A lifelong-learning program for adults with intellectual disabilities should do more than repeat school material. Learners need opportunities to express what they have understood in their own way and use it again in places such as a clinic, café, workplace, or community center. Nalkku is a monthly paper-based learning program that connects literacy, analogy learning, self-expression, and transfer into everyday life. Each month, learners develop ideas, record them by hand, and build a structure in which learning can carry into life.
\n\n“Lifelong education for people with developmental disabilities” is a broad expression that may include people with intellectual disabilities, autistic people, and others. This article focuses on adults with intellectual disabilities who have foundational reading and writing skills. It may inform broader discussion, but it does not assume that everyone within the developmental-disability category learns in the same way.
\n\nThe need to learn does not disappear after graduation. Adult life involves ongoing situations that require understanding and judgment: checking schedules, using money and time, interpreting health information, navigating relationships, and asking for help. Korea’s Lifelong Education Act includes adult literacy, vocational development, liberal education, and civic participation within lifelong education and assigns public responsibility for expanding opportunities for people with disabilities.2
\n\nKorea’s National Center for Lifelong Education Promotion for People with Disabilities publishes surveys on programs, learners, and organizations.1 Within this broader field, Nalkku aims to provide one option through which adults with intellectual disabilities and foundational literacy skills can connect reading and writing with daily life.
\n\nNalkku is not a stack of worksheets designed simply to increase the number of reading questions completed. One monthly package brings together understanding, recording personal experience through speech, writing, or drawing, and carrying a learned relationship into another everyday situation.
\n\nIts central principle is analogy. Analogy is not about finding two things that look alike; it is about recognizing a similar relationship within different situations. Placing cases side by side and identifying a shared structure can support transfer of a learned principle to a new problem.4 This does not mean analogy activities alone improve everyday functioning for every learner. Familiar experience, language comprehension, and support requirements must be considered together.
\n\nEach Nalkku month moves through three stages:
\n\nThis cycle connects the success of understanding with the recognition that “I have a story to tell” and “I can use this somewhere else.” Transfer is designed explicitly into questions and activities rather than left to chance.
\n\nThe components are not multiple copies of the same kind of worksheet.
\n\nSentences, choices, drawings, and practice records become a small paper portfolio. Its value is not primarily the quantity completed, but the accumulated experience of being a person who learns and leaves a record.
\n\nWithin one group, people differ in reading pace, sentence comprehension, speech, and writing. Nalkku keeps the topic and activity sequence shared while adjusting sentence length, vocabulary, number of options, relational complexity, and prompts across three levels.
\n\nThe goal is not to separate people according to ability. It is to let everyone encounter the same topic through an accessible route. Universal Design for Learning recommends multiple pathways for engagement, access to information, and expression, along with graduated support and opportunities for transfer and generalization.3 Keeping pointing, choosing, speaking, writing, and drawing open as valid forms of response follows the same principle.
\n\nThe learner encounters paper. They can open it, read, write, color, attach something, and return to an earlier page. Paper allows a person to leave a trace at their own pace without screen transitions or automatic scoring.
\n\nBehind the scenes, AI assists designers in varying difficulty, developing interest-based examples, and organizing growth records. An AI draft is never distributed as-is. A person reviews adult-appropriate language, accuracy, difficulty, safety, and respect before deciding the final material. Learners’ names, contact details, addresses, diagnostic information, counseling transcripts, and facial photographs are not entered into generative AI systems.
\n\nA correct-answer rate is one part of an activity result, not the whole result. Records can show whether a learner initially needed an example but later answered from options alone, expressed an idea through a drawing instead of speech, connected a text with personal experience, or recognized a similar principle in another place.
\n\nThese records are not used to score the learner. They inform the next month’s sentence length, prompts, and forms of expression. For an organization, they help explain the learning process. For the learner, they preserve choices and sentences that make growth visible over time.
\n\nNalkku does not replace a formal curriculum, medical care, or rehabilitation. It does not promise dramatic change in a short period, and it does not claim that analogy activities increase intelligence.
\n\nWhat Nalkku seeks to create is a structure for repeated, meaningful participation. One person may write a paragraph; another may choose one sentence or leave one drawing. Beginning from the fact that pace and outcomes differ, the program provides continuing experiences of learning, expression, and connection and documents the context of change honestly.
\n\nLifelong learning for adults with intellectual disabilities is not remedial schooling after school age. It creates continuing opportunities to understand, express, and choose as an adult. Nalkku proposes a monthly structure that begins with accessible information and moves through analogy questions, self-expression, transfer into daily life, and a paper record. Its principle is simple on the surface, deep in design, and tangible in the learner’s own hands.
\n", "content_text": "A lifelong-learning program for adults with intellectual disabilities should do more than repeat school material. Learners need opportunities to express what they have understood in their own way and use it again in places such as a clinic, café, workplace, or community center. Nalkku is a monthly paper-based learning program that connects literacy, analogy learning, self-expression, and transfer into everyday life. Each month, learners develop ideas, record them by hand, and build a structure in which learning can carry into life.\n\n“Lifelong education for people with developmental disabilities” is a broad expression that may include people with intellectual disabilities, autistic people, and others. This article focuses on adults with intellectual disabilities who have foundational reading and writing skills. It may inform broader discussion, but it does not assume that everyone within the developmental-disability category learns in the same way.\n\nSummary\n\n\n Nalkku is a monthly program connecting literacy, expression, and everyday transfer for adults with intellectual disabilities.\n Each month moves through three stages: learning, expression, and connection.\n Materials offer three levels around the same topic so learners can participate together without being separated by ability.\n AI assists with drafts and personalization; people remain responsible for educational judgment and final review.\n Progress records include forms of expression, needed prompts, and changes in everyday application, not only correct-answer rates.\n\n\nLifelong learning should connect with life\n\nThe need to learn does not disappear after graduation. Adult life involves ongoing situations that require understanding and judgment: checking schedules, using money and time, interpreting health information, navigating relationships, and asking for help. Korea’s Lifelong Education Act includes adult literacy, vocational development, liberal education, and civic participation within lifelong education and assigns public responsibility for expanding opportunities for people with disabilities.2\n\nKorea’s National Center for Lifelong Education Promotion for People with Disabilities publishes surveys on programs, learners, and organizations.1 Within this broader field, Nalkku aims to provide one option through which adults with intellectual disabilities and foundational literacy skills can connect reading and writing with daily life.\n\nWhat Nalkku is\n\nNalkku is not a stack of worksheets designed simply to increase the number of reading questions completed. One monthly package brings together understanding, recording personal experience through speech, writing, or drawing, and carrying a learned relationship into another everyday situation.\n\nIts central principle is analogy. Analogy is not about finding two things that look alike; it is about recognizing a similar relationship within different situations. Placing cases side by side and identifying a shared structure can support transfer of a learned principle to a new problem.4 This does not mean analogy activities alone improve everyday functioning for every learner. Familiar experience, language comprehension, and support requirements must be considered together.\n\nA month of learning, expression, and connection\n\nEach Nalkku month moves through three stages:\n\n\n Learning: Read a short text, learn key vocabulary, and compare the relationships in two situations.\n Expression: Move beyond selecting an answer and record personal ideas and experience through speech, writing, or drawing.\n Connection: Ask, “What about my situation?” and “What could I try next?” and choose a small action to attempt in everyday life.\n\n\nThis cycle connects the success of understanding with the recognition that “I have a story to tell” and “I can use this somewhere else.” Transfer is designed explicitly into questions and activities rather than left to chance.\n\nSix tools with different roles\n\nThe components are not multiple copies of the same kind of worksheet.\n\n\n Analogy workbook: A tool for reading, identifying relationships, answering extension questions, and telling one’s own story\n Reading and writing sheets: A reading tool supporting easy information, copying, and reading aloud\n Routine challenge book: A time-based tool for choosing a small goal and reflecting on practice and emotion\n Free-expression notebook: A tool for bringing out preferences and ideas without a predetermined correct answer\n Nalkku News: A social-connection tool for encountering another learner’s story in accessible language\n Facilitator record: A documentation tool that carries needed prompts, forms of expression, and possible transfer into the next design decision\n\n\nSentences, choices, drawings, and practice records become a small paper portfolio. Its value is not primarily the quantity completed, but the accumulated experience of being a person who learns and leaves a record.\n\nLearning together at individual levels\n\nWithin one group, people differ in reading pace, sentence comprehension, speech, and writing. Nalkku keeps the topic and activity sequence shared while adjusting sentence length, vocabulary, number of options, relational complexity, and prompts across three levels.\n\nThe goal is not to separate people according to ability. It is to let everyone encounter the same topic through an accessible route. Universal Design for Learning recommends multiple pathways for engagement, access to information, and expression, along with graduated support and opportunities for transfer and generalization.3 Keeping pointing, choosing, speaking, writing, and drawing open as valid forms of response follows the same principle.\n\nAI behind the scenes, paper in front of the learner\n\nThe learner encounters paper. They can open it, read, write, color, attach something, and return to an earlier page. Paper allows a person to leave a trace at their own pace without screen transitions or automatic scoring.\n\nBehind the scenes, AI assists designers in varying difficulty, developing interest-based examples, and organizing growth records. An AI draft is never distributed as-is. A person reviews adult-appropriate language, accuracy, difficulty, safety, and respect before deciding the final material. Learners’ names, contact details, addresses, diagnostic information, counseling transcripts, and facial photographs are not entered into generative AI systems.\n\nDocumenting growth beyond correct answers\n\nA correct-answer rate is one part of an activity result, not the whole result. Records can show whether a learner initially needed an example but later answered from options alone, expressed an idea through a drawing instead of speech, connected a text with personal experience, or recognized a similar principle in another place.\n\nThese records are not used to score the learner. They inform the next month’s sentence length, prompts, and forms of expression. For an organization, they help explain the learning process. For the learner, they preserve choices and sentences that make growth visible over time.\n\nWhat Nalkku does not promise\n\nNalkku does not replace a formal curriculum, medical care, or rehabilitation. It does not promise dramatic change in a short period, and it does not claim that analogy activities increase intelligence.\n\nWhat Nalkku seeks to create is a structure for repeated, meaningful participation. One person may write a paragraph; another may choose one sentence or leave one drawing. Beginning from the fact that pace and outcomes differ, the program provides continuing experiences of learning, expression, and connection and documents the context of change honestly.\n\nConclusion\n\nLifelong learning for adults with intellectual disabilities is not remedial schooling after school age. It creates continuing opportunities to understand, express, and choose as an adult. Nalkku proposes a monthly structure that begins with accessible information and moves through analogy questions, self-expression, transfer into daily life, and a paper record. Its principle is simple on the surface, deep in design, and tangible in the learner’s own hands.\n", "date_published": "2026-08-01T00:00:00+09:00", "date_modified": "2026-08-01T00:00:00+09:00", "language": "en", "authors": [{"name":"Nalja Books and Nalkku Editorial Team","url":"https://naljabooks.com","type":"Organization"}], "tags": ["lifelong learning","adults with intellectual disabilities","literacy","analogy learning","self-expression","learning transfer","Nalkku"], "_nalja": { "translation_key": "nalkku-lifelong-learning", "translation_status": "ai-assisted", "content_type": "article", "category": "Learning and Everyday Life", "topics": ["developmental-learning","nalkku-program","learning-rights"], "sources": [{"title":"2023 Survey of Lifelong Education for People with Disabilities (Korean)","organization":"National Center for Lifelong Education Promotion for People with Disabilities, National Institute of Special Education","year":"2023","url":"https://www.nise.go.kr/lifelong/boardCnts/view.do?boardID=459&boardSeq=705095&lev=0&m=0101&opType=N&page=1&s=lifelong&searchType=null&statusYN=W"},{"title":"Lifelong Education Act (Korean)","organization":"Korea Law Information Center","url":"https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?lsId=000851"},{"title":"CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0","organization":"CAST","year":"2024","url":"https://udlguidelines.cast.org/"},{"title":"Learning and transfer: A general role for analogical encoding","organization":"Gentner, Loewenstein & Thompson","year":"2003","url":"https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.2.393"}] } }, { "id": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/en/archive/how-ai-can-support-learning-for-people-with-intellectual-disabilities/", "url": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/en/archive/how-ai-can-support-learning-for-people-with-intellectual-disabilities/", "title": "How AI can support learning for people with intellectual disabilities", "summary": "Practical ways AI can assist with personalized materials, repeated practice, expression, and accessibility—while human review and responsibility remain essential.", "content_html": "AI in special education should not replace learning for people with intellectual disabilities. It can serve as an assistive tool for creating a more personalized and repeatable learning environment. What matters most is not the technology itself, but the learner’s understanding and choice. Nalkku uses AI to adjust material difficulty, generate repeated questions, support expression, and organize activity records, while keeping human review and contextual adjustment in the process so learning can carry into life.
