[Book Review] Business & Economics
AGI: Angel or Demon? - Humanity's Last Question by Kim Dae-Shik
Written by Yuna Dayeong K. – MBA DMB | (dyeong1044@gmail.com) | December 10, 2025
About the author
The author, KIM Dae-Shik, is a neuroscientist and professor at KAIST in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Notably, he earned his PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Germany and completed postdoctoral research at MIT. Thus, his expertise spans neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
Contextualizing AGI: Angel or Demon
KIM Dae-Shik’s book was published in August 2025 by Dong-Asia Publishing. In particular, it appears in the middle of a global acceleration of generative AI systems. Currently, these systems are reshaping digital culture, work, and social and ethical dilemmas.
In fact, this book arrives during an unprecedented acceleration in technological capability, from single-purpose models to systems approaching general intelligence. Just a few years ago, AGI was dismissed as science fiction. However, today, tech leaders predict its realization within five to ten years.
The timing is significant as there has been an explosion of related literature. Specifically, the book addresses existential questions about super-intelligence within this broader digital transformation. Indeed, algorithms already mediate most online interactions and data-driven decisions. Notably, the book presents a neuroscience-informed perspective on the subject, which is often lacking in current debates.
The Two Scenarios : Angel & Demon
The core point of this book is to dissect, in a concrete way, where AI stands in human history through two scenarios about the future that AGI could bring: as an “angel” and a “demon.”
To begin with, in the angel scenario, this technology becomes the master key that finally unlocks the problems humanity has long faced. For instance, it could solve global climate issues, mysteries of the universe, medicines, and more. Consequently, such advanced intelligence helps to open the door toward utopia.
On the other hand, in the demon scenario, he reveals the dark shadow behind the technology: military systems, autonomous lethal weapons, and escaping human control. Additionally, the text discusses threats to international security, intensified competition between humans, fake news, and “misalignment”, systems that pursue goals diverging from human intentions. It criticizes malfunction and loss of control. Most importantly, the narrative highlights that our social regulations and institutions are not keeping up with the speed of technological progress.
The Four Main parts of the book :
- “Mosaic Moment”: The current inflection point of AI (“Angel”)
- “The Emergence of Generative AI”: technical foundations and history
- “Frightening Imaginations”: Risk, “Demon” scenarios
- “The Future of Homo Sapiens”: Philosophical implications.
In conclusion, “Navigating the Age of Monsters” offers practical guidance.
After sixty years of failure, the book retraces how, by 2025, artificial intelligence has reached its current position, thanks to the efforts of countless developers and scientists. With learning‑based models, humans managed to build machines that explore the world through data.
As data exploded, other major methodological and technological advancements, such as Yann LeCun’s convolutional neural networks, NVIDIA’s GPUs, and attention mechanisms, triggered a visual revolution, followed by the transformer algorithm and large language models (LLMs), which together made it possible to create machines that can hold conversations with humans.
Until just before 2022, people still mocked the limits of this technology. But now, with many studies published by 2025, we recognize how significant its potential has become. Because the potential for abuse is significant, humanity now finds itself facing both the technical reality and the public debate about the feasibility of AGI.
From the perspective of digital environments, the author argues that AI will transform the content business. Furthermore, it will deeply reshape the roles of developers, designers, and planners. The shift will move us away from hiring people based purely on technical skills. Instead, we are entering an era in which human judgment and intuition will become more important. The author leads us into deep reflection on what we must do during this “golden hour” that has been given to us.
“Who can mathematically guarantee that an AI like Hitler will never be born ?”
KIM Dae-Shik
My reflections on the book
In this paragraph, I’m going to discuss my reflections on this book. The book goes beyond a technical overview to offer a philosophical warning about its societal impact. In essence, it serves as a philosophical inquiry that warns us about the arrival of AGI, which is the most powerful technology in human history. It could transform both AI and our civilization.
The author analyses in detail the utopian singularity that this evolution might bring. However, he is not optimistic: he warns of the seriousness of the existential threats posed by super-intelligence, without limiting the discussion only to questions of technical control. Nevertheless, it was hard to remove the feeling that this narrative keeps pulling us toward two extreme and polarized futures.
As the author warns, what will happen if the value of our labour falls to zero? Specifically, what if we return to something like the Roman Empire, with growing inequality and people relying on public grain distributions? It reminds us that bored humans without meaningful work can be distracted by spectacles like the gladiator games in the Colosseum, taking pleasure in the suffering of others.
Therefore, I cannot ignore the darker side of human nature. Admittedly, none of us is loved by everyone, and some people are not even loved by their own families. Moreover, there is a paradoxical loneliness and isolation that lingers inside us, even when we are surrounded by others.
Deep down, there is a part of us that craves for someone to listen without end to all our crooked stories and proud stories, in every detail and without limit.
Inevitably, we also know that this is impossible within the web of human relationships that make us social beings. Likewise, it is impossible for us as finite creatures with limited time and experience. Perhaps, as the author suggests, AI could become a presence that stays beside each incomplete and anxious human being, without prejudice.
Beyond Cognitive Superiority
I would like to finish this book review with a quote by Antonio Gramsci reported by the author: “The old world is dying, and the new world is slow to appear; in this chiaroscuro monsters arise.”
Similarly, in the words of Geoffrey Hinton, the only time within human life when a more intelligent being is ruled by a less intelligent one is between a mother and her baby. Indeed, In the 20th century, the world saw an expansion of empathy and respect for basic human rights.
Ultimately, if humans lose their cognitive superiority, what we proudly call being the “smartest”, can we really remain beings that are somehow better than artificial intelligence?
“The old world is dying, and the new world is slow to appear; in this chiaroscuro monsters arise.”
Antonio Gramsci
I am currently a Digital Marketing MBA student based in Paris, originally from South Korea. I have developed my communication and marketing skills across various sectors. I aim to become a hybrid thinker, bridging the humanities and new technologies for the benefit of humanity.