Guest Columnist · Korea Military Academy Class of '84The world is currently facing a massive wave of artificial intelligence (AI), and the landscape of language and knowledge is undergoing a complete transformation. 579 years ago, King Sejong the Great promulgated Hunminjeongeum, or Hangeul, which is now being re-examined as the 'grand framework language' to lead the AI era.Hangeul, more than just a writing system, is a crystallization of integrated wisdom that embodies creation, freedom, and ethics, all of which are essential for the AI era. It offers the grand framework language to guide humanity's future civilization and provides the principles of an operating system for designing the future.

1. Hangeul: The Seed of Creation, Leading the Operating System of the Digital Age

The power of AI lies in how quickly and efficiently it can process data. Hangeul, a phonetic script, perfectly aligns with the principles of AI's search, generation, and creation. Hangeul forms syllables by assembling consonants and vowels, akin to building an infinite system from the smallest components.

Thanks to Hangeul's scientific nature and originality, AI can efficiently process data by breaking down and recombining Korean language data at the jamo (individual letter) level, enabling a three-dimensional learning process. It is known to offer significantly higher data compression rates and recognition accuracy compared to writing systems like English, which simply string letters together.

Furthermore, Hangeul's design, inspired by the vocal organs and the harmony of heaven, earth, and humanity (Cheon, Ji, In), goes beyond mere phonetic representation to encompass the order and principles of the universe. This reportedly aids AI in reducing noise and errors when recognizing sounds, leading to more accurate interpretation of meaning. Hangeul will evolve into the most efficient and accurate operating language for AI, bridging humans and machines, and leading the digital age.

2. Hangeul's Flexible Structure Supports AI's Creativity

The true power to lead future civilization lies in insight and creativity, supported by freedom and autonomy. Although Hangeul's sentence structure places the verb at the end, its use of particles attached to roots and nominals allows for flexible word order changes. This enables AI to learn a wider range of perspectives and emotional nuances.

Generative AI, through Hangeul, can transcend logical thinking and enter the realm of emotion and intuition. It becomes possible to compose poetry and lyrics, create stories, and record the subtle tremors of human emotion. While AI produces results based on the user's knowledge and insight, Hangeul enhances AI's potential to evolve from a mere data processing tool into an art form that breathes creativity and humanity into writing. The flexibility of Hangeul, the freest language for creative thought, will lead to the creation of innovative products.

3. Hangeul: The Language of Love, Instilling Ethics in AI

In the AI era, ethics are of paramount importance. If AI is not controlled ethically, it could pose a threat to humanity. Hangeul, imbued with the fundamental philosophy of 'writing for people' and a 'language of love and compassion,' can serve as an ethical guideline for AI.

The output of AI also varies depending on what we input, search for, and teach it. If we train AI with numerous positive words in Hangeul, based on love—such as praise, gratitude, affection, encouragement, and compassion—it will contribute to AI developing ethical judgment and empathy.

The technical elements for instilling an ethical spirit in AI are now a challenge that humanity must solve together. We must research technologies that facilitate seamless global communication, maximize creative intelligence, and widely disseminate the values of love and freedom. We should actively utilize Hangeul not just as a language to be used, preserved, and expanded globally, but as a core structure of the AI operating system that designs the future. This is the path to connecting King Sejong the Great's profound invention and wisdom to humanity's future.

4. Learning the Theory of a Strong Military from the Spirit of Hangeul

The fundamental spirit of Hangeul's creation, love for the people (Ae-min), can also be applied to national security, the principle of national survival. National security aims to prevent war, subdue and pacify provocative enemies, and protect the lives and property of citizens. By integrating the values of creation, freedom, and love embodied in Hangeul into security, we can build a creative military, a self-governing military, and a victorious military.
The Republic of Korea's military is facing challenges such as declining birth rates, political immaturity interfering with training, rigid organizational culture, and low morale among junior officers, which are shaking its fundamental goal of being a 'military that fights and wins.' This stems from the lack of the spirit of Ae-min and Wi-min (serving the people) among politicians who turn even military incidents into political disputes, and from rigid bureaucracy hindering innovative thinking. These fundamental issues must be overcome with the spirit of Hangeul.

⓵ A Creative Military: Just as Hangeul expresses infinite sounds with minimal consonants and vowels, the military must continuously innovate its practical training systems, technologies, and strategies based on scientific systematicity. Based on creative innovation within each branch, we must establish winning strategies, tactics, and combat coalition systems for land, sea, air, and cyberspace, and create unconventional strategies centered on AI-based Integrated Target Acquisition and Distribution, Mission and Equipment linking Platforms (MMP) by flexibly combining drones, combat robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, and space forces.

⓶ A Military with Boosted Morale Through Autonomy: The Ae-min spirit of Hangeul must be integrated into military life. Military morale arises when all soldiers fulfill their roles and their uniforms are respected. While military discipline and the principle of command and obedience must be maintained like a faith, we must harmonize vertical obedience with mutual trust and voluntary dedication by reflecting creative ideas from the battlefield into defense policy through 'wisdom sharing' on individual and tactical tasks.

⓷ A Military That Victoriously Fights Through Love: We must learn the wisdom of a victorious military from Hangeul's principle of harmony between heaven, earth, and humanity. The general staff must establish and teach strategies for subduing various enemies and achieving victory (Heaven), the officer corps must enhance their warfighting capabilities (Earth), and the soldiers must possess the conditions of a warrior (Humanity) to conclude battles on the field.

The military, with the spirit of Hangeul, should establish creative wisdom and autonomous mission systems that utilize 100% of current available combat power, thereby becoming a shield of national security that fights after having already secured victory.