The Age of Swaying the Masses

AI is advancing at a frightening pace. If you catch yourself thinking "there's no way AI can do that," there's a good chance it will be doing exactly that six months from now. What scares me more is that these cycles keep getting shorter.

The speed of AI's progress is exciting and terrifying at the same time. The things we thought belonged only to humans are disappearing one by one, and it makes you wonder which abilities you'll need to build to survive in the world ahead.

1. The age of physical skill

There was a time when physical ability, like skill with your hands, mattered enormously. A craftsman's goods, a musician's performance, an artist's work: these had a unique value that machines couldn't mass-produce. They were rare and precious enough to win the favor of emperors.

Then the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century made mass production possible, and the value of those craftsmen fell sharply.

2. The age of intelligence

As a result, people started paying more attention to the human intellect and creativity that machines couldn't replace. From Einstein and Edison to Elon Musk today, people with exceptional intelligence stood at the center of their times.

But now that the AI era is in full swing, human intelligence is losing its hold as an exclusive advantage too. AI can already produce a PhD-level paper in a short time. Just as physical skill was replaced by machines, human intelligence is quickly being replaced by AI.

That leaves the question of which ability we should develop next.

3. The age of swaying the masses

What's left is the power to move people's hearts.

If AI takes over human labor, people will have more free time, and they'll naturally pour more attention and energy into content and messages that capture their thoughts and feelings.

In that world, the most valuable ability is influence: the power to capture what large numbers of people think and feel. In the age of social media, the power to move thousands or tens of thousands of people with a single message keeps getting stronger and more important.

Right now, people like Trump, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman can pull the whole world's attention with a single remark. Their influence doesn't come from intelligence alone. The ability to win over many people, point them in a direction, and move public opinion is what will be worth the most from here on.

Steve Jobs, too, moved the world and won people over with a single line or a single piece of ad copy. Further back in history, Hitler and Goebbels used powerful propaganda to shake the world.

So the age of physical skill and the age of intelligence are ending, and the age of "swaying the masses" has arrived. The people who have the influence to move the hearts of many will shine brighter in the world ahead. As we head into the AI era, the most important thing for us to think about is how to build that kind of social influence.

Originally published in Korean on Brunch, March 9, 2025.