OPINION: What would Shakespeare make of the AI farce?

"All the world's a stage," William Shakespeare wrote more than four centuries ago. He might have found the spectacle of our times rather familiar. Money, sex, betrayal, spies, ambition and war. The plots have scarcely changed. Only the pace has become dizzying. 

In Richard III, a king consumed by ambition declares, "Conscience is but a word that cowards use." It is a chilling line, spoken with the confidence of a man who sees little reason to question himself. 

It is also a line that feels strangely at home in the age of artificial intelligence. 

Last week, the stage belonged to Jensen Huang, the Nvidia founder whose dazzling rise helped make AI the greatest technological and financial phenomenon of our time. A story that began with revelations about his private relationships grew into a tale of suspected Chinese espionage, secretive business arrangements and Washington's struggle to contain the flow of advanced chips to China. 

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal chronicled a world where business, pleasure and politics had become difficult to separate. Huang's resignation brought an extraordinary corporate career to an abrupt end, leaving Nvidia and much of the AI industry to contemplate life without its most recognizable champion. 

There were moments when the unfolding drama seemed almost farcical. Denials, confessions, hurried board meetings and political intrigue followed one another with theatrical precision. 

Yet the audience could hardly afford to laugh. 
 

Nvidia's share-price swings erased enormous sums of market value. Behind those figures were ordinary investors, pension funds and retirement accounts tied to a company that had become almost synonymous with the future. A personal scandal had become a market event, touching the savings of people far removed from Silicon Valley.

And before the dust could settle, another AI drama unfolded in South Korea. 

On Sunday, the top scorer in the country's national tax accountant examination admitted using a miniature camera, a smartphone and generative AI to cheat. He had answered 159 of 160 questions correctly in the first round and gone on to finish first overall. His confession prompted a police investigation and a government review of national qualification examinations. 

For students who had spent years preparing for the test, the revelation was crushing. Some spoke of the sacrifices they had made, the opportunities forgone and their growing doubts about the fairness of the system. 

It was a smaller drama, perhaps, but a deeply unsettling one. 

The technology had not cheated on its own. Someone had chosen to use it that way. What once required an accomplice, considerable ingenuity or elaborate preparation could now be attempted with a tiny camera and a machine capable of producing answers in seconds. 

The scandal broke just four days before South Korea's annual college entrance examination, the Suneung, when hundreds of thousands of young people will put years of study to the test. Authorities are preparing to scrutinize smart glasses and other devices that might conceal AI assistance. 

One wonders what passes through the minds of those students who have played by the rules. What does achievement mean when the answers can be obtained without the learning? 

Shakespeare might have recognized the temptation. His characters regularly mistake cleverness for wisdom and success for virtue. Their undoing often begins long before they recognize it themselves. 

The next stage moves to Shenzhen. 

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to meet for talks involving nuclear arms control and the war in Iran. Ukraine, according to U.S. officials, is not formally on the agenda, although the meeting inevitably raises questions about how great powers might shape the future of smaller nations. 
 

The prospect recalls another ancient voice, that of the Greek historian Thucydides. 

Harvard scholar Graham Allison, who popularized the idea of the "Thucydides Trap," warned in an interview published Sunday that the rivalry between a rising China and an established United States still carries a grave risk of war.  

The ancient parallel is the conflict between Athens and Sparta, in which the rise of one power stirred fear in the other. Allison sees the danger of a similar collision between Beijing and Washington, potentially far more  destructive in a nuclear age. 

Yet there was a gentler possibility in his warning. War, he suggested, is not inevitable. Escaping the trap may require a different kind of diplomacy, one that recognizes the other's power rather than seeking endlessly to diminish it. 

It is perhaps the most hopeful thought in this week's gathering of troubling news: history may incline us toward certain mistakes, but it does not compel us to repeat them. 

Still, the distance between the world's grand performances and ordinary life seems to be growing. 

For Ukrainians living under the threat of bombardment, geopolitical calculations are measured in ruined homes and interrupted lives. For families facing another expensive winter, the consequences of war and energy disruption appear in heating bills and difficult household choices. 

Across Europe, students have taken to the streets over the rising cost of education and living. Communities have protested against sprawling data centers, questioning the growing demand for electricity and water in the name of an ever more powerful AI. 

The promise of technology was to make life easier, perhaps even give humanity more time for itself. Yet there seems to be less room than ever for quiet thought. 

There is always another development to follow, another scandal to absorb, another market movement to explain. Even outrage has become fleeting. Yesterday's astonishing revelations are overtaken by today's, and tomorrow promises something more extraordinary still. 

The suffering of war is hardly comparable to a stock-market loss or an examination scandal. But each scene offers a glimpse of the distance that can open between a decision and the people who must live with its consequences. 

Shakespeare still speaks to us. He understood the vanity of power, the frailty of judgment andd the ease with which people become absorbed in their own desires. His plays rarely offer simple lessons. They allow characters to reveal themselves, sometimes too late, and leave the audience to consider what might have been different.

Even Richard III, who so confidently dismissed conscience, eventually finds himself troubled by it. His cleverness cannot rescue him from the consequences of his choices. 

For all our technological brilliance, we remain much the same creatures Shakespeare placed upon his stage. We may be able to process more information, predict more outcomes and generate answers faster than ever before. Whether we have become any better at asking the right questions is less certain. 

As another crowded week begins, perhaps there is something to be said for the brief silence between acts. 

Richard III closes after a bloody struggle for the English crown. Its final words belong not to the fallen king but to the hope that a divided country might find peace again. 

"Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again. 

"That she may long live here, God say amen." 

*The writer is the managing editor of AJP.

**The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of AJP.

Seo Hye Seung

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