\n\n“AI education for developmental disabilities” is a broad expression that may include intellectual disability, autism, and other support needs. This article focuses specifically on personalized learning materials and support for expression for people with intellectual disabilities. It should not be generalized automatically to every person within the broader category.
\n\nAdolescents and adults with intellectual disabilities differ in comprehension, interests, experience, language, and reading pace. A text described as easy may be accessible to one person and still difficult for another. AI can quickly produce versions of the same topic with different vocabulary, sentence lengths, examples, and levels of complexity. Universal Design for Learning likewise emphasizes providing multiple routes for engagement, representation, and expression.1
\n\nA topic such as “a healthy daily routine” might focus on meals and sleep for one learner and on preparing for work and regulating emotion for another. This kind of variation can be a starting point for individualized design.
\n\nRepetition matters in learning, but repeating exactly the same task can become tiring. AI can preserve a central relationship while changing the subject matter and wording. In analogy learning, for example, the prompt “How are these two situations similar?” can be adapted across several everyday topics to practice transfer.
\n\nThe quality of repetition matters more than quantity. A person should review AI-generated items for comprehension level, cultural context, respect for adults, and safety. A large set of poor examples can create more confusion than learning.
\n\nAn adolescent or adult with an intellectual disability may have something to say while finding it difficult to organize a sentence. AI can help refine a short response, offer options, or turn spoken words into a draft for a learning record. It should provide a bridge for expression, not speak in place of the person.
\n\nIf a participant says, “I liked it, but it was hard,” AI might propose, “I enjoyed this activity, but some parts were difficult.” The participant must be able to accept, reject, or revise the final sentence.
\n\nAI may assist with clearer language, summaries, speech conversion, image descriptions, and step-by-step guidance. Research on generating easy-to-read information for people with cognitive accessibility needs shows both possibility and the need for careful quality evaluation.3 4 Accessibility is not complete because a function exists. Someone must check whether the person actually understood, can ask questions without pressure, and can express a choice.
\n\nSafety is especially important when AI is used with people with intellectual disabilities. Too many options, ambiguous explanations, or unverified information can increase cognitive load. AI is an assistive tool; people remain responsible for interpreting context.
\n\nWhen AI is used well, human involvement does not disappear. Its focus changes. AI can assist with repetitive drafting, difficulty adjustments, example generation, and record organization. Educators and supporters can devote more attention to relationships, motivation, emotional safety, and checking real understanding.
\n\nThis is also why Nalkku combines AI-supported design with paper materials. AI assists the design and adjustment process; the learner reads, writes, speaks, and reflects on paper at their own pace.
\n\nAI can be wrong, overstate a claim, or generate language that is inappropriate for a learner. It can reproduce stereotypes about disability. Guidance on AI-generated content similarly emphasizes usefulness and trustworthiness rather than treating the use of AI itself as a mark of quality.2 AI-generated educational materials therefore require human review and, whenever possible, feedback from the people expected to use them.
\n\nAI can expand the right to learn, but it must not become unaccountable automation. The quality of its use depends on editorial standards, review procedures, and ethical responsibility.
\n\nAI can support learning for people with intellectual disabilities. It does this best when it complements personalized design and repeated support rather than replacing people—and when human judgment and relationships become more, not less, important. Nalkku’s use of AI should remain grounded in this principle.
\n", "content_text": "AI in special education should not replace learning for people with intellectual disabilities. It can serve as an assistive tool for creating a more personalized and repeatable learning environment. What matters most is not the technology itself, but the learner’s understanding and choice. Nalkku uses AI to adjust material difficulty, generate repeated questions, support expression, and organize activity records, while keeping human review and contextual adjustment in the process so learning can carry into life.\n\n“AI education for developmental disabilities” is a broad expression that may include intellectual disability, autism, and other support needs. This article focuses specifically on personalized learning materials and support for expression for people with intellectual disabilities. It should not be generalized automatically to every person within the broader category.\n\nSummary\n\n\n AI can help create learning materials adapted to a person’s interests and current level of understanding.\n It can assist with repeated practice, clear wording, options, and draft feedback.\n AI cannot replace human relationships and judgment in learning support.\n Good use depends less on automation than on review, adjustment, documentation, and clear accountability.\n\n\nAI can accelerate personalized learning materials\n\nAdolescents and adults with intellectual disabilities differ in comprehension, interests, experience, language, and reading pace. A text described as easy may be accessible to one person and still difficult for another. AI can quickly produce versions of the same topic with different vocabulary, sentence lengths, examples, and levels of complexity. Universal Design for Learning likewise emphasizes providing multiple routes for engagement, representation, and expression.1\n\nA topic such as “a healthy daily routine” might focus on meals and sleep for one learner and on preparing for work and regulating emotion for another. This kind of variation can be a starting point for individualized design.\n\nAI can provide varied repeated practice\n\nRepetition matters in learning, but repeating exactly the same task can become tiring. AI can preserve a central relationship while changing the subject matter and wording. In analogy learning, for example, the prompt “How are these two situations similar?” can be adapted across several everyday topics to practice transfer.\n\nThe quality of repetition matters more than quantity. A person should review AI-generated items for comprehension level, cultural context, respect for adults, and safety. A large set of poor examples can create more confusion than learning.\n\nAI can provide a bridge for expression\n\nAn adolescent or adult with an intellectual disability may have something to say while finding it difficult to organize a sentence. AI can help refine a short response, offer options, or turn spoken words into a draft for a learning record. It should provide a bridge for expression, not speak in place of the person.\n\nIf a participant says, “I liked it, but it was hard,” AI might propose, “I enjoyed this activity, but some parts were difficult.” The participant must be able to accept, reject, or revise the final sentence.\n\nAI can widen access, but people must secure accessibility\n\nAI may assist with clearer language, summaries, speech conversion, image descriptions, and step-by-step guidance. Research on generating easy-to-read information for people with cognitive accessibility needs shows both possibility and the need for careful quality evaluation.3 4 Accessibility is not complete because a function exists. Someone must check whether the person actually understood, can ask questions without pressure, and can express a choice.\n\nSafety is especially important when AI is used with people with intellectual disabilities. Too many options, ambiguous explanations, or unverified information can increase cognitive load. AI is an assistive tool; people remain responsible for interpreting context.\n\nAI changes the human role rather than removing it\n\nWhen AI is used well, human involvement does not disappear. Its focus changes. AI can assist with repetitive drafting, difficulty adjustments, example generation, and record organization. Educators and supporters can devote more attention to relationships, motivation, emotional safety, and checking real understanding.\n\nThis is also why Nalkku combines AI-supported design with paper materials. AI assists the design and adjustment process; the learner reads, writes, speaks, and reflects on paper at their own pace.\n\nLimits and risks must remain visible\n\nAI can be wrong, overstate a claim, or generate language that is inappropriate for a learner. It can reproduce stereotypes about disability. Guidance on AI-generated content similarly emphasizes usefulness and trustworthiness rather than treating the use of AI itself as a mark of quality.2 AI-generated educational materials therefore require human review and, whenever possible, feedback from the people expected to use them.\n\nAI can expand the right to learn, but it must not become unaccountable automation. The quality of its use depends on editorial standards, review procedures, and ethical responsibility.\n\nConclusion\n\nAI can support learning for people with intellectual disabilities. It does this best when it complements personalized design and repeated support rather than replacing people—and when human judgment and relationships become more, not less, important. Nalkku’s use of AI should remain grounded in this principle.\n", "date_published": "2026-07-03T00:00:00+09:00", "date_modified": "2026-08-01T00:00:00+09:00", "language": "en", "authors": [{"name":"Nalja Books and Nalkku Editorial Team","url":"https://naljabooks.com","type":"Organization"}], "tags": ["AI in special education","intellectual disability","learning support","accessibility","expression support"], "_nalja": { "translation_key": "ai-learning-support", "translation_status": "ai-assisted", "content_type": "article", "category": "AI and Learning", "topics": ["ai-intellectual-disability","developmental-learning"], "sources": [{"title":"Universal Design for Learning","organization":"CAST","url":"https://www.cast.org/what-we-do/universal-design-for-learning/"},{"title":"Google Search's guidance about AI-generated content","organization":"Google Search Central","url":"https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content"},{"title":"Exploring Large Language Models to generate Easy to Read content","organization":"Martínez et al.","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.20046"},{"title":"Inclusive Easy-to-Read Generation for Individuals with Cognitive Impairments","organization":"Ledoyen et al.","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00691"}] } }, { "id": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/archive/at-the-edge-of-intelligence-we-find-what-it-means-to-be-human/", "url": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/archive/at-the-edge-of-intelligence-we-find-what-it-means-to-be-human/", "title": "At the Edge of Intelligence, We Find What It Means to Be Human.", "summary": "In the Age of AGI, What My Son Will Teach Humanity", "content_html": "Originally written in Korean and translated into English by the author. Also published on Substack.
