The government has finalized a road map for the early commercialization of homegrown self-driving AI, along with a set of artificial intelligence ethics principles aimed at building a safe AI society. The Ministry of Science and ICT (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Bae Kyung-hoon) said it held the 12th Science and Technology Ministerial Meeting in writing on the 24th and deliberated on and resolved three agenda items: the demonstration and commercialization of self-driving AI, artificial intelligence ethics principles, and the revitalization of deep-tech startups.
 [코리안투데이] Ministry of Science and ICT at the Sejong Government Complex, related to the agenda of the 12th Science and Technology Ministerial Meeting © 장형임 기자 |
The Ministry of Science and ICT held the 12th Science and Technology Ministerial Meeting in writing on the 24th, presided over by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon, and resolved a total of three agenda items. The meeting is significant in that it sought to connect rapidly spreading artificial intelligence (AI) technology to actual industrial sites and the daily lives of citizens, while at the same time establishing principles to address the accompanying issues of safety and trust.
Deputy Prime Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said, ‘The true achievement of AI competition lies not merely in developing superior technology but in realizing AI that is used in industrial fields and in the daily lives of citizens,’ adding, ‘As securing safety and trust alongside the spread of AI grows in importance, we will foster a healthy AI ecosystem in which technological innovation and responsibility are in harmony.’ He also noted, ‘The recently announced 「Seven SEED Projects」, together with the three mega-projects, are the result of our efforts to secure future growth engines,’ adding, ‘We will continue to pursue challenges and provide support so that the seeds of innovative future technologies can grow into future growth engines.’
The first agenda item, the (draft) road map for the demonstration and commercialization of self-driving AI, is a plan to achieve early commercialization by pursuing the development of self-driving AI and the commercialization of services in parallel, with the detailed content handled as non-public. Autonomous driving is a representative physical AI industry that combines automobiles and AI, and technology development and commercialization are advancing rapidly, led by the United States and China. To swiftly close the technology gap, the government plans to significantly expand the scale and regions of demonstrations that began in the demonstration city of Gwangju to secure large-scale and diverse driving data, and to use this as a basis for enhancing the performance and versatility of homegrown self-driving AI.
In particular, the government decided to establish a profit-sharing, win-win model involving the transportation industry, labor unions, self-driving companies, and platform businesses, and to foster an ecosystem in which upstream and downstream industries such as insurance, control, vehicle management, and maintenance grow together. It will also build an on-site response system for safe operation and rapid accident response at demonstration sites. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Minister Park Jung-hyuk, relevant departments), which announced the joint inter-ministerial agenda, will comprehensively promote self-driving technology development, demonstration, and legal and institutional improvements in cooperation with related ministries such as the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the National Police Agency, and will build a whole-of-government cooperative governance structure through the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee to support early commercialization.
The second agenda item, the (draft) Republic of Korea Artificial Intelligence Ethics Principles, is a voluntary norm that articulates, within the context of Korean society, the core values and principles to be considered in situations of AI-related conflict. It presents matters that providers, users, and society should consider together in order to reduce conflicts caused by AI. Building on the 「Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics Standards」 established in 2020, the government pursued these principles to reflect advancing AI technology and changed institutional conditions such as the enforcement of the 「Framework Act on Artificial Intelligence」. Since releasing the draft in May, the Ministry of Science and ICT gathered broad input from industry, civil society, academia, related ministries, and the general public, and prepared the final version