1. OPINION 15WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2015
Koreans are inquisitive by nature.
A foreigner who visited Korea in
1892 wrote, “Koreans are curious
and like to meddle in other people’s
business.” Even today, the Korean
people seem to enjoy gossiping and
prying into each other’s affairs. An
upside of this innate curiosity is the
community spirit that enables us
to share many things together in a
group-oriented society. The downside
is that it is offensive and rude to
others, especially to foreigners.
Thankfully, young Koreans do not
seem to have inherited this unde-
sirable legacy from the older gen-
eration. In English, a meddlesome
person is sometimes referred to as a
nosy parker, or busybody. You ask
people to stop poking their nose into
your business when they are being
overly inquisitive. Korean also has
a colorful term for the more inquisi-
tive members of our society: “People
with a wide ojirap.” Ojirap is the
Korean term for the lapels of one’s
outer garments. Young Koreans use
the slang “ojirapper”’ a portmanteau
of “ojirap” and “rapper” (a rapper of
gossip, if you will) to describe these
busybodies.
Ojirappers are a dime a dozen
in Korean society. For example, on
national holidays such as Chuseok
or Lunar New Year’s Day, your
relatives will gather at your house
and bombard you with personal and
embarrassing questions: “Why don’t
you get married?” “Did you get a
job yet?” “How much money do you
make?” and so on. On reading advice
columns like “Annie’s Mailbox,” I
discovered that even America has its
share of people with a proclivity for
meddling. The ojirapper might be a
universal malady, after all.
The right answer to these incon-
siderate questions would be: “That’s
none of your business,” yet you can-
not dare say this to your seniors in
Korean society. You just have to en-
dure the embarrassing questions in
silence. It is only natural that young
people hate to be home on national
holidays and want to go vacationing
overseas instead.
The list of offensive questions is
endless. Once I witnessed an uncle
embarrass his nephew by remark-
ing, “How come you have such a
dark complexion?” There is nothing
you can do about your complexion,
so no one has the right to pass such
rude remarks. However, in Korea,
it is not unusual to find people
remarking on your skin tone fre-
quently. Many Koreans do not seem
to realize that it is a taboo to refer
to another person’s color.
I happen to know a 5-year old
girl who is cute enough, but not as
pretty as her mother. Her mother
once confided in me that she hated
waiting at bus stops or taxi stands.
I was saddened and embarrassed
on learning the reason. Whenever
they were waiting for a bus or taxi,
people would almost always point at
the daughter and ask, “Is she your
daughter? She does not take after
you.” The mother should have retort-
ed, “What’s that to you?” Instead, she
would just reply feebly, “Yes, she is.”
Of course, the little girl knows the
import of the words. In fact, she is so
hurt by these inconsiderate remarks
that whenever people look at her
and her mother, she calls out “Mom!”
in an attempt to prevent them from
asking the dreaded question.
When you tell people you have a
baby girl, someone is likely to butt
in and say, “You should have a boy,
too.” On learning that you have only
one child, they will tell you right
away, “You should have another.”
When someone gains weight, people
will make fun of the person, call-
ing them a fatso and telling them
to stop stuffing themselves. If a
slim person eats just a little at a
restaurant, people will say rather
sympathetically, “Come on. You are
so skinny. You need more flesh on
your bones.” Why do they not mind
their own business? Why do they in-
solently refer to other’s physical ap-
pearances? These kibitzers need to
undergo therapy so they can learn to
stop poking their nose where it does
not belong.
Another thing Koreans should
know is that their greetings might
sound unpleasant as well. When a
Korean sees his friend, he will say
to him or her, “You don’t look good.
Are you sick?” To the Korean people,
such greetings mean, “I care about
you.” As a global citizen, however,
you cannot say such things to oth-
ers, especially to foreigners. It is an
extremely clumsy way of greeting a
person. Instead, you should say, “You
look great. What’s new?”
When a political issue is at stake,
all Koreans stick their nose in it,
and the whole nation is caught in an
uproar. Why not let the politicians
deal with it? But then, politicians,
too, bring the issue to the street,
inviting the public to butt in. That
is why we say that everybody is a
politician in Korea. When everybody,
so a Korean saying goes, dips their
oars in, the boat finds itself on top of
the mountain.
Dear ojirappers, please mind your
own business!
Kim Seong-kon is a professor
emeritus of English at Seoul Nation-
al University and the president of
the Literature Translation Institute
of Korea. — Ed.
The human race is entering an
era of exponential technological
growth unmatched by anything
before in its history. The rate of
technological evolution is now
accelerating by the nanosecond.
Most of the advances to date have
been focused on the augmentation
of the mind, or information analy-
sis and processing. Advancements
in these areas continue to move
forward rapidly, and humanity
now faces a scenario in which our
technologies are breaking out of
their boxes, migrating from the
cyber world to the physical world.
The CyberPhysical Era has begun
and with it the robotic Internet of
things (RIoT) economy.