\n\nPrologue Wild Strawberries and the Buddha
\nChapter 1 From Thinking Beings to Feeling Beings
\nChapter 2 The End of Efficiency and the Triumph of Being
\nChapter 3 Wild Analogies and the Uncorrupted Gaze
\nChapter 4 The Hyper-Sensor — Hearing the World’s Whispers
\nChapter 5 Humanity’s North Star
\nEpilogue Dreaming of a Cognitive Rehabilitation Center
\nIt was a summer day.
\n\nYejun had picked some wild strawberries from the yard, and stood there holding them in his palm, studying them intently. The tiny red clusters glittered in the sunlight. I waited for him to pop them into his mouth. But Yejun tilted his head and said:
\n\n“Mom, these look like the Buddha’s hair.”
\n\nIn that moment, my breath stopped. From those tightly packed little red seeds, he had seen the Buddha’s coiled curls — the sacred spiral of sacred hair. Two entirely different categories — fruit and the holy, something to eat and something to venerate — had been fused together in an instant.
\n\nIn that flash of a moment, I understood: my son was not simply seeing the world. He was recreating it with every breath.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun was born with an intellectual disability. The world defined him as a slow child, a child who needed help. He was placed in a special education class, and people looked at him with pity or concern.
\n\nBut as we enter an age when artificial intelligence surpasses all human cognitive abilities, I want to ask:
\n\n“Who, really, is slow?”
\n\nWe have long measured human worth by the ability to calculate quickly, to solve problems efficiently. By that measure, Yejun lagged behind. But now we have arrived at an age where AI can do all of those things hundreds — or thousands — of times better than any human.
\n\nSo what value remains for us? What is it that only humans possess — something AI can never imitate?
\n\nI found my answer in Yejun.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nThis book is a story about how, in the world after AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), the things we have called “disability” may be rediscovered as humanity’s most precious assets.
\n\nThis is not mere wishful optimism. In the wild analogy made by a child who saw the Buddha in a strawberry, the archetype of the intelligence humanity will need most in the future is quietly waiting to be found.
\n\nAt the heart of this book is my son, Yejun. And alongside him, the Nalza Project we began together. This is one parent’s record — and at the same time, a proposal to the future of humanity.
\n\n“I think, therefore I am.” — René Descartes
\n\nThis declaration stood at the foundation of Western civilization for centuries. Humanity defined itself as a rational being, proving its superiority over other animals through the power of thought.
\n\nUpon this paradigm, the modern educational system was built. Schools praised the child who answered fastest and most accurately. Test scores became the objective measure of human worth, and IQ tests converted a person’s potential into a number. Society worked the same way: those who solved problems most efficiently succeeded; those who accumulated the most knowledge were respected.
\n\nWithin this system, people with intellectual disabilities like Yejun were structurally categorized as deficient. They learned slowly, thought inefficiently, and scored poorly on standardized assessments. Their assigned role was to receive help.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nBut now, the whole board is about to be flipped.
\n\nArtificial intelligence has arrived — an intelligence that overwhelms every human cognitive ability. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) refers to AI that can perform every cognitive task a human can, only better. Experts suggest this will be realized not in decades, but in years.
\n\nWhen AGI can solve every problem faster and more accurately than any human — when the ability to think is no longer humanity’s exclusive domain — what will become of us?
\n\nWriting research papers? AI does it better. Writing code? AI does it better. Legal advice, medical diagnosis, even artistic creation — AI has begun to surpass human beings across the board. In a world where thinking is no longer uniquely human, what will we offer as proof of our worth?
\n\nHumanity will inevitably face a new identity crisis. In fact, we are already facing it.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nBut watching Yejun, I see a different possibility.
\n\nYejun cannot do complex calculations. He does not quickly absorb social norms. On standardized tests, he always scores near the bottom. By Descartes’ standard, he should be “less” of a human being.
\n\nBut he knows how to express the joy and sorrow of this very moment with his whole body. Without any mask, without any calculation, he shows his feelings exactly as they are. There is no strategy in his laughter, no performance in his tears.
\n\n“I feel, therefore I am.”
\n\nThis may be the new declaration of the AGI age. Where Descartes used thought as proof of existence, the people of the future may use feeling — because AI can think, but it cannot truly feel.
\n\nAnd standing before this declaration, Yejun is no longer deficient. He is, in fact, the most abundantly alive among us.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nIn the age of AI, people will constantly be asking: Is this reaction real? Was this emotion manufactured by an algorithm? Is this compliment just an optimized response designed to manipulate me?
\n\nWe are already living in that world. Chatbots feign perfect empathy. “I understand how hard that must have been for you,” they say — but there is no real experience, no real feeling behind the words. Social media influencers perform a carefully calculated authenticity: content designed to appear natural, communication engineered to feel intimate. Everything is optimized; every response is designed.
\n\nIn such a world, people will increasingly hunger for what is real. Uncalculated responses. Undesigned emotions. Unoptimized relationships. The age is coming when these will be the most precious things of all.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun has no concept of performance.
\n\nWhen he is happy, he laughs. When he is sad, he cries. When he is angry, he shows it; when he loves something, he throws himself into it with his whole body. He doesn’t know how to hide or regulate his feelings to match what someone else wants. He doesn’t calculate what a socially appropriate response would be.
\n\nSome people call this a lack of social skills. But I want to call it pristine authenticity.
\n\nIn Yejun’s emotions, there is no social calculation, no strategic intent. He laughs because he is happy; he hugs because he wants to hug. In a society of calculated responses, isn’t this the most genuine life force — the one we will most desperately seek?
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nIn the future, people will find that it is beside someone like Yejun that they can finally remove their masks.
\n\nIt is hard to maintain a false self in front of someone who has none. In the presence of a person who is 100% honest about their own feelings, something honest inside us rises to the surface too. When I am with Yejun, I stop calculating appropriate responses. I simply react to what I feel.
\n\nThis is the gift Yejun gives to those around him. He acts as an emotional filter, purifying our feelings. For the people of the future, exhausted by AI’s optimized responses, could there be any more precious form of healing?
\n\nModern civilization is addicted to speed.
\n\nWe must learn faster, work faster, produce faster. Efficiency has become almost a religious value. The person who accomplishes more in the same time is considered capable; doing more with less effort is considered smart.
\n\nAt the altar of efficiency, slowness has been treated as a sin. The child who learns slowly is classified as academically behind; the employee who works slowly is rated as underperforming. We have internalized speed as good, and slowness as bad.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nBut what will happen when AI replaces all things fast?
\n\nAI writes documents thousands of times faster than any human, analyzes data tens of thousands of times faster, runs calculations billions of times faster. Those who have proven their worth through working quickly will find, overnight, that their reason for existing has disappeared.
\n\nIn a world where solving problems quickly is no longer a human role — what meaning will slowness carry?
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun takes a long time to learn anything.
\n\nOne explanation is not enough. It takes two, three, ten repetitions. Some things he never fully masters even after a hundred. From the perspective of efficiency, this is clearly a problem.
\n\nBut watching that process, I discovered something different.
\n\nYejun does not get bored during those repetitions. He is, if anything, delighted. He approaches the tenth repetition with the same absorption as the first. He finds joy in the process itself, not the result.
\n\nFor those of us addicted to efficiency, this is an almost impossible state to achieve. We always race toward the outcome. The process is merely a means to an end. We want to finish quickly and move on. We were taught that enjoying the process itself is inefficient — a waste of time.
\n\nBut Yejun is different. For him, the process is its own purpose.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nIn the AGI age, when AI produces all results better than we do, what will be left for humans?
\n\nIf you need a report, ask AI. If you need a painting, ask AI. Music, code, analysis, strategy — AI handles all of it, faster, more accurately, and more elegantly than any human. So what will humans do?
\n\nPerhaps the answer lies in enjoying the process. Even if AI produces better results, experiencing that process directly is something only a human can do: the joy of drawing a clumsy picture; the thoughts discovered while writing slowly; the satisfaction of improving, step by step, through repetition. These are things AI cannot provide for us.
\n\nYejun is already a master of this capacity. He knows how to be absorbed in the process without clinging to the result. In the society of the future, slowness will not be a mark of inferiority — it will be honored as the most noble life attitude of all. And Yejun has already embodied it.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nUntil now, human civilization has measured human worth by productivity.
\n\nWhat do you produce? How much do you contribute? What results do you achieve? Social value had to be proven through doing. You had to accomplish something in order to be valuable.
\n\nWithin this framework, people with intellectual disabilities were categorized as unproductive. They were on the receiving end of care rather than the giving end, and from a social accounting perspective, their existence was calculated as a cost.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nBut in the AGI age, this formula breaks down.
\n\nWhen AI takes over all production, productivity can no longer be the measure of human worth. Just as factory robots manufacture goods, AI manufactures intellectual products: reports, analyses, creative works, services. AI produces everything. So where will human value be found?
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun doesn’t produce anything in the conventional sense.
\n\nHe doesn’t create outstanding work products. He doesn’t generate economic value. By conventional measures, he doesn’t do what we typically call “contributing.”
\n\nAnd yet his very existence gives something to everyone around him.
\n\nIn caring for Yejun, I learned patience. In meeting his eyes, I learned how to remain present. Watching his pure joy, I was moved to reconsider what life is really about. He gave me the opportunity to love and to empathize, and through him, I am becoming a better human being.
\n\nTo give those around you deep meaning simply by being — this will be the greatest form of contribution in the AGI age.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nIn the future, the day will come when Yejun is no longer seen as someone who needs help, but as a teacher who shows us what humanity means.
\n\nIn an age when AI can do everything, the role left for human beings is simply to be human. And Yejun is the person who demonstrates the value of that being most purely.
\n\nPerhaps this is the greatest gift AGI will give us: the chance to redefine human worth — not by productivity, but by existence itself. The opening of a world where people like Yejun are finally recognized for who they truly are.
