On Sept. 28, Google revealed that it would use its deep learning systems to offer a translation service. Deep learning refers to an artificial intelligence algorithm that was used in the historical Go game match between Lee Se-dol, a world champion of Go, and Google’s artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo.

 The Lee-AlphaGo matches last spring made us worry about whether machines would replace all human capabilities in the near future. Additionally, it posed a question to us: “If the machines do all the work we do, what are the things that only humans can do?” I asked myself this question and came to the conclusion that only human beings can “love.” Of course I know several movies showed a future in which machines were already performing similar acts of love. Nevertheless, I believe there exists a unique area of human love. This month’s Review tries to seek “love that only humans can feel” through a novel.

This month’s novel for review

This month, The Argus will look into the novel by Lee Chae-hyun, “Nobody Died for Love” (2016). This novel depicts a boy and his android robot. An interesting thing about this novel is its title. The author got the title from an expression in the poem “Photo Album.” The speaker in the poem says in the first line, “Nobody died for love.” The speaker adds that Romeo died of tuberculosis, Juliet died of diphtheria, and the people in the photo album at which the speaker was looking, died of the flu. After reading this poem, I felt that love was insignificant.

Why did the author decide that this verse should be her novel’s title? Did she try to prove that love is useless, repeating that nobody really died for love? Or did she try to claim that love is great, putting a twist on this title? If the latter is true, the title actually says that some humans died for love. I think being able to die for love could be a unique characteristic of human beings. Will my guess be right? Let us read the story and find out the answer to this question.

Did anyone die for love?

The main characters of this story are a boy named Eun-suk and a talking android robot for the elderly called Ian. Ian is the inheritance from Eun-suk’s dead grandfather and one of the models of talking android robots with the same name, Ian, that his grandfather created. The Ians are taking center stage as they are inexpensive and have a very similar appearance to humans. However, Eun-suk likes neither his grandfather nor Ian because it resembles his late mother. Gritting his teeth, he drives away in a truck with Ian, heading for his grandfather’s house. The purpose of this visit was to find his grandfather’s inheritance as Eun-suk had been fired from his job and needed money. The novel proceeds with the course of this journey.

In the truck, Ian sings a song. Ian’s song reminds Eun-suk of his dead mother who was always easily moved to tears. She had been an unmarried pop star during her life, but had retired when she became pregnant. In response to the question, “Who is your child’s father?” she stated, “Because of love.” Did Eun-suk’s mother die for love? This question floated into my mind but the answer was “No.” Eun-suk confesses that his mother died in a car accident. Like the people who have died of tuberculosis, diphtheria, and flu, she did not die for love.

Ian tells Eun-suk that his grandfather left his inheritance where life begins. Ian continues to rattle on and Eun-suk gets annoyed by the chatter and hits Ian on the chest. Ian repeats, “I love you. I love you!” and shuts its mouth by itself. Eun-suk used Ian’s behavioral pattern: if you put your hand where Ian’s heart should be, Ian says, “I love you!”

Did nobody die for love, really?

Ian’s battery is dead and Ian falls asleep. As Eun-suk visits an android store with Ian for its battery, he learns that the store is now hosting an event in which people can exchange an old version of Ian for a new android product. The event staff says to Eun-suk that the government has ordered that the old Ians must be thrown away because people have committed suicide as a result of mistaking the robots for humans. Here at this moment, I became curious. Did people die because they “loved” Ians?

As Eun-suk and charged Ian arrive at his grandfather’s house, he reads the memo, “Life begins in the heart,” and asks Ian, “How did my grandfather die?” Ian answers that his grandfather took his own life and realizes this is sad news as it looks at Eun-suk’s face. Ian knows Eun-suk bites his lips whenever he is sad. After getting a call from the government agency in charge of Ians, requesting that Eun-suk throw away his Ian, Eun-suk bites his lips again.

Eun-suk hears from Ian that his grandfather never got better whenever he became sad and Ian hugged him. It also tells that Eun-suk’s grandfather always asked it to say, “I love you” although it did not even know what love was. Afterward, Ian almost falls and Eun-suk holds Ian to keep him from falling. Ian says, “Eun-suk should not get hurt because of me. Like you said, I am just a machine.” Hearing this, Eun-suk says the following which could be an important clue regarding our main question about love and death.

“Then I thought I knew why people killed themselves. Not being paid back however much they cherish (Ians), they could not stand this.”
So did Eun-suk’s grandfather and others die because they loved their Ians? Have we finally found out who died for love?

Expected failure

After telling Eun-suk that he should not get hurt because of it, Ian says it got a special order from his grandfather: cherish Eun-suk. Eun-suk’s Ian also reveals that it was the only Ian to receive this order. Eun-suk falls asleep while listening to Ian’s lullaby. Later, when he awakes and finds Ian after its battery died, Eun-suk imagines Ian under the rain as though Ian was crying. After Eun-suk hits its chest, Ian still says, “I love you!” He hears Ian say this and Eun-suk says, “My grandfather was saying he loves me.” Then he finds a chip around Ian’s chest. This was his grandfather’s inheritance. Eun-suk thinks getting this chip has not made him happy at all although all of his grandfather’s money went into this chip. He puts the chip on Ian’s chest and Ian awakes again. Ian greets Eun-suk although all of Ian’s memories have been erased. Eun-suk says that it is no longer the machine that tried to cherish him. This is the end of the novel.

Although I finished the novel, I still could not answer the main question. So did anyone die for love or not? Eun-suk’s mother did not die for love. Eun-suk’s grandfather and people seem to have died because they loved Ians, but Eun-suk did not die even though he seemed to love his grandfather and Ian.

Love and sadness

I read the novel once more. Then I started to wonder whether my question was a far cry from the main point of this novel. As I soon realized, the question about whether somebody died for love was not that important in the whole story. Then what message did the writer want to deliver through her novel?

The writer probably thinks that sadness, more specifically, sadness for others, is the most essential element in human love. Eun-suk’s grandfather and people felt sadness because they could not be loved by Ians. Eun-suk’s mother left the phrase, “Because of love” about her child’s father. She always cried easily. Can we not guess that she expressed sadness for her unknown lover by the phrase? As for Eun-suk, he bit his lips as a habit to express his sadness when he thought about his grandfather and Ian.
This analysis also applies to Ian. Eun-suk says Ian looked like it was crying in the latter part of the story. I guess the reason for his depiction is that he regarded Ian as a human being who tried to cherish him. That is why Eun-suk later gets to know the truth that his grandfather loved him through Ian’s words, “I love you!”

Not only in this story but in real life, we often realize that when we love, we feel sad because of love. When your mother has a disease, you cry and learn how much you love your mother. When you cannot meet your lover, you feel sad.

Sadness itself does not have any power. Sadness seems to be somewhat useless since it is not able to do anything immediately. It cannot cure your mother’s disease. It also cannot bring your lover to you right away. Thus, love that is based on this uselessness cannot also deprive people of their lives, like the meaning of this novel’s title. At first, it was difficult for me to admit that human love could be trivial. However, I have now found the truth. Only humans can do something useless for their love. And this love is not the end but the starting point of human lives.

Editor of Culture Section