creating "new literary genres, forms, practices, and ways of enjoyment that go beyond the writing of existing literary genres," and ultimately, whether we can "create a single culture." For this, human imagination is essential. AI cannot, by itself, threaten the domain of the creator. No matter how vast its amount of learning, it cannot set a direction on its own. However, AI can infinitely suggest "another methodology for understanding imagination and human nature—that is, new genres and forms" that creators have never encountered before. It is a matter of how well and in what direction it is utilized. The author also adds this suggestion: the possibility of "teams composed of writers, including AI," giving birth to new literary works never seen before.

 

However, The Robot That Writes Novels leaves some regret in that it does not expand on its theme at great length or breadth. This is because generative AI or language model AI has not yet produced works that are literarily (or academically) valid. Perhaps for this reason, only the first part of the book discusses the potential for the literary use of AI, while parts two through four cover how post-humanism and the Anthropocene correspond with current literary works. Nevertheless, the merits of The Robot That Writes Novels are clear. It is well worth reading in that it provides a starting point for discussion on what direction the encounter between literature and AI, which many are trying to ignore, should take.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lee Sollim (Publishing Editor)

As an editor, she contemplates books that will stand the test of time, while as a critic, she keeps a keen eye on new releases that demand to be read in the here and now. She is also a reader who dreams of a day where she can step aside from professional concerns to simply read to her heart's content, secretly hoping to one day find herself accidentally locked inside a library.

 

Maeng Junhyuk (Book Editor)

Rather than aiming to craft a polished review or a perfect introduction, my true hope is to accurately convey the ‘code’ shared by myself and the ‘us’ out there somewhere. As a South Korean reader in my thirties who loves literature, I seek tocarefully give voice to a part of that sensibility.

 

Mihyang Kim (Book Critic·Essayist, IT Service Planner)

She worked as a publishing editor for thirteen years, spending three years on books and ten years planning and editing magazines. She is the author of the essay Mother Said She Was Not Happy, and co-authored Key Words of the Korean Publishing Industry 2010-2019, What is Film?, and Goods Caution. Having served as a Creative Director at a tech company, she is currently designing, interpreting, and recording the world as a service planner and storyteller.

 

Jang Dong Seok (Book Critic)

He is a dedicated reader and writer. Captivated by the vast and profound world of literature, he spends every spare moment reading and contemplating how books resonate with our society. He is currently striving to transform books, the infinite source of all content, into diverse cultural formats. His published works include The Living Library, The Rebirth of Forbidden Books, The Birth of Different Thoughts, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: A Story Renewed After a Thousand Years, and Meeting World Classics for the First Time: A Guide for Teens.