A 2,000-Year-Old Question for the AI Age
In 1999, as broadcasters looked ahead to the new millennium, he looked back—to a question asked 2,000 years ago.
That question became Laozi and the 21st Century, featuring philosopher Kim Yong-ok, known as Do-ol—and the series struck a powerful chord with the public.
Today, he shares reflections sparked by Goethe’s Faust on social media. He hires new employees for their literacy rather than their university grades or foreign-language proficiency, and uses AI to bring old classics into new forms of content.
At first, these choices seem unrelated. But beneath them runs the same question:
What does not change?
I spoke with him about how that question has shaped the way he thinks about content, people, and organizations.
What Endures Through Change
Q. In times of rapid change, what has guided the way you plan content?
A producer needs to see both what is changing and what remains unchanged. Most people focus on trends. But following trends requires capital and speed—and by the time you catch up, you may already be too late.
During my years at EBS, I kept asking a different question: What will people continue to read, watch, and think about, even as times change?
The Odyssey is still being reimagined in film and on stage more than 2,000 years later. Laozi, too, continues to be read and interpreted in new ways. So in 1999, I had a thought: if certain texts have survived for 2,000 years, there is a good chance they will still be read 2,000 years from now.
At the turn of the millennium, while everyone was looking toward the future, I wanted to use an ancient classic to make sense of a new era. That idea became Laozi and the 21st Century.
Since then, at EBS, we have tried to understand what people in each era are wrestling with—and the deeper spirit of the time beneath those concerns.
Looking at what does not change is not about staying in the past. It is about deciding what is worth carrying forward through change.
Q. You recently launched the series AI Classics: 100 Books That Changed History. What makes certain works worth returning to, even years later?
A classic does not simply age. It gathers new meaning as it encounters new realities. In an age when AI allows us to produce more content, faster than ever, I believe the ability to recognize what is worth rediscovering will become increasingly important.
What makes a work endure is not simply its age. Each new generation and each new reader can interpret it differently—and in doing so, it can continue to reshape the way people see the world.
The same is true of content. Content tied only to immediate events or trends can quickly lose relevance. But content built around questions people have wrestled with for generations can take on new meaning as times change.
Recently, many people returned to Himalayan Disaster: Glacier Tsunami, an episode of Only One Earth produced 12 years ago. A new reality brought that old piece of content back into public attention in a way we could not have anticipated when it was first made.
The Possibility in Ruins
Q. Have you ever seen how disruption can create room for something new?
I once produced documentaries on Angkor Wat and Myanmar’s Shwedagon Pagoda—two places that carry time in very different ways.
Shwedagon Pagoda was overwhelming. Generations of people had added layer upon layer of gold leaf, creating a vast, luminous space. Its beauty felt complete. There was little left to imagine.
Angkor Wat was different. Much of it had disappeared or fallen into ruin. Standing there, I found myself wondering what it must once have looked like. Could this enormous space somehow be brought back to life?
That question led us to use computer graphics to recreate Angkor Wat as it might have appeared in the past.
The documentary was a major success.
Looking back, what made it possible was not something perfectly preserved, but what was missing—a space that invited us to interpret the past in a new way.
The Language Behind Human Judgment
Q. In an age when AI can generate questions as well as answers, what human capability becomes more important?
In the age of AI, I believe the ability to judge an answer matters more than the ability to obtain one.
I do not see this simply as a matter of creativity or asking better questions. AI can already generate questions faster and with greater sophistication than humans.
Without a clear set of principles, it is easy to accept whatever AI or an algorithm presents as the most efficient choice. But when you know what matters to you, you can receive the same answer and still make a different judgment.
More important still is the standard by which you understand yourself.
Why am I doing this? How should I live? What kind of work is worth doing? What choices am I willing to make—and take responsibility for?
Continuing to ask yourself these philosophical questions belongs to a different dimension from simply learning how to generate better ones.
Q. Why do reading and literacy matter even more today?
We can only think within the range of language we have encountered.
The moment you open a book and see the name “Nietzsche,” the sentences and ideas you have previously encountered begin to work in your mind. But if you never come across that word, those thoughts may never begin.
The language we use in daily life is surprisingly limited. When we keep having similar conversations with familiar people, we have fewer chances to encounter unfamiliar words and perspectives. Books expose us to language we may not meet in ordinary conversation. Sometimes, a single word can become the starting point for a new line of thought.
Literacy is not simply the ability to read words and understand information. A person may be able to read a text and still miss its context and meaning. Technically, literacy is the ability to work with written language. At a deeper level, it is the ability to interpret yourself and the world.
I tried to reflect this idea in EBS’s hiring process as well. Rather than placing primary weight on university grades or standardized English test scores, we focused more on reading, literacy, and writing. I wanted to see not how much someone had memorized, but whether they could encounter unfamiliar language, think through it, and express their own judgment in writing.
New Technology, Timeless Questions
Q. Why do you see AI and fundamental questions about humanity as compatible?
Creating content around philosophical questions about human life and actively embracing AI are not opposites.
It is not enough to stand outside this shift and simply evaluate it. You have to bring AI into your own life. You have to use it, build with it, and go through trial and error. In that process, new stories about yourself may emerge—and some of the stories you once believed may begin to fall apart.
What matters is not giving up the authority to decide what should be delegated and what still requires your own judgment. Even while using AI, you need to preserve your own standards and sense of ownership.
The same principle applies when using AI to bring classics and knowledge to people in new ways. Not everyone will read The Odyssey or Sapiens in full. EBS may not be the perfect teacher, but we can still create encounters with books, people, and ideas that audiences might not otherwise come across—and offer a small disruption to familiar ways of thinking.
Using new technology to bring humanity’s oldest questions back into the world—that is what I believe EBS and I should be doing now.
What stayed with me after our conversation about content, AI, and change was, in the end, an old human question.
Perhaps what endures is not a set of answers carried forward from the past, but a way of deciding what still deserves to guide us when the world changes.
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