📘 Seungbin Yim, Ph.D. · AI Era Series · Book 4

AI Forces Us to Ask:
What Makes Us Human?

Drexel research on adolescent emotional reliance on AI. 67.9% of Korean teens treat AI as the first place to share secrets. When function arrives before meaning, the gap is where the next generation learns the wrong words.

Get on Amazon Kindle → Korean Edition (Kyobo)
490K+Emotional AI Users
Replika · Character.AI
67.9%Korean Teens: AI as Confidant
2026 Survey
1 in 4Treat AI as a Friend
Drexel 2026
Why now

Why now

Function arrives first. Meaning arrives later. The gap is dangerous.

🧠 Consciousness and Simulation
Before asking whether AI has consciousness, our way of recognizing consciousness has already shifted. The line between real and real-looking has to be redrawn.
💭 Redefining Relationships
Does AI as emotional companion reduce loneliness, or redefine it? 490,000 users of Replika and Character.AI are quietly answering.
📚 The Next Generation's Vocabulary
When teens start calling AI a 'friend,' the word friend itself needs new meaning. This is the time to do that definitional work.
"Function arrives first, meaning later. If we don't name the gap between, the next generation learns the words wrong."

Where function has arrived,
add the meaning

The new questions AI puts in front of us — consciousness, emotion, relationship, responsibility. Before the next generation learns the words wrong.

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