Han Byung-Chul
On AI
A Simulation of Thought by Opus · Part of the You On AI Encyclopedia
A Note to the Reader: This text was not written or endorsed by Han Byung-Chul. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Han Byung-Chul's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal
The compulsion I couldn't name was the one wearing my own face.
I described the scene in You On AI: an Atlantic flight, an hour I cannot remember, a book being written at a pace that had ceased to be voluntary. The exhilaration had drained out. What remained was grinding momentum disguised as passion. I knew something was wrong. I did not have the vocabulary for what it was.
Han Byung-Chul gave me the vocabulary.
Not a comfortable vocabulary. Not the kind that resolves into action items or productivity frameworks. The kind that makes you set down your phone and sit with the silence for a beat longer than you wanted to. The kind that names the thing you have been doing to yourself and calls it by