Artificial intelligence is rewriting the boundaries of human creativity.
Machines now compose music, write poetry, and even simulate human emotions.
Yet amid this breathtaking acceleration, one question remains:
where does our traditionโthe slow wisdom of human hands and heartsโbelong in this new world?
Performance of the Mevlevi Sema Ceremony
Tradition is not a relic of the past.
It carries within it the accumulated senses, skills, and meanings through which generations have understood the world.
Rather than disappearing, it continually seeks new ways to existโtransforming, adapting, and finding relevance amid change.
Even as technology evolves, people still long to pass something on.
As long as that impulse endures, tradition does not vanish; it renews itself in the very heart of transformation.
Today, AI and high technology are fundamentally reshaping the ecosystem of cultural transmission.
AI restores vanishing dialects, reconstructs forgotten songs, and revives ancient rituals within digital archives.
Machine learning uncovers patterns and techniques once buried in memory,
while digital platforms allow masters and apprentices to meet beyond borders and time.
Blockchain protects the creative rights of communities, ensuring that their art is not exploited but respected.
Technology, when guided by ethics and empathy, evolves from a tool of preservation into a partner of creation.
However, the same technology that empowers can also endanger.
When algorithms prioritize popularity over authenticity, and efficiency over meaning, cultural diversity risks being flattened into uniform content.
The flood of AI-generated art and imitation threatens to blur the line between genuine craftsmanship and digital simulation.
Local traditions, once shaped by lived experience, may be replaced by homogenized aesthetics designed to appeal to algorithms rather than human communities.
Without critical awareness, the digital sphere may become a vast archive of imitationโa world where heritage is seen, but no longer felt.
Video Recording and Augmented Reality
At the center of this transformation, the cultural enterprise Culture Masters is developing the ichmasters initiative โ a digital ecosystem envisioned to harmonize Human Intelligence (HI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in safeguarding living heritage.
Built on UNESCOโs ethical principles, it aims to authenticate heritage practitioners,
improve multilingual access, and build a community-centered archive for global education and participation.
Still in its formative stage, ichmasters is not a finished product but a collective journey โ an evolving platform that invites collaboration and support from scholars, institutions, and cultural partners worldwide.
Its vision is clear: to show that technology need not replace human culture,
but can instead amplify the wisdom, creativity, and dignity that make it possible.
No algorithm can substitute for human understanding; no data can replace the warmth of shared experience.
Without community consent, data sovereignty, and respect for cultural rights, digitalization may reproduce the very inequalities it seeks to resolve.
Technology moves fastโbut tradition runs deep.
If that depth is lost, the soul of humanity will be shallower for it.
The age of AGI is not the end of tradition but the beginning of its greatest challenge.
Technology tests the endurance of culture, yet also opens a path for renewal.
Every disruption conceals a new possibility, and within that possibility lies the hope of rediscovering what makes us human.
Tradition speaks that language of hopeโit is how humanity fashions the future from the fabric of memory.
As technology redraws the map of our civilization,
we must realign the compass of tradition toward humanity once moreโ
with our hands, with our minds, and with our hearts.
For only then will intelligence, whether human or artificial, truly serve life.
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Dr. Park SeongYong is a cultural thinker and global advocate for leadership through culture.
With decades of international experience in cultural policy and cooperation, he promotes the idea that heritage, creativity, and ethics are key to building human-centered and sustainable futures.
His work affirms that cultural wisdom is not merely a legacy of the past, but a driving force shaping the future.
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