The Night Agent (2023) is an American espionage action-thriller drama released on Netflix. It revolves around new recruit Peter Sutherland, featuring a fast-paced plot, unpredictable twists, and political intrigue. Peter's sense of justice and determination save America, no, humanity. As expected, the themes are good triumphs over evil, justice prevails, and a happy ending.
He coincidentally meets Rose Larkin, an IT expert developing an AI recognition program, and a romance blossoms as they help each other. Peter, who must continue his dangerous work as a spy, sends Rose away because he loves her. He doesn't want to put her in danger. It seems that a proper story needs to interweave family and love, fear and freedom, with conspiracy and violence.
The word Agent is first interpreted as an operative (yo-won - 要員 in Korean). An operative is a necessary person, an important person. We first think of people in intelligence, investigation, or security as operatives; typical examples are 007 and Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible, played by Tom Cruise. Peter, who takes on the "night agent" job, is clearly an operative. But what should we call the AI Agent developed by Rose? We can't call something non-human an operative, can we?
In the economic field, an agent (요원, 에이전트) is a proxy or representative; in culture and arts, they are a broker or mediator; and in information technology, they signify an intelligent system or autonomous entity. The Six Million Dollar Man, which I saw a long time ago, was an Agent, and the chatbots you've heard of or used are also Agents. The search program that finds answers when you ask is called a search engine because it acts like an engine, propelling itself to crawl various websites to find the desired answer. The well-known AI programs we use, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, are advanced, latest examples of AI Agents.
The owner of a stock company is the shareholder, but the management is entrusted to a professional manager. The manager is the agent who has been delegated the management by the shareholders. Lawyers who handle legal advice and trials on behalf of their clients are also agents, as are experts, or agents, who handle insurance design, asset management, and investment consulting. As the world becomes more complex, people are laymen outside their own fields, so entrusting these tasks to agents is cheaper, more convenient, safer, and more efficient. Without them, work cannot be done. Athletes, entertainers, and artists just need to practice diligently. Scheduling, contracts, casting, advertising, exhibition/sale of works, etc., are all handled by agents, including curators. Society is largely a network of contractual relationships with agents.
Information technology has developed AI to be useful and essential. We are moving away from the frustration of having to write command lines, one by one, to get work done. It understands spoken language. If it could automatically do things just by looking into our eyes, would there be any inconvenience left? When thinking robots emerge, they will do almost everything. Interacting with these robots will mean we will never be bored.
The financial chatbots we currently use will soon advance and take on investment consulting. They will increase our wealth, helping us earn a penny more. Not knowing this and not entrusting tasks to them means living in an analog world. This will create a new trading method called P2P (Peer to Peer, individual to individual or individual to entity). A world is coming where investors and users deal directly with AI, bypassing financial institution employees. Beyond the app-based methods we currently use, new AI Agents will emerge to provide personalized investment and management that we may not even be aware of.
There are Agents who handle national security, Agents who manage and operate businesses, Agents who assist in literary and artistic creation, and Agents who provide diagnoses, prescriptions, and personalized healthcare in hospitals. This era of P2P Agents, which fulfill individual demands, will become widespread. So, what should we be doing? We will dedicate the vast amount of free time to hobbies like entertainment and recreation, and to health management and social activities.
If we can live without lack or regret, where will we find happiness and meaning? God gave us the gift of family. And then, it seems He controls us with the shackles of love and conscience, envy and jealousy, illness and strange tongues (방언, glossolalia). But the strange tongues have become useless. Illness will also be solved. I want to ask the Agent, the Operative: "What should I do to be joyful and meaningful?" Since we cannot live forever without dying, should I just listen to a sermon from an AI Agent pastor? To find faith.
[Copyright (c) Global Economic Times. All Rights Reserved.]
