The AI Era: Questions for Humanity's Future

As the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era fully unfolds, 'metacognition' – the ability for humans to understand themselves – is emerging as a critical competency. The rapid advancement of AI technology brings us convenience, but simultaneously poses questions about humanity's role and survival. AI's swift progress is fueling concerns about job losses for countless professionals and manual laborers, and is driving a reorganization of intellectual domains where AI begins to replace human intelligence and thought processes.

'Metacognition' is defined as 'the ability to know how one is currently thinking,' or 'the capacity to view one's thoughts from a higher level.' It is emerging as a key to establishing humanity's role in the AI era. AI research explores the implementation of mechanical metacognition. While human metacognition is linked to emotions, self-awareness, and experience, AI's capabilities are closer to statistical pattern recognition and data-driven prediction. AI can 'simulate' metacognition but finds it difficult to 'experience' it like humans do.

Because AI can generate information rapidly and simultaneously produce confident errors, the core capability in the AI era lies not in the volume of information, but in human metacognition's ability to self-check: 'Is this information correct?' and 'Why should I believe this?' This metacognition establishes itself as the ability to critically understand oneself and the world.