When David Attenborough visited the Rwandan jungle in Africa to film mountain gorillas in 1979, there were no plans to share touch with gorillas. Surprised by the sudden encounter of the gorilla family, he lay down in the grass. After a while, my knees became heavy. Three-year-old baby gorilla 'Pablo' sat on his leg and played like a human baby. Before Attenborough, there were scholars who studied gorillas closely, but that was the first time a meeting between the two primates was captured on broadcast cameras. Attenborough looks at Pablo with an uncle-like face that treats his nephew for the first time, and his mother casually rips off the tree shoots from the side. Hundreds of millions of people watched the phenomenal encounter on the screen.

On the 8th of this month, the Financial Times (FT) published two articles on Attenborough. One is a four-tiered article that reflects the achievements of Attenborough, who turned 100, and one is an editorial titled Attenborough: The Great Conveyor of Nature. British newspapers are different in style from ours, but it is unusual by any standard to write an editorial to commemorate the birthday of a living person.

Attenborough is called a 'national treasure' by the British. Since joining the BBC in 1952, he has been active in black and white TVs until the VR era. Whether we knew it or not, it had a profound impact on Koreans. I learned this time that a significant number of "Animal Kingdom," which KBS has been airing since 1970, was covered and narrated by Attenborough (I learned most of my knowledge about Savannah by watching "Animal Kingdom" as a generation that came across his commentary through the dubbing of the late voice actor Lee Wan-ho).

Attenborough presented the wonders of nature to mankind through numerous masterpiece documentaries ranging from "Zoo Quest," "Life on Earth," and "Planet Earth" on Netflix. In recent years, it has been working to improve the climate crisis and marine plastic pollution. As a characteristic of this extraordinary centenarian, BBC colleagues cited curiosity, kindness and commitment. He also described it as a "rarely unchanging existence in a rapidly changing world."

Now, Pablo's great-grandchildren live in the Rwandan forest. In the meantime, humans have learned more about gorillas. Artificial intelligence (AI) will outperform Attenborough in its ability to quickly pour out accumulated knowledge. But there is no impression of the trust and primate homogeneity that Attenborough and Pablo had reached.

There are also people in Korea who cannot be replaced by AI even though the areas are different. Marking the 68th anniversary of Choi Bul-am's acting life, MBC's documentary aired this month is called "Paha, Choi Bul-am." Choi Bul-am explained in an interview a long time ago that his unique "paha" smile, which is small compared to the facial expression change, was "the result of being conscious of his old mother." It is said that it happened because he was concerned that only young people were talking about interesting things. The laughter produced by moderation, consideration, and personality is truly Homo sapiens-like.

Choi Bul-am is also a master of narration. Among his works, he particularly likes "The Korean Table," and I think he watched it to listen to Choi Bul-am's commentary, to be exact, his tone. Listening to that makes me feel as comfortable as listening to my family story. I haven't been able to find a channel to give my heart since he stopped broadcasting. What a constant fuss, pun, cliché.... The virtue of authenticity seems to have disappeared with Choi Bul-am.

Hopefully Attenborough and Choi Bulam will be active for a long time. I hope more people like them will come out full of curiosity, passion, and humor. Humanity is fascinated by such human qualities in any era. I'm sure it will be more so in the age of AI.

[Editor Noh Won-myung]