Brian MacMurray, President of General Motors Korea R&D Center: The Core Issue with AI Is Not Intelligence but Control
Speaking at the FIX2026 forum, Brian MacMurray used a navigation app as an analogy to point out that people are unknowingly handing over decision-making power to AI. He specifically warned that the 'auto-approve' feature of AI agents is distancing users from the decision-making process, arguing that who sets the direction and whether results are accepted must be judged by humans.
If a stranger told you, 'Follow me, I'll take you where you want to go,' most people would refuse. But when getting into a car and opening KakaoMap or Naver Map, people follow the navigation almost without thinking. Brian MacMurray, President of General Motors Korea R&D Center (GMTCK), used this analogy at the FIX2026 forum held in Daegu, South Korea, on October 21, 2026, to illustrate: 'Unknowingly, we have handed control over to a strange entity.'
His core argument is that the real issue in the AI era is not how smart machines are, but whether humans still retain decision-making power. This judgment points to a specific risk mechanism—the 'auto-approve' function of AI agents. When AI executes tasks without asking users item by item, users are ceding approval authority. MacMurray warned: 'Pressing the auto-approve button is handing over your approval authority. If you're not careful, you might even hand over your job.'
MacMurray is not opposed to AI itself. He acknowledges that AI can improve efficiency and help make better decisions, but insists that who determines the direction and whether to accept the results must be judged by humans. 'I have already accepted the fact that AI will make me better, but I will not hand over the authority to decide which direction to go or what results from the machine to accept.'
Regarding the issue of AI hallucinations, he cited this as a reason why humans must remain in the review loop: even if AI provides results faster than humans, the role of finding errors and reconfirming cannot be abandoned. His advice is based on professional knowledge and experience: stop and check when you feel 'something is wrong'—'that is how humans take responsibility.'