The technological changes now
coming online with robotics and
artificial intelligence will disrupt
far more businesses than did the
first information revolution, which
was dominated by personal com-
puters, the Internet, and mobile
devices. The emergence of this
new age will bring great oppor-
tunity to those who successfully
navigate the swelling tides of the
new blue ocean. But with great
opportunity also comes great risk
-both economic and existential.
The knowledge accumulated by
the emergent Internet of Things
— or the less commonly used, al-
beit more accurate term Internet
of everything — is then utilized
by the technological ecosystem to
evolve. The proliferation of learn-
ing machines and the expansion
of their intelligence now moves at
speeds that for many observers,
appears as surreal as science fic-
tion.
In the book “Race Against the
Machine” by MIT professors Erik
Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee,
a chessboard is used as an example
to describe the evolution of tech-
nology, specifically robotics and AI,
an idea which they borrowed from
Ray Kurzweil. In the story, the
inventor of chess shows his new
game to his emperor. The emperor
is so impressed by the game that
he grants the inventor the right to
select his own reward. The inven-
tor asks for a quantity of rice to
be calculated as follows: One grain
of rice is put on the first square
of the board, two on the second,
four on the third, and so on, with
each square doubling the number
of grains as the previous. The em-
peror agrees, thinking the reward
too small. Much to his chagrin, he
later sees that the doubling results
in incredibly large numbers. The
inventor ends up with 18 quin-
tillion grains of rice, an amount
which makes Mount Everest look
like a molehill. The point of the
story is that in an age of exponen-
tial technological growth, things
only get really interesting in the
second half of the chessboard. We
are now on the second half of the
board. And things are getting very
interesting, indeed.
Businesses of all types have been
impacted by the moves already
taken on the first half of the chess-
board during the IT revolution that
started in the 1980s. One example
is what happened to photography
with the advent of digital photog-
raphy, which brought about the
demise of some companies and
emergence of others. This scenario
is now happening in AI and robot-
ics. Intelligent, easy-to-use ma-
chines dedicated to the service of
humans are being developed and
are becoming accessible to the ma-
jority of consumers in terms of cost.
These robot systems will spell the
end of many jobs and businesses,
but create new jobs and businesses
for those positioned for the change.
For employment, however, the net
result will be negative, and mass
unemployment will become an is-
sue with which governments must
contend.
The key difference between the
intelligence revolution and the in-
formation revolution, however, is
the rise of cyberphysical systems.
The technology now improves
itself and learns from mistakes.
The digital genie is now out of the
cyber bottle, whether as a classical
humanoid robot, an autonomous
car, a nanobot implant or a robotic
chef system.
In the Cyberphysical Era we will
see AI and robotics (AI-enhanced
robots, or AI bots) permeate the
physical world. The AI bots in the
RIoT system will be components
of a “hive mind,” and use onboard
processors as well as the cloud to
learn from each other, not unlike
a real-time Wikipedia for AI bots,
thus magnifying their efficiency
and growing its knowledge base.
This year, IBM and Softbank gave
birth to the first generation of
AIbots by fusing Watson AI and
Pepper, the service robot. While
at the University of Cambridge,
scientists have created a “mother
robot” that builds smaller robots,
and selects the fittest for survival,
and rearranges the rest.
Two keys are required for busi-
nesses to prosper in the RIoT
economy. The first is technological
capability, which Korean compa-
nies possess in abundance. The
second is diverse staff with inter-
national networks and experience
in building cross-border partner-
ships in emerging technology busi-
nesses such as service robotics.
The second key is used in places
like Silicon Valley and Berlin to
create future businesses. In Korea,
however, companies must work
harder to build this ecosystem to
attract such talent. This involves
much more than simply rezoning
or calling an area a “Silicon Val-
ley of …” Indeed, it is neither the
name nor the geographic location
that makes a Silicon Valley, but
the interplay of diverse ideas that
creates future businesses.
The path to failure, unfortunate-
ly, is far easier to travel. Investing
in companies with little to offer
in terms of new solutions to old
problems is one. One example in-
volves large investments made into
a company building a social robot
that was popular on a crowdfund-
ing website. Although the robot has
enjoyed a substantial funding rela-
tive to its potential, it does little
more than what tablets and phones
already do. But this is par for the
course in most service robotics.
Businesses can avoid such pit-
falls by working with profession-
als that know the business and
understand how these emergent
technologies can be used for lofty
yet realistic outcomes. This is the
way to most efficiently allocate re-
sources in RIoT-related companies
that have the greatest potential to
disrupt existing business models
or create entirely new business
models.
Robert (Robb the Robot Guy)
Cheek is a research analyst and
editorial head at HMC Investment
Securities, the investment banking
arm of the Hyundai Motor Group.
He can be reached at r.cheek@hm-
cib.com. — Ed.
Ojirappers, mind your own business
KIM SEONG-KON
On reading advice
columns like “Annie’s
Mailbox,” I discovered
that even America has its
share of people with a
proclivity for meddling.
The ojirapper might be a
universal malady, after all.