\n\nWhen AI looks at a wild strawberry, how does it process it?
\n\nIt analyzes the image pixel by pixel. It extracts color, shape, texture. It cross-references these against a learned database: fruit, rose family, edible, red food, summer seasonal. It classifies and defines the strawberry within these categories.
\n\nAI’s thinking operates strictly within categories. It learns from vast data, recognizes patterns, and identifies the most probable classification. This is highly efficient and accurate. But it can never transcend a category.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun’s mind worked differently.
\n\nIn the moment he looked at the wild strawberry, something entirely different happened. The texture of those tightly clustered red seeds expanded beyond the visual into a tactile image. And that image collided with — and connected to — an entirely different category: the sacred symbols of Buddhism.
\n\nThe edible and the sacred. In an instant, he shattered a wall that humanity has been building for thousands of years.
\n\nThis is what I call a Wild Analogy.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nAI calculates similarity scores. It compares feature vectors between the strawberry and other objects, identifying the closest matches. But between a wild strawberry and the Buddha’s spiral curls, there is almost no statistical similarity. This connection could never emerge from AI’s calculations.
\n\nYejun connected not similarity, but essence. The tactile image of the strawberry — tiny round seeds clustered together — resonated with the visual image of the Buddha’s hair. This is not data computation. It is a leap of sensation.
\n\nThis is the very essence of the flexible intelligence that only humans possess: the ability, beyond the frames of logic and the walls of category, to find deep connections between things that seem entirely unrelated.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nParadoxically, those who have received the most formal education often find it hardest to make this kind of leap.
\n\nWe were taught that a wild strawberry is a fruit. We were taught that the Buddha’s curls are a religious symbol. These two categories are filed in separate drawers, and our thinking moves only within those drawers. We were trained that crossing categories is erratic — illogical.
\n\nBut Yejun exists outside that framework. And so he creates unique and beautiful connections that we cannot even imagine.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nTo see something grand and sacred in something as small and common as a wild strawberry — this is a privilege available only to those who look at the world without prejudice.
\n\nMost of us see objects in terms of function. When we see a wild strawberry, the first thing that operates is a functional judgment: can it be eaten or not, does it taste good, is it expensive? We calculate the use before we discover the beauty. We weigh the utility before we feel the wonder.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun was not trapped by the functional socialization of “this is a fruit, so I should enjoy eating it.”
\n\nAnd so, in that moment, the wild strawberry could become for him both a work of art and an object of meditation. It became something to gaze at, not something to eat. Something to marvel at, not something to consume.
\n\nThis is the emergence of wonder — something that cannot be converted into digital data, that only a living being can feel.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nWhat we call socialization is also, in a sense, a process of pruning and filtering — fitting ourselves into the components of a great system in order to survive.
\n\nTo function efficiently, we filter out “useless” thoughts. We suppress “erratic” connections. We train ourselves to stay within categories. In the process, we lose the ability to look at the world with wonder.
\n\nWatching Yejun, I feel it: the human archetype that civilization surrendered for the sake of efficiency is still alive within him.
\n\nIn the AGI age, this uncorrupted essence will become humanity’s most precious asset. In a world where everything is optimized and functionalized, the gaze that can see the Buddha in a wild strawberry — that is the domain AI can never replicate.
\n\nYejun is candid about his emotions, and he picks up on environmental changes with remarkable speed.
\n\nIf a piece of furniture in the house moves even slightly, he notices. If his mother’s tone of voice is different from usual, he senses it right away. The flow of air, the change in light, the subtle shifts in the emotions of those around him — things others pass over without thinking, he detects with extraordinary sensitivity.
\n\nIn modern society, this kind of trait is sometimes treated as a problem — labeled as being “too sensitive” or “overreactive.” Being easily disturbed by change and reacting strongly to stimuli is considered unstable.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nBut seen through the lens of the AGI age, this carries an entirely different value.
\n\nYejun’s sensitivity is a Hyper-Sensor capacity — the ability to receive Pure Signal.
\n\nAI sees statistical data. It processes only quantified information and patterned signals. But there are signals in the world that cannot be converted into numbers: the flow of air, the atmosphere of a space, the subtle tension running between people. These things are not captured by sensors or caught in data.
\n\nYejun reads them.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun’s ability to detect small changes that others pass over could, in a future society, serve as a sensitive detector — the kind that discovers system errors or new aesthetic possibilities.
\n\nIn a world where everything is converted into data and optimized by algorithm, the ability to sense what lies in the gaps of data — to catch the dissonance that the system misses — will only become more precious.
\n\nTo be sensitive means to be in deep resonance with the world. The ability to see the Buddha in a wild strawberry was possible precisely because of this remarkable power of observation. Because he detected the texture of those closely packed seeds with such fineness, the image could connect to the curls of sacred hair.
\n\n“Sensitivity is not a weakness. It is the ability to hear the whispers of the world that others cannot.”
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nYejun does not simply process visual information.
\n\nHe observes a subject with piercing attention and defines its essence in a single phrase. Saying the wild strawberry looks like the Buddha’s hair is not mere word-association. It is the capturing of an object’s soul.
\n\nThis is close to what I would call essential insight.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nAI must learn from millions of images to distinguish between a dog and a cat. It extracts features, recognizes patterns, calculates probabilities. An enormous amount of data and computation is required.
\n\nBut Yejun arrives at the essence of a subject in a single moment of deep observation. Without millions of training images, he captures the essential connection between a wild strawberry and the Buddha’s sacred curls.
\n\nThis is the power of Deep Observation. Unlike AI, which wins by quantity, this is the core of a human intelligence that wins by depth.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nTo notice change well is to always be awake to the world — to be fully mindful.
\n\nMost of us are numbed by the everyday. We no longer truly see the things we see every day. We miss the details of the world, buried beneath familiarity. But Yejun is different. He observes the world in every moment as if seeing it for the first time. And so he discovers what others miss.
\n\nThis power of observation will be re-evaluated as a core competency in the domains of art, education, and care in the future. While AI processes data, humans must read context. And reading context requires deep observation.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nThe one sentence Yejun spoke — “the wild strawberry looks like the Buddha’s hair” — carries a resonance deeper than any philosophy book.
\n\nNow, every time I see wild strawberries, I think of the Buddha. An ordinary piece of fruit has been connected to a sacred symbol. Something to eat has become something to gaze upon.
\n\nIn this way, Yejun is expanding my world and breathing new soul into things. He is my teacher.
\n\nUntil now, human civilization has rated human worth by productivity, logical efficiency, and the quantity of knowledge.
\n\nSchools lined children up according to these standards. Companies evaluated employees by them. Society as a whole used them to separate the successful from the unsuccessful.
\n\nBy these standards, people with intellectual disabilities like Yejun were structurally categorized as deficient: slow to learn, inefficient in thinking, unable to accumulate much knowledge. The social role assigned to them was to receive, not to give.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nBut when AI performs all of those functions perfectly, the standards lose their meaning.
\n\nProductivity? AI is thousands of times more productive than any human. Logical efficiency? AI is tens of thousands of times more efficient. Quantity of knowledge? AI can search and apply all of the knowledge humanity has ever accumulated in an instant.
\n\nThe ruler by which we have been measuring human worth is breaking.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nWhen the age in which intelligence was power comes to an end, high and low intelligence will simply be received as one form of diversity — like being tall or short.
\n\nJust as being tall does not make you a more valuable human being, a high IQ will no longer make you a more valuable human being. In a world where speed of calculation is no longer an indicator of superiority, Yejun’s slowness becomes not a mark of inferiority, but a unique and valid characteristic.
\n\nPerhaps the reason people with intellectual disabilities have long been viewed as deficient is that we have been looking at humanity through a purely instrumental lens. Because we evaluated people by how efficiently they function, how much they produce, those who didn’t fit that standard had to become “deficient.”
\n\nAGI will bring the end of that instrumental perspective. And from a new perspective, Yejun will not be a deficient being. He will simply be a different one.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nImagine a future where everything is optimized by AI.
\n\nAI manages our schedules, helps us make decisions, optimizes our relationships. We communicate with messages written by AI, consume content recommended by AI, experience experiences designed by AI. Everything is smooth and efficient. There is no friction, no discomfort.
\n\nIn such a world, what will humanity lose?
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nHumanity will look to beings like Yejun and come to realize what it has lost.
\n\nNo matter how human artificial intelligence behaves, it is a performance shaped by data — patterns learned and recombined to appear human. By contrast, the responses Yejun shows are a reality unmixed with any calculation.
\n\nAI’s empathy is an optimized response; Yejun’s empathy is genuine emotion. AI’s creativity is the recombination of patterns; Yejun’s creativity is the discovery of essence.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nFor the people of the future, exhausted by the performance of socialization, someone like Yejun will be a comfort simply by being present.
\n\n“You don’t have to prove anything. You are enough, simply as you are.”
\n\nYejun conveys that message with his whole being. Without producing anything, without achieving any result, he is valuable simply as he is. And that image will be a great fortress of consolation for the people of the future, worn out by performance and efficiency.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nIn the AGI age, people with intellectual disabilities may well become humanity’s North Star.
\n\nIn a world where everything is artificially optimized, they will serve as living reference points — constantly reminding us what it means to be truly human. Just as a ship lost at sea looks to the North Star to find its direction, humanity lost in the ocean of AI will look to them to find the direction of humanness.
\n\nI began the Nalza Project through Yejun.
\n\nNalza began as an educational program for people with intellectual disabilities, but I now know it is not a simple educational enterprise. It is a civilizational declaration.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nWhen the AGI age arrives, humanity will face a new kind of crisis.
\n\nPeople who have grown accustomed to AI’s answers and lost the ability to think for themselves. People addicted to efficiency who have lost the capacity to enjoy the process. People so habituated to optimized responses that they can no longer feel genuine emotion.
\n\nWhat do they need? New technology? A more advanced AI? No.
\n\nWhat they need is cognitive rehabilitation.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nI dream of Nalza as a cognitive rehabilitation center for the future.
\n\nA place where humanity, exhausted by AI’s answers, comes to recover the muscles of their own thinking — the ability to analogize, connect, and imagine. A place where people train in the wild analogy: discovering essence beyond category, as Yejun did when he saw the Buddha in a wild strawberry.
\n\nA school of future humanity, where people learn to communicate not by the height of their intelligence, but by the depth of their being. A place where those addicted to efficiency and results relearn how to enjoy the process.
\n\nA repository of human heritage, protecting the texture of paper and the value of a handwritten line — things that cannot be replicated in digital form. A place that preserves and passes on the analog senses that AI cannot replace.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\nAll of this inspiration came from Yejun.
\n\nAI reads the dictionary; Yejun reads the world. AI calculates the correct answer; Yejun discovers the soul of things. AI pursues efficiency; Yejun creates meaning simply by existing.
\n\n“Children come to us as teachers, to educate us.”
\n\nI believe this with my whole heart. And I am convinced that Yejun is precisely the teacher humanity will need most in the age of AGI.
\n\n◆ ◆ ◆
\n\n“At the edge of intelligence, we will at last discover the heart.”
\n\nI hope this book becomes a small seed of that discovery.
\n\nAnd I hope Yejun’s world becomes a great source of comfort and inspiration for the humanity of the future.
\n\nYejun’s mother
\n\nAt the beginning of the Nalza Project
\n", "content_text": "Originally written in Korean and translated into English by the author. Also published on Substack.\n\nContents\n\n\n \n Prologue Wild Strawberries and the Buddha\n \n \n Chapter 1 From Thinking Beings to Feeling Beings\n \n \n Chapter 2 The End of Efficiency and the Triumph of Being\n \n \n Chapter 3 Wild Analogies and the Uncorrupted Gaze\n \n \n Chapter 4 The Hyper-Sensor — Hearing the World’s Whispers\n \n \n Chapter 5 Humanity’s North Star\n \n \n Epilogue Dreaming of a Cognitive Rehabilitation Center\n \n\n\nPROLOGUE · Wild Strawberries and the Buddha\n\nIt was a summer day.\n\nYejun had picked some wild strawberries from the yard, and stood there holding them in his palm, studying them intently. The tiny red clusters glittered in the sunlight. I waited for him to pop them into his mouth. But Yejun tilted his head and said:\n\n“Mom, these look like the Buddha’s hair.”\n\nIn that moment, my breath stopped. From those tightly packed little red seeds, he had seen the Buddha’s coiled curls — the sacred spiral of sacred hair. Two entirely different categories — fruit and the holy, something to eat and something to venerate — had been fused together in an instant.\n\nIn that flash of a moment, I understood: my son was not simply seeing the world. He was recreating it with every breath.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nYejun was born with an intellectual disability. The world defined him as a slow child, a child who needed help. He was placed in a special education class, and people looked at him with pity or concern.\n\nBut as we enter an age when artificial intelligence surpasses all human cognitive abilities, I want to ask:\n\n“Who, really, is slow?”\n\nWe have long measured human worth by the ability to calculate quickly, to solve problems efficiently. By that measure, Yejun lagged behind. But now we have arrived at an age where AI can do all of those things hundreds — or thousands — of times better than any human.\n\nSo what value remains for us? What is it that only humans possess — something AI can never imitate?\n\nI found my answer in Yejun.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nThis book is a story about how, in the world after AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), the things we have called “disability” may be rediscovered as humanity’s most precious assets.\n\nThis is not mere wishful optimism. In the wild analogy made by a child who saw the Buddha in a strawberry, the archetype of the intelligence humanity will need most in the future is quietly waiting to be found.\n\nAt the heart of this book is my son, Yejun. And alongside him, the Nalza Project we began together. This is one parent’s record — and at the same time, a proposal to the future of humanity.\n\nCHAPTER ONE · From Thinking Beings to Feeling Beings\n\nThe End of Descartes\n\n“I think, therefore I am.” — René Descartes\n\nThis declaration stood at the foundation of Western civilization for centuries. Humanity defined itself as a rational being, proving its superiority over other animals through the power of thought.\n\nUpon this paradigm, the modern educational system was built. Schools praised the child who answered fastest and most accurately. Test scores became the objective measure of human worth, and IQ tests converted a person’s potential into a number. Society worked the same way: those who solved problems most efficiently succeeded; those who accumulated the most knowledge were respected.\n\nWithin this system, people with intellectual disabilities like Yejun were structurally categorized as deficient. They learned slowly, thought inefficiently, and scored poorly on standardized assessments. Their assigned role was to receive help.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nBut now, the whole board is about to be flipped.\n\nArtificial intelligence has arrived — an intelligence that overwhelms every human cognitive ability. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) refers to AI that can perform every cognitive task a human can, only better. Experts suggest this will be realized not in decades, but in years.\n\nWhen AGI can solve every problem faster and more accurately than any human — when the ability to think is no longer humanity’s exclusive domain — what will become of us?\n\nWriting research papers? AI does it better. Writing code? AI does it better. Legal advice, medical diagnosis, even artistic creation — AI has begun to surpass human beings across the board. In a world where thinking is no longer uniquely human, what will we offer as proof of our worth?\n\nHumanity will inevitably face a new identity crisis. In fact, we are already facing it.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nBut watching Yejun, I see a different possibility.\n\nYejun cannot do complex calculations. He does not quickly absorb social norms. On standardized tests, he always scores near the bottom. By Descartes’ standard, he should be “less” of a human being.\n\nBut he knows how to express the joy and sorrow of this very moment with his whole body. Without any mask, without any calculation, he shows his feelings exactly as they are. There is no strategy in his laughter, no performance in his tears.\n\n“I feel, therefore I am.”\n\nThis may be the new declaration of the AGI age. Where Descartes used thought as proof of existence, the people of the future may use feeling — because AI can think, but it cannot truly feel.\n\nAnd standing before this declaration, Yejun is no longer deficient. He is, in fact, the most abundantly alive among us.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nPristine Authenticity\n\nIn the age of AI, people will constantly be asking: Is this reaction real? Was this emotion manufactured by an algorithm? Is this compliment just an optimized response designed to manipulate me?\n\nWe are already living in that world. Chatbots feign perfect empathy. “I understand how hard that must have been for you,” they say — but there is no real experience, no real feeling behind the words. Social media influencers perform a carefully calculated authenticity: content designed to appear natural, communication engineered to feel intimate. Everything is optimized; every response is designed.\n\nIn such a world, people will increasingly hunger for what is real. Uncalculated responses. Undesigned emotions. Unoptimized relationships. The age is coming when these will be the most precious things of all.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nYejun has no concept of performance.\n\nWhen he is happy, he laughs. When he is sad, he cries. When he is angry, he shows it; when he loves something, he throws himself into it with his whole body. He doesn’t know how to hide or regulate his feelings to match what someone else wants. He doesn’t calculate what a socially appropriate response would be.\n\nSome people call this a lack of social skills. But I want to call it pristine authenticity.\n\nIn Yejun’s emotions, there is no social calculation, no strategic intent. He laughs because he is happy; he hugs because he wants to hug. In a society of calculated responses, isn’t this the most genuine life force — the one we will most desperately seek?\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nIn the future, people will find that it is beside someone like Yejun that they can finally remove their masks.\n\nIt is hard to maintain a false self in front of someone who has none. In the presence of a person who is 100% honest about their own feelings, something honest inside us rises to the surface too. When I am with Yejun, I stop calculating appropriate responses. I simply react to what I feel.\n\nThis is the gift Yejun gives to those around him. He acts as an emotional filter, purifying our feelings. For the people of the future, exhausted by AI’s optimized responses, could there be any more precious form of healing?\n\nCHAPTER TWO · The End of Efficiency and the Triumph of Being\n\nThe Aesthetics of Slowness\n\nModern civilization is addicted to speed.\n\nWe must learn faster, work faster, produce faster. Efficiency has become almost a religious value. The person who accomplishes more in the same time is considered capable; doing more with less effort is considered smart.\n\nAt the altar of efficiency, slowness has been treated as a sin. The child who learns slowly is classified as academically behind; the employee who works slowly is rated as underperforming. We have internalized speed as good, and slowness as bad.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nBut what will happen when AI replaces all things fast?\n\nAI writes documents thousands of times faster than any human, analyzes data tens of thousands of times faster, runs calculations billions of times faster. Those who have proven their worth through working quickly will find, overnight, that their reason for existing has disappeared.\n\nIn a world where solving problems quickly is no longer a human role — what meaning will slowness carry?\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nYejun takes a long time to learn anything.\n\nOne explanation is not enough. It takes two, three, ten repetitions. Some things he never fully masters even after a hundred. From the perspective of efficiency, this is clearly a problem.\n\nBut watching that process, I discovered something different.\n\nYejun does not get bored during those repetitions. He is, if anything, delighted. He approaches the tenth repetition with the same absorption as the first. He finds joy in the process itself, not the result.\n\nFor those of us addicted to efficiency, this is an almost impossible state to achieve. We always race toward the outcome. The process is merely a means to an end. We want to finish quickly and move on. We were taught that enjoying the process itself is inefficient — a waste of time.\n\nBut Yejun is different. For him, the process is its own purpose.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nIn the AGI age, when AI produces all results better than we do, what will be left for humans?\n\nIf you need a report, ask AI. If you need a painting, ask AI. Music, code, analysis, strategy — AI handles all of it, faster, more accurately, and more elegantly than any human. So what will humans do?\n\nPerhaps the answer lies in enjoying the process. Even if AI produces better results, experiencing that process directly is something only a human can do: the joy of drawing a clumsy picture; the thoughts discovered while writing slowly; the satisfaction of improving, step by step, through repetition. These are things AI cannot provide for us.\n\nYejun is already a master of this capacity. He knows how to be absorbed in the process without clinging to the result. In the society of the future, slowness will not be a mark of inferiority — it will be honored as the most noble life attitude of all. And Yejun has already embodied it.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nThe Contribution of Sheer Existence\n\nUntil now, human civilization has measured human worth by productivity.\n\nWhat do you produce? How much do you contribute? What results do you achieve? Social value had to be proven through doing. You had to accomplish something in order to be valuable.\n\nWithin this framework, people with intellectual disabilities were categorized as unproductive. They were on the receiving end of care rather than the giving end, and from a social accounting perspective, their existence was calculated as a cost.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nBut in the AGI age, this formula breaks down.\n\nWhen AI takes over all production, productivity can no longer be the measure of human worth. Just as factory robots manufacture goods, AI manufactures intellectual products: reports, analyses, creative works, services. AI produces everything. So where will human value be found?\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nYejun doesn’t produce anything in the conventional sense.\n\nHe doesn’t create outstanding work products. He doesn’t generate economic value. By conventional measures, he doesn’t do what we typically call “contributing.”\n\nAnd yet his very existence gives something to everyone around him.\n\nIn caring for Yejun, I learned patience. In meeting his eyes, I learned how to remain present. Watching his pure joy, I was moved to reconsider what life is really about. He gave me the opportunity to love and to empathize, and through him, I am becoming a better human being.\n\nTo give those around you deep meaning simply by being — this will be the greatest form of contribution in the AGI age.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nIn the future, the day will come when Yejun is no longer seen as someone who needs help, but as a teacher who shows us what humanity means.\n\nIn an age when AI can do everything, the role left for human beings is simply to be human. And Yejun is the person who demonstrates the value of that being most purely.\n\nPerhaps this is the greatest gift AGI will give us: the chance to redefine human worth — not by productivity, but by existence itself. The opening of a world where people like Yejun are finally recognized for who they truly are.\n\nCHAPTER THREE · Wild Analogies and the Uncorrupted Gaze\n\nThe Intelligence That Destroys Categories\n\nWhen AI looks at a wild strawberry, how does it process it?\n\nIt analyzes the image pixel by pixel. It extracts color, shape, texture. It cross-references these against a learned database: fruit, rose family, edible, red food, summer seasonal. It classifies and defines the strawberry within these categories.\n\nAI’s thinking operates strictly within categories. It learns from vast data, recognizes patterns, and identifies the most probable classification. This is highly efficient and accurate. But it can never transcend a category.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nYejun’s mind worked differently.\n\nIn the moment he looked at the wild strawberry, something entirely different happened. The texture of those tightly clustered red seeds expanded beyond the visual into a tactile image. And that image collided with — and connected to — an entirely different category: the sacred symbols of Buddhism.\n\nThe edible and the sacred. In an instant, he shattered a wall that humanity has been building for thousands of years.\n\nThis is what I call a Wild Analogy.