Where is our AI command center?

The government and private sector must set up an
AI command center.

Kim Ju-hoThe author is a professor at the School of Computing at KAIST. Korea has no foundational model for artificial intelligence, falling behind the United Arab Emirates and Egypt on the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence’s “AI Index 2024” report. Amid voices of skepticism about Korea’s AI capabilities, the Ministry of Science and ICT, as well as some experts, have raised questions about the validity of the report’s data and research.

Where does Korea stand in the global AI race, the heat of which is spilling beyond technology to the realms of the market, capital and governments. OpenAI and rival Anthropic have drawn billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft and Google, who are spending astronomically on AI. Multinationals like Meta, as well as regional powers like Mistral AI of France and Korean conglomerates Naver, LG, and KT are tapping international waters with their AI inventions. Korean companies and universities, smaller in both financial and human capital, are running with a disadvantage. Domestic products are being questioned for their competitiveness against overseas innovation. A report on Korea’s unrecognized AI model raises doubts over the country’s prospects in the contest.

The foundational model scorecard does not bring a crisis for Korea’s AI industry. The problem is the deficiency in long-term strategy and vision to create a market through AI models and galvanize innovation across the industries. The AI ecosystem is not restricted to foundational models. In a recent report, Sequoia Capital discussed generative AI’s transition to Act II from its “coming-out” Act I, as AI’s performance and value will now be evaluated by real-world applications and results. Models merely form the nuts and bolts. Their actual performance depends on an array of training and distributing powers of chips and clouds, the technologies to gather, refine and combine quality data and the novelty experience of human-machine collaboration and applications. They also demand regulatory policies and laws to ensure their safety and credibility.

Where can Korea excel in the AI hierarchy? Believe it or not, the country has prowess in all of the necessary technologies behind AI. The key is to leverage and maximize all-around capability. AI could soon cause seismic socio-economic repercussions. We must draw up a strategy and action plan to accelerate the technology’s uptake. Players must be able to release AI for novel user experiences with speed and at scale. The government must back them with continued investment in a human capital pool for research, development and collaborative networks within the ecosystem.

We must proactively publicize our AI breakthroughs instead of correcting errors in reports from the outside. When new innovations are disclosed through social media, publications and technology blogs, they can spread through the platforms of developers and become verified for benchmarks or applications. We cannot command primacy merely through our number of publications and patents. Companies must host events for global developers, academic conferences and technology lectures to expand their global presence. Universities must promote impactful research and literature to set new direction for technology and pursue “moonshot” projects that challenge our thoughts in order to communicate with the world. The government must disclose and publicize innovative AI policy, AI vision and insightful publications in English.

We have neglected such activities due to a deficiency of incentives. Research must be anchored in incentive-motivated long-term innovations rather than immediate results. The outmoded measurement of success where research subsidies are cut when the quotas for publications and patents are not met should be fundamentally overhauled. We will fall behind the competition if we stick to old rules on this entirely new playing field. We need effective leadership to draw the AI map from the scratch. The government and private sector must set up an AI command center to exercise leadership for global supremacy.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.