The views expressed in the contributed and syndicated articles on Pages
14 and 15 do not necessarily reflect those of The Korea Herald or its editorial
staff. — Ed.
Articles and letters intended for publication on the opinion page should be
sent by email to opinion@heraldcorp.com and contain the writer’s full name,
phone number, occupation and address. Articles are subject to editing and are
expected to observe our word count limit. Submissions to “A Reader’s View” and
“Letters to the Editor” must not exceed 500 words. — Ed.
To our contributors
Thinking outside the box: AI bots and robotic IoT
100 years later, Einstein’s
theory stands strong
By Paul Halpern
The Philadelphia Inquirer
It is not often that a centenarian
is just as spry and vital as the day
she was born, but that’s the case
with the general theory of relativity.
This month we are celebrating
exactly 100 years since the meeting
in which Albert Einstein announced
the completion of his masterful
theory of how gravity works. His
grand theory relating the geometry
of space and time to the matter and
energy within it represents an ex-
traordinary triumph of the human
imagination.
Before Einstein, there was Isaac
Newton, who had offered a simpler,
but much less satisfying theory of
gravity.
Contrary to popular myth, Newton
did not discover gravity. From earli-
est times, no one could mistake the
fact that things fall down if released
from a certain height. Rather, New-
ton demonstrated that gravity is a
universal force with certain predict-
able properties. This force could act
over immense distances, linking, for
instance, the Sun and the Earth as if
an invisible string tied them together.
Although Newton’s theory was
very successful, it contained a logi-
cal flaw: the idea that gravity could
be transmitted instantly. If the Sun
suddenly disappeared, his theory
predicted that Earth would im-
mediately sense its absence, as if a
thread were cut, and start traveling
in a straight line through space.
Yet Einstein had showed in his
special theory of relativity (the
predecessor to the general theory),
space has a speed limit. No signal in
empty space can travel faster than
the speed of light. The Sun’s light
takes eight minutes to reach Earth.
Therefore, Earth could not possibly
respond to the Sun’s disappearance
in less than that time period — cer-
tainly not instantly.
Einstein’s general relativity beau-
tifully recasts gravitation as a local,
rather than long-distance, phenome-
non. The equations he announced in
November 1915 show precisely how
it is the fabric of space and time —
known in tandem as spacetime —
that conveys gravity.
Much like a turbulent wild river
with eddies and currents that change
the course of boats, spacetime’s
bumps and ripples compel planets
and stars to alter their paths. In the
case of Earth, a gravitational well
compels Earth to travel in an ellipti-
cal orbit rather than in a straight
line. The cause of that indentation in
spacetime is the mass of the Sun. Or,
as often expressed by the late gravi-
tational physicist John Wheeler (who
came to know Einstein well), space
tells matter how to move and mat-
ter, in turn, tells space how to curve.
How Einstein’s theory was tested
offers an important lesson in the
value of international cooperation.
Einstein predicted that the paths
of light rays would be diverted by
the presence of massive objects. He
estimated the angle by which star-
light would bend in the vicinity of
the Sun and pointed out that this
distortion could be measured during
a solar eclipse.
To accomplish this task, Einstein
found a friend in British astrono-
mer Arthur Eddington, who organ-
ized expeditions to West Africa
and South America, in spring 1919,
where a solar eclipse could readily
be seen. The remarkable thing about
the collaboration between Einstein
and Eddington was that it took place
shortly after World War I, when
their two native countries (Germany
and the United Kingdom) had been
enemies. Both thinkers were paci-
fists and hated nationalism, which
made such cooperation easier.
During the summer of 1919, the
eclipse results were analyzed and
compared to predictions based on
Newtonian physics. Although the
data was sparse, the results fell
much closer to Einstein’s forecast
than one based on Newton’s theory
of gravitation. Thus it came to pass
that in November 1919 the British
Royal Academy announced that Ein-
stein’s theory was triumphant.
The confirmation of general rela-
tivity generated startling headlines
around the world. The firmament
of the heavens was no longer stable
and secure, rather it was an ever-
changing canvas. Nothing in science
was stable. In fact, 10 years later,
results by American astronomer
Edwin Hubble showed that the
universe itself was expanding — an-
other prediction of general relativity.
For various reasons, including its
lack of correspondence with quan-
tum mechanics, the other major the-
ory developed in the early 20th cen-
tury, physicists have tried to modify
general relativity. Nevertheless,
despite a century of effort, Einstein’s
masterpiece still stands strong.
Let’s offer a toast to the beauty of
the venerable equations describing
the cosmos, and wish them well for
decades to come — unless, that is, a
quantum version comes along.
Paul Halpern is a University of
the Sciences physics professor and
the author of “Einstein’s Dice and
Schrodinger’s Cat: How Two Great
Minds Battled Quantum Random-
ness to Create a Unified Theory
of Physics.” He wrote this for The
Philadelphia Inquirer. — Ed.
(Tribune Content Agency)
ROBERT CHEEK