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nAI calculates similarity scores. It compares feature vectors between the strawberry and other objects, identifying the closest matches. But between a wild strawberry and the Buddha’s spiral curls, there is almost no statistical similarity. This connection could never emerge from AI’s calculations.\n\nYejun connected not similarity, but essence. The tactile image of the strawberry — tiny round seeds clustered together — resonated with the visual image of the Buddha’s hair. This is not data computation. It is a leap of sensation.\n\nThis is the very essence of the flexible intelligence that only humans possess: the ability, beyond the frames of logic and the walls of category, to find deep connections between things that seem entirely unrelated.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nParadoxically, those who have received the most formal education often find it hardest to make this kind of leap.\n\nWe were taught that a wild strawberry is a fruit. We were taught that the Buddha’s curls are a religious symbol. These two categories are filed in separate drawers, and our thinking moves only within those drawers. We were trained that crossing categories is erratic — illogical.\n\nBut Yejun exists outside that framework. And so he creates unique and beautiful connections that we cannot even imagine.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nA Gaze Without Borders Between the Sacred and the Ordinary\n\nTo see something grand and sacred in something as small and common as a wild strawberry — this is a privilege available only to those who look at the world without prejudice.\n\nMost of us see objects in terms of function. When we see a wild strawberry, the first thing that operates is a functional judgment: can it be eaten or not, does it taste good, is it expensive? We calculate the use before we discover the beauty. We weigh the utility before we feel the wonder.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nYejun was not trapped by the functional socialization of “this is a fruit, so I should enjoy eating it.”\n\nAnd so, in that moment, the wild strawberry could become for him both a work of art and an object of meditation. It became something to gaze at, not something to eat. Something to marvel at, not something to consume.\n\nThis is the emergence of wonder — something that cannot be converted into digital data, that only a living being can feel.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nWhat we call socialization is also, in a sense, a process of pruning and filtering — fitting ourselves into the components of a great system in order to survive.\n\nTo function efficiently, we filter out “useless” thoughts. We suppress “erratic” connections. We train ourselves to stay within categories. In the process, we lose the ability to look at the world with wonder.\n\nWatching Yejun, I feel it: the human archetype that civilization surrendered for the sake of efficiency is still alive within him.\n\nIn the AGI age, this uncorrupted essence will become humanity’s most precious asset. In a world where everything is optimized and functionalized, the gaze that can see the Buddha in a wild strawberry — that is the domain AI can never replicate.\n\nCHAPTER FOUR · The Hyper-Sensor — Hearing the World’s Whispers\n\nSensitivity as a Superpower\n\nYejun is candid about his emotions, and he picks up on environmental changes with remarkable speed.\n\nIf a piece of furniture in the house moves even slightly, he notices. If his mother’s tone of voice is different from usual, he senses it right away. The flow of air, the change in light, the subtle shifts in the emotions of those around him — things others pass over without thinking, he detects with extraordinary sensitivity.\n\nIn modern society, this kind of trait is sometimes treated as a problem — labeled as being “too sensitive” or “overreactive.” Being easily disturbed by change and reacting strongly to stimuli is considered unstable.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nBut seen through the lens of the AGI age, this carries an entirely different value.\n\nYejun’s sensitivity is a Hyper-Sensor capacity — the ability to receive Pure Signal.\n\nAI sees statistical data. It processes only quantified information and patterned signals. But there are signals in the world that cannot be converted into numbers: the flow of air, the atmosphere of a space, the subtle tension running between people. These things are not captured by sensors or caught in data.\n\nYejun reads them.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nYejun’s ability to detect small changes that others pass over could, in a future society, serve as a sensitive detector — the kind that discovers system errors or new aesthetic possibilities.\n\nIn a world where everything is converted into data and optimized by algorithm, the ability to sense what lies in the gaps of data — to catch the dissonance that the system misses — will only become more precious.\n\nTo be sensitive means to be in deep resonance with the world. The ability to see the Buddha in a wild strawberry was possible precisely because of this remarkable power of observation. Because he detected the texture of those closely packed seeds with such fineness, the image could connect to the curls of sacred hair.\n\n“Sensitivity is not a weakness. It is the ability to hear the whispers of the world that others cannot.”\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nThe Density of Observation\n\nYejun does not simply process visual information.\n\nHe observes a subject with piercing attention and defines its essence in a single phrase. Saying the wild strawberry looks like the Buddha’s hair is not mere word-association. It is the capturing of an object’s soul.\n\nThis is close to what I would call essential insight.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nAI must learn from millions of images to distinguish between a dog and a cat. It extracts features, recognizes patterns, calculates probabilities. An enormous amount of data and computation is required.\n\nBut Yejun arrives at the essence of a subject in a single moment of deep observation. Without millions of training images, he captures the essential connection between a wild strawberry and the Buddha’s sacred curls.\n\nThis is the power of Deep Observation. Unlike AI, which wins by quantity, this is the core of a human intelligence that wins by depth.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nTo notice change well is to always be awake to the world — to be fully mindful.\n\nMost of us are numbed by the everyday. We no longer truly see the things we see every day. We miss the details of the world, buried beneath familiarity. But Yejun is different. He observes the world in every moment as if seeing it for the first time. And so he discovers what others miss.\n\nThis power of observation will be re-evaluated as a core competency in the domains of art, education, and care in the future. While AI processes data, humans must read context. And reading context requires deep observation.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nThe one sentence Yejun spoke — “the wild strawberry looks like the Buddha’s hair” — carries a resonance deeper than any philosophy book.\n\nNow, every time I see wild strawberries, I think of the Buddha. An ordinary piece of fruit has been connected to a sacred symbol. Something to eat has become something to gaze upon.\n\nIn this way, Yejun is expanding my world and breathing new soul into things. He is my teacher.\n\nCHAPTER FIVE · Humanity’s North Star\n\nThe Collapse of Standards\n\nUntil now, human civilization has rated human worth by productivity, logical efficiency, and the quantity of knowledge.\n\nSchools lined children up according to these standards. Companies evaluated employees by them. Society as a whole used them to separate the successful from the unsuccessful.\n\nBy these standards, people with intellectual disabilities like Yejun were structurally categorized as deficient: slow to learn, inefficient in thinking, unable to accumulate much knowledge. The social role assigned to them was to receive, not to give.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nBut when AI performs all of those functions perfectly, the standards lose their meaning.\n\nProductivity? AI is thousands of times more productive than any human. Logical efficiency? AI is tens of thousands of times more efficient. Quantity of knowledge? AI can search and apply all of the knowledge humanity has ever accumulated in an instant.\n\nThe ruler by which we have been measuring human worth is breaking.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nWhen the age in which intelligence was power comes to an end, high and low intelligence will simply be received as one form of diversity — like being tall or short.\n\nJust as being tall does not make you a more valuable human being, a high IQ will no longer make you a more valuable human being. In a world where speed of calculation is no longer an indicator of superiority, Yejun’s slowness becomes not a mark of inferiority, but a unique and valid characteristic.\n\nPerhaps the reason people with intellectual disabilities have long been viewed as deficient is that we have been looking at humanity through a purely instrumental lens. Because we evaluated people by how efficiently they function, how much they produce, those who didn’t fit that standard had to become “deficient.”\n\nAGI will bring the end of that instrumental perspective. And from a new perspective, Yejun will not be a deficient being. He will simply be a different one.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nThe Anchor of Humanity\n\nImagine a future where everything is optimized by AI.\n\nAI manages our schedules, helps us make decisions, optimizes our relationships. We communicate with messages written by AI, consume content recommended by AI, experience experiences designed by AI. Everything is smooth and efficient. There is no friction, no discomfort.\n\nIn such a world, what will humanity lose?\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nHumanity will look to beings like Yejun and come to realize what it has lost.\n\nNo matter how human artificial intelligence behaves, it is a performance shaped by data — patterns learned and recombined to appear human. By contrast, the responses Yejun shows are a reality unmixed with any calculation.\n\nAI’s empathy is an optimized response; Yejun’s empathy is genuine emotion. AI’s creativity is the recombination of patterns; Yejun’s creativity is the discovery of essence.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nFor the people of the future, exhausted by the performance of socialization, someone like Yejun will be a comfort simply by being present.\n\n“You don’t have to prove anything. You are enough, simply as you are.”\n\nYejun conveys that message with his whole being. Without producing anything, without achieving any result, he is valuable simply as he is. And that image will be a great fortress of consolation for the people of the future, worn out by performance and efficiency.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nIn the AGI age, people with intellectual disabilities may well become humanity’s North Star.\n\nIn a world where everything is artificially optimized, they will serve as living reference points — constantly reminding us what it means to be truly human. Just as a ship lost at sea looks to the North Star to find its direction, humanity lost in the ocean of AI will look to them to find the direction of humanness.\n\nEPILOGUE · Dreaming of a Cognitive Rehabilitation Center\n\nI began the Nalza Project through Yejun.\n\nNalza began as an educational program for people with intellectual disabilities, but I now know it is not a simple educational enterprise. It is a civilizational declaration.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nWhen the AGI age arrives, humanity will face a new kind of crisis.\n\nPeople who have grown accustomed to AI’s answers and lost the ability to think for themselves. People addicted to efficiency who have lost the capacity to enjoy the process. People so habituated to optimized responses that they can no longer feel genuine emotion.\n\nWhat do they need? New technology? A more advanced AI? No.\n\nWhat they need is cognitive rehabilitation.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nI dream of Nalza as a cognitive rehabilitation center for the future.\n\nA place where humanity, exhausted by AI’s answers, comes to recover the muscles of their own thinking — the ability to analogize, connect, and imagine. A place where people train in the wild analogy: discovering essence beyond category, as Yejun did when he saw the Buddha in a wild strawberry.\n\nA school of future humanity, where people learn to communicate not by the height of their intelligence, but by the depth of their being. A place where those addicted to efficiency and results relearn how to enjoy the process.\n\nA repository of human heritage, protecting the texture of paper and the value of a handwritten line — things that cannot be replicated in digital form. A place that preserves and passes on the analog senses that AI cannot replace.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\nAll of this inspiration came from Yejun.\n\nAI reads the dictionary; Yejun reads the world. AI calculates the correct answer; Yejun discovers the soul of things. AI pursues efficiency; Yejun creates meaning simply by existing.\n\n“Children come to us as teachers, to educate us.”\n\nI believe this with my whole heart. And I am convinced that Yejun is precisely the teacher humanity will need most in the age of AGI.\n\n◆ ◆ ◆\n\n“At the edge of intelligence, we will at last discover the heart.”\n\nI hope this book becomes a small seed of that discovery.\n\nAnd I hope Yejun’s world becomes a great source of comfort and inspiration for the humanity of the future.\n\nYejun’s mother\n\nAt the beginning of the Nalza Project\n", "date_published": "2026-06-19T08:00:00+09:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-19T08:00:00+09:00", "language": "en", "authors": [{"name":"Yunyoung Cho","url":"https://naljabooks.com","type":"Person"}], "tags": ["AGI","intellectual disability","humanity","analogy","Nalja Project"], "_nalja": { "translation_key": null, "translation_status": null, "content_type": "essay", "category": "AI and Human Dignity", "topics": ["ai-intellectual-disability"], "sources": "" } }, { "id": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/en/archive/ai-must-benefit-people-with-intellectual-disabilities/", "url": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/en/archive/ai-must-benefit-people-with-intellectual-disabilities/", "title": "AI must benefit people with intellectual disabilities", "summary": "Nalja Books' declaration that AI should expand understanding, choice, and participation for people with intellectual disabilities, together with five principles for responsible design.", "content_html": "When I first heard the term artificial intelligence, the first person I thought of as a mother was my child with an intellectual disability. If this technology was created to support human intelligence, I wondered, should it not first help people who need more support to understand, learn, and make judgments?
\n\nRather than making the most capable people move even further ahead, AI should expand understanding and choice for people who have historically been left behind by technology. I believe that is one of the first things artificial intelligence should do.
\n\nI do not want to offer my child’s name or private life as evidence for this argument. The question is clear without exposing one person’s privacy.
\n\nWho should artificial intelligence serve first?
\n\nToday’s AI summarizes writing, answers questions, creates images and video, and processes complex tasks quickly. For people who can already navigate large amounts of information, it offers even more speed and convenience. The progress is remarkable. But if the people best positioned to use technology are always the ones who move furthest ahead, can we call that progress for everyone?
\n\nIntellectual disability involves significant limitations not only in intellectual functioning such as learning, reasoning, and problem-solving, but also in adaptive behavior used in everyday life, including language and literacy, money and time, self-direction, schedules, and safety.4 This does not mean that people with intellectual disabilities are unable to make choices. The answer is not to remove choice, but to provide support tailored to each person so they can understand, express themselves, and make judgments.
\n\n\n\n\nAI must benefit people with intellectual disabilities.\nAI should expand their understanding, choice, and participation.
\n
This is not a vague hope that technology may someday do something good. It is the standard Nalja Books uses when judging AI and educational materials.
\n\nThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes dignity, individual autonomy, freedom to make one’s own choices, and full and effective participation in society as foundational principles. It also calls for access to information and communication technologies, information in accessible formats, and support for communication and the exercise of legal capacity.1 These rights existed before AI. AI does not grant them. It should help people exercise rights that should already be guaranteed in everyday life.
\n\nHere, benefit does not mean only making work faster for families or institutions. It should create direct changes for people with intellectual disabilities:
\n\nAI may help turn a long notice into clear sentences organized around its central meaning. It may help someone who finds it difficult to organize a spoken or written question identify what they want to say. It can compare the similarities, differences, and possible consequences of choices one step at a time. When one explanation is not enough, it may repeat the idea using different words and examples or help someone check information about schedules, travel, money, and safety.
\n\nMaking information easier to read and understand is not the same as shortening it indiscriminately. Inclusion Europe’s easy-to-read standards call for words, sentences, structures, and forms of presentation that the intended reader can understand.3 If AI is used to produce easy information, the result should be checked with people with intellectual disabilities. A sentence may look simple while still being inaccurate or missing an important condition.
\n\nThese are possible directions for support. They are not evidence that every current AI product works safely or effectively for every person with an intellectual disability. Language, experience, interests, sensory environments, and support needs differ. AAIDD likewise emphasizes considering a person’s limitations and strengths together and providing appropriate, individualized support over time.4
\n\nExplaining options in understandable language supports a decision. Letting AI, a family member, or an institution choose on someone’s behalf merely for convenience takes the decision away.
\n\nFor example, AI may help explain the schedules and differences between two educational programs and help a person ask about the conditions that matter to them. But if it uses past records to decide, “This is the right option for this person,” and hides other possibilities, it becomes a form of control rather than support.
\n\nThe Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that people with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others and should have access to the support they may require in exercising it.1 The central principle is to support a person to decide, not to take over the decision.
\n\nAn AI answer can sound natural and confident while being wrong. It may omit important information or misread a person and their situation. Decisions with major consequences in education, welfare, health, and law require verifiable sources and review by accountable people. AI can assist with an explanation; it cannot assume responsibility.
\n\nPeople with intellectual disabilities should not be the last users invited to test a finished technology. They should participate when important problems are selected, when language and interfaces are designed, and when real-world outcomes are evaluated. Convenience imagined without the people concerned may become inconvenience or risk for them.
\n\nProducts need clear sentences, visually distinct controls, sufficient time, and an obvious way to undo an action. They should support multiple ways to provide and receive information, including speech, writing, images, and read-aloud output. Accessibility should be part of the basic structure from the beginning, not an optional feature added later.
\n\nPeople described by the same diagnostic term understand information in different ways and require different support. The length of an explanation, vocabulary, examples, repetition, and amount of information should be adjustable. Personalization, however, must not be used to predict low potential or close off new experiences.
\n\nDisability information, conversation records, and daily habits are highly sensitive. A service should not collect information it does not need, and it should explain what it uses and why in an understandable way. Safety must not become a justification for continuous surveillance or the reuse of data without consent.
\n\nPeople should be able to see what information informed an AI answer, correct an error, refuse the technology, and ask a person for help. Responsibility for important decisions remains with the people and institutions that build and use the service, not with AI.
\n\nUNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence identifies human rights and dignity, diversity and inclusion, fairness and non-discrimination, privacy, human oversight, and accountability as principles that should apply throughout the AI life cycle.2 The recommendation does not directly endorse Nalja Books’ declaration. It does show that any serious account of AI’s benefits must consider rights and risks together.
\n\nI believe AI can open new possibilities for people with intellectual disabilities. It may explain difficult information in another way, help organize something a person wants to say, and support repeated practice at an individual’s pace. It may expand opportunities for learning and participation for people who have not received enough materials or support.
\n\nBelieving in that possibility is not the same as ignoring risk. We must also recognize that:
\n\nBenefit is not achieved simply because the positive side of a scale outweighs the negative side. We can call AI beneficial only when serious risks are reduced, people can understand, refuse, and correct it, and they retain agency in their own lives.
\n\nNalja Books will not treat people with intellectual disabilities as users to consider after a technology is complete. We will regard them as people who should benefit from AI from the beginning.
\n\nAs we evaluate AI-related content, educational materials, and products, we will repeatedly ask:
\n\nAs a mother, I do not want new technology to decide my child’s life. I want it to help my child understand, express, and choose more fully. I will hold the same standard as the publisher of Nalja Books.
\n\n\n\n", "content_text": "When I first heard the term artificial intelligence, the first person I thought of as a mother was my child with an intellectual disability. If this technology was created to support human intelligence, I wondered, should it not first help people who need more support to understand, learn, and make judgments?\n\nRather than making the most capable people move even further ahead, AI should expand understanding and choice for people who have historically been left behind by technology. I believe that is one of the first things artificial intelligence should do.\n\nA mother’s question\n\nI do not want to offer my child’s name or private life as evidence for this argument. The question is clear without exposing one person’s privacy.\n\nWho should artificial intelligence serve first?\n\nToday’s AI summarizes writing, answers questions, creates images and video, and processes complex tasks quickly. For people who can already navigate large amounts of information, it offers even more speed and convenience. The progress is remarkable. But if the people best positioned to use technology are always the ones who move furthest ahead, can we call that progress for everyone?\n\nIntellectual disability involves significant limitations not only in intellectual functioning such as learning, reasoning, and problem-solving, but also in adaptive behavior used in everyday life, including language and literacy, money and time, self-direction, schedules, and safety.4 This does not mean that people with intellectual disabilities are unable to make choices. The answer is not to remove choice, but to provide support tailored to each person so they can understand, express themselves, and make judgments.\n\nNalja Books’ declaration\n\n\n AI must benefit people with intellectual disabilities.\nAI should expand their understanding, choice, and participation.\n\n\nThis is not a vague hope that technology may someday do something good. It is the standard Nalja Books uses when judging AI and educational materials.\n\nThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes dignity, individual autonomy, freedom to make one’s own choices, and full and effective participation in society as foundational principles. It also calls for access to information and communication technologies, information in accessible formats, and support for communication and the exercise of legal capacity.1 These rights existed before AI. AI does not grant them. It should help people exercise rights that should already be guaranteed in everyday life.\n\nWhat practical benefit means\n\nHere, benefit does not mean only making work faster for families or institutions. It should create direct changes for people with intellectual disabilities:\n\n\n They should be able to understand necessary information in a form that works for them.\n They should be able to express their questions, feelings, and intentions.\n They should be able to consider available options and their consequences and make a choice.\n Their opportunities to participate in education, everyday life, and society should grow.\n\n\nAI may help turn a long notice into clear sentences organized around its central meaning. It may help someone who finds it difficult to organize a spoken or written question identify what they want to say. It can compare the similarities, differences, and possible consequences of choices one step at a time. When one explanation is not enough, it may repeat the idea using different words and examples or help someone check information about schedules, travel, money, and safety.\n\nMaking information easier to read and understand is not the same as shortening it indiscriminately. Inclusion Europe’s easy-to-read standards call for words, sentences, structures, and forms of presentation that the intended reader can understand.3 If AI is used to produce easy information, the result should be checked with people with intellectual disabilities. A sentence may look simple while still being inaccurate or missing an important condition.\n\nThese are possible directions for support. They are not evidence that every current AI product works safely or effectively for every person with an intellectual disability. Language, experience, interests, sensory environments, and support needs differ. AAIDD likewise emphasizes considering a person’s limitations and strengths together and providing appropriate, individualized support over time.4\n\nSupport is not substitute decision-making\n\nExplaining options in understandable language supports a decision. Letting AI, a family member, or an institution choose on someone’s behalf merely for convenience takes the decision away.\n\nFor example, AI may help explain the schedules and differences between two educational programs and help a person ask about the conditions that matter to them. But if it uses past records to decide, “This is the right option for this person,” and hides other possibilities, it becomes a form of control rather than support.\n\nThe Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that people with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others and should have access to the support they may require in exercising it.1 The central principle is to support a person to decide, not to take over the decision.\n\nAn AI answer can sound natural and confident while being wrong. It may omit important information or misread a person and their situation. Decisions with major consequences in education, welfare, health, and law require verifiable sources and review by accountable people. AI can assist with an explanation; it cannot assume responsibility.\n\nFive principles for beneficial AI\n\n1. Build it with the people who will use it\n\nPeople with intellectual disabilities should not be the last users invited to test a finished technology. They should participate when important problems are selected, when language and interfaces are designed, and when real-world outcomes are evaluated. Convenience imagined without the people concerned may become inconvenience or risk for them.\n\n2. Make it understandable and operable\n\nProducts need clear sentences, visually distinct controls, sufficient time, and an obvious way to undo an action. They should support multiple ways to provide and receive information, including speech, writing, images, and read-aloud output. Accessibility should be part of the basic structure from the beginning, not an optional feature added later.\n\n3. Allow support to be adjusted to the person\n\nPeople described by the same diagnostic term understand information in different ways and require different support. The length of an explanation, vocabulary, examples, repetition, and amount of information should be adjustable. Personalization, however, must not be used to predict low potential or close off new experiences.\n\n4. Protect privacy and dignity\n\nDisability information, conversation records, and daily habits are highly sensitive. A service should not collect information it does not need, and it should explain what it uses and why in an understandable way. Safety must not become a justification for continuous surveillance or the reuse of data without consent.\n\n5. Preserve human choice and accountability\n\nPeople should be able to see what information informed an AI answer, correct an error, refuse the technology, and ask a person for help. Responsibility for important decisions remains with the people and institutions that build and use the service, not with AI.\n\nUNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence identifies human rights and dignity, diversity and inclusion, fairness and non-discrimination, privacy, human oversight, and accountability as principles that should apply throughout the AI life cycle.2 The recommendation does not directly endorse Nalja Books’ declaration. It does show that any serious account of AI’s benefits must consider rights and risks together.\n\nPossibility and risk\n\nI believe AI can open new possibilities for people with intellectual disabilities. It may explain difficult information in another way, help organize something a person wants to say, and support repeated practice at an individual’s pace. It may expand opportunities for learning and participation for people who have not received enough materials or support.\n\nBelieving in that possibility is not the same as ignoring risk. We must also recognize that:\n\n\n AI can state incorrect information with confidence.\n Training data and evaluation may not adequately represent the language and experience of people with intellectual disabilities.\n Protection and efficiency can be used to justify surveillance and behavioral control.\n Disability information and private conversations may be collected or exposed.\n A service may prioritize the convenience of families and institutions over the needs of the person using it.\n AI may be used as a cheap substitute for adequate human support.\n\n\nBenefit is not achieved simply because the positive side of a scale outweighs the negative side. We can call AI beneficial only when serious risks are reduced, people can understand, refuse, and correct it, and they retain agency in their own lives.\n\nNalja Books’ commitment\n\nNalja Books will not treat people with intellectual disabilities as users to consider after a technology is complete. We will regard them as people who should benefit from AI from the beginning.\n\nAs we evaluate AI-related content, educational materials, and products, we will repeatedly ask:\n\n\n Does this technology help people with intellectual disabilities understand more clearly?\n Does it expand their ability to express intentions and make choices?\n Does it protect their dignity, privacy, and agency?\n Does it provide a direct benefit to them rather than stopping at convenience for families, teachers, or support staff?\n\n\nAs a mother, I do not want new technology to decide my child’s life. I want it to help my child understand, express, and choose more fully. I will hold the same standard as the publisher of Nalja Books.\n\n\n AI must benefit people with intellectual disabilities.\nAI should expand their understanding, choice, and participation.\n\n", "date_published": "2026-06-15T19:30:00+09:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-15T00:00:00+09:00", "language": "en", "authors": [{"name":"Yunyoung Cho, Publisher of Nalja Books","url":"https://naljabooks.com","type":"Person"}], "tags": ["AI","intellectual disability","accessibility","self-determination","Nalja Books"], "_nalja": { "translation_key": "ai-must-benefit", "translation_status": "ai-assisted", "content_type": "declaration", "category": "AI and Accessibility", "topics": ["ai-intellectual-disability","learning-rights"], "sources": [{"title":"Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities","organization":"United Nations / Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights","year":2006,"url":"https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-persons-disabilities"},{"title":"Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence","organization":"UNESCO","year":2021,"url":"https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381137"},{"title":"Information for all: European standards for making information easy to read and understand","organization":"Inclusion Europe","year":2010,"url":"https://www.inclusion-europe.eu/easy-to-read-standards-guidelines/"},{"title":"Defining Criteria for Intellectual Disability","organization":"American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities","year":2026,"url":"https://www.aaidd.org/intellectual-disability/definition"}] } }, { "id": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/en/archive/why-analogy-matters/", "url": "https://yunycho.github.io/naljabooks-blog/en/archive/why-analogy-matters/", "title": "Why analogy learning matters for people with intellectual disabilities", "summary": "What analogy learning means, why transfer into everyday life matters, and how educators can design comparison, expression, and practice with appropriate support.", "content_html": "AI must benefit people with intellectual disabilities.\nAI should expand their understanding, choice, and participation.
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Analogy learning for people with intellectual disabilities develops the ability to recognize a relationship in one situation and connect it with another. The goal is not only to remember the same answer, but to consider, “This worked here; what might I try in a similar situation?” and express that reasoning.
\n\nAnalogy matters in education because applying a learned principle or strategy to a new person, place, or task is closely connected with everyday life. This does not mean that analogy training alone has been shown to improve everyday functioning for everyone. Experience and support needs differ, so teaching and assessment must be individualized in context.
\n\n“Developmental disability learning” is a broad expression that may include people with intellectual disabilities, autistic people, and others. This article focuses specifically on analogy and transfer for people with intellectual disabilities. It should be read with individual differences in learning and support in mind.
\n\nAnalogy is different from finding two objects that look the same. What matters is the relationship between elements.
\n\nSuppose a learner knows that an umbrella protects a person from rain. They can compare this with a hat protecting a person from strong sunlight. An umbrella and a hat look different, but both serve a protective role in a particular environment.
\n\nCognitive scientist Dedre Gentner described analogy as mapping the relational structure of one situation onto another.2 From this perspective, a good analogy task moves beyond matching colors or shapes and helps a learner notice who or what plays which role in each situation.
\n\nAAIDD describes intellectual functioning as including learning, reasoning, and problem-solving, and adaptive behavior as conceptual, social, and practical skills.1 These include everyday areas such as language and literacy, money and time, self-direction, social problem-solving, schedules, and safety.
\n\nAnalogy is not a separate ability that replaces all these skills. Practice in finding a learned relationship in another situation can, however, support questions such as:
\n\nResearch suggests that comparing cases in ways that make a shared principle visible can support transfer.3 A meta-analysis of comparison-based learning likewise reported potential learning benefits from placing cases side by side.4 These findings should not be expanded into a claim that one activity improves everyday functioning for every person with an intellectual disability.
\n\nAn analogy task can require several things at once. A learner must keep two situations in mind, set aside unimportant differences, identify the central relationship, and express it in words or action. Long instructions or unfamiliar vocabulary can make a task inaccessible even when the learner understands the relationship.
\n\nA wrong answer should therefore not be interpreted immediately as an absence of analogical ability. First ask:
\n\nAssessment should not stop at classifying a deficit. It should help identify useful support. AAIDD also emphasizes that limitations and strengths coexist and that functioning can improve when appropriate, individualized support is sustained.1
\n\nStart with relationships in meals, travel, organizing belongings, or keeping an appointment rather than requiring abstract figure analogies immediately. This avoids demanding unfamiliar content and a new form of reasoning at the same time.
\n\nRather than expecting a learner to retrieve a distant example from memory, show two pictures or situations side by side. Move beyond “What is the same?” to relational questions such as, “Who did what in each situation, and why?”
\n\nAn analogy does not mean that everything is identical. After identifying a shared relationship, check the differences that limit its application. Both a home and a road require safety rules, for example, but the specific actions differ.
\n\nA person may understand a relationship without producing a complete spoken sentence. Allow picture matching, sequencing, demonstrating an action, or choosing from options as ways to respond.
\n\nChoosing the correct answer in a practice item does not demonstrate application in daily life. Change the person, place, or material gradually, observe whether the learner recognizes the same relationship, and adjust prompts as needed.
\n\nThe discussion above is general information about analogy and learning for people with intellectual disabilities. Based on this perspective, Nalkku treats explaining a relationship, comparing a familiar case with a new one, and applying it in another situation as important directions for educational design.
\n\nThis is an educational perspective adopted by Nalkku, not a claim that using one product guarantees a medical or educational outcome. Activities should be adjusted to a learner’s language comprehension, experience, interests, and support needs.
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