What's your hobby?

Before 7th grade, my answer to "What's your hobby" was reading. Actually, I didn't think of reading as my actual hobby, but still, it was a great answer. It seemed quite intellectual (which I liked) and I could escape from a cascade of questions. 

            Ironically, I found my real hobby while reading (if reading a comic book also counts). The book was about fixie bikes and cycling that was popular among my classmates. Before the book, the bike was just efficient transportation for going to school. No more, no less. However, bikes designed for racing fascinated me than ever. After reading through the whole series, I found myself dreaming about my own "fixie," reading blogs dedicated to fixie-riding for hours and looking up pictures of customized bicycles. I saved up my pocket money and sold toys that I once loved, but no longer used, to buy my first bike, then to upgrade its parts whenever I could afford them. Finally, a purple, single-geared bike was in front of me. 

            Since then, I gathered friends to go cycling together every day after school. The thrill that I feel when riding my road bike while viewing the picturesque scenery of the Han River in Seoul is hard to put in words. For a while, I used to want to bike faster and faster for the thrill of it. However, as I bike more and more, I realize that biking is not just about speed, but about finding the right balance in speed – 20 miles per hour is the magic number for me. If I go too slowly, there is no thrill. But if I speed up too much, I find myself rushing through, no longer savoring the wind or the view.  

Enclosed with perfect wind and magnifique view, I could easily clear up my mind from groundless worries. It also helps me deeply contemplate about important matters:such as my role in our society in the future. I am still not completely sure what I want to be in future, but if I become an engineer, I want to be responsible for the changes we make to our world. Engineering is no longer about steam engines, but about software and artificial intelligence. New technologies not only replace physical labor, but also replace people’s thoughts and decisions. They take responsibilities and interactions away from people and relocate them to efficient computer systems. Many things that made us happy in the past will be thrown away in the name of efficiency and forgotten. I see this as a significant challenge that engineers, including my future self, must consider, because not everything is just about efficiency. I bike, not solely as a means of transportation, but because I enjoy it. Automated cars may be more efficient and convenient than biking, but I would still bike for the joy of it. Similarly, automated medical diagnoses may significantly improve patient turnover, but comforting words from a caring doctor may be more beneficial to a patient than a diagnosis of cancer from a machine. It would be sad to see our world become like the <Matrix>, with everything human replaced by machines.

I think that artificial intelligence has so much potential to improve the world, and as an engineer, I am eager to contribute to this wave of changes. Artificial intelligence can expand to the rest of the world the comfort and opportunities, such as education and healthcare, that have been limited to the privileged few. But at the same time, I hope that engineers will remember that efficiency does not equal happiness. I hope that my future self in the self-driving car will not forget my current self, who enjoys biking by the river. I further hope that as an engineer, paradoxical as it may seem, I can deliver to others the value of remaining human in a world full of machines.