![[Lim Woong] Why AI ethics needs ‘gongsheng’](https://virtual-coach.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/valley-7611815_960_720.jpg "[Lim Woong] Why AI ethics needs ‘gongsheng’")
I recently tried a small experiment in my graduate seminar on AI ethics. I asked the room, mostly bright students in their 20s and 30s, a simple question: “When you close your eyes and imagine a user for the AI system you are designing, whose face do you see?”
The answers were telling. Most admitted they pictured someone like themselves: young, quick with a smartphone, constantly engaged with digital interfaces. Almost no one pictured their own grandparents. That moment of silence in the classroom stayed with me. It revealed a blind spot in how we talk about technology. We spend so much energy debating data privacy, algorithmic bias, or the existential risks of some future superintelligence. These are real issues. But while we worry about the future, we are failing the people already losing ground today.
We live in a world that worships speed. German sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls this “social acceleration.” Everything moves faster, and the time we have to adjust shrinks. In this environment, experience loses value. We no longer look to older adults for the kind of wisdom our ancestors sought: when to plant and how to harvest. Instead, we see them as obstacles — people who hold up the line because they can’t navigate a touchscreen kiosk or a smartphone login.
This is what scholars call “heartless harm.” The developers behind these systems do not intend to exclude anyone. There is no malice. Yet the outcome is brutal. If a voice assistant cannot understand a slower, shakier voice, or if a smart home interface demands the eyesight of a 20-year-old, we are building a world that quietly shuts the door on millions of people aging or living with disabilities.
So how do we fix this? Many say we need a new ethical vocabulary. My colleagues at Yonsei introduced me to a concept called “gongsheng.” Often translated as “symbiosis,” it means more than simply existing side by side. Yiwen Zhan at Beijing Normal University describes it as a “co-becoming”: a way for different beings to grow together through interaction. It is not about tolerating differences; it is about needing them to thrive.
Shoujun Hu at Fudan University takes this further into social theory. He argues that you cannot have true gongsheng without equality. It does not matter how old you are or what your job is; if the relationship isn’t grounded in mutual respect, it isn’t symbiotic. It is just parasitic.
This isn’t just abstract philosophy. In Korea, we are seeing these ideas put into practice. Lee Yeun-sook, emeritus professor at Yonsei University, has spent years translating this philosophy into concrete designs through her “aging in community” framework.
Her argument is simple but profound: Getting older shouldn’t mean your world gets smaller. Instead of “aging in place,” which often just means staying home alone, she proposes an adaptive system where the home, the community and the city all work together. Her research shows how we can use technology to make this happen. They look at smart mobility systems that connect a senior’s front door to the local clinic, or AI-assisted planning tools that help cities allocate resources fairly.
This is where the rubber meets the road for AI ethics. Professor Lee’s work suggests that we shouldn’t just ask if a robot is “intelligent.” We should ask if it helps build a relationship. Does this technology help a grandmother stay connected to her neighborhood, or does it isolate her further?
If we take this seriously, our public design priorities change. We stop designing for the “average” user and start designing for the margins. If an interface works for someone with arthritis and low vision, it will work beautifully for everyone else.
Back in my classroom, some students still struggled with this shift. So I asked them to imagine their mother at a winter bus stop: the schedule replaced by a QR code, the heater activated only through an NFC-enabled screen menu. Her hands are cold. She forgot her reading glasses. “Tell me about the efficiency of that system,” I said. Then I added: “And one day, that will be you, fumbling with whatever interface replaces the screens we use today.” Designing for the elderly isn’t charity; it’s an investment in your own future.
Korea is currently serving as a global laboratory for these questions. We have one of the fastest-aging populations in the world, combined with some of the most advanced digital infrastructure. We have a unique opportunity to prove that technology can honor dignity rather than erode it.
The real test of AI ethics won’t be passing the Turing test. It will be whether we can build systems that leave no one behind. Gongsheng offers us a compass for this journey. It reminds us that we are not just individuals racing toward the future; we are a community that needs to arrive there together. If we can build AI with that kind of heart, we might just create a future where every generation can find its place.
Lim Woong
Lim Woong is a professor at the Graduate School of Education at Yonsei University in Seoul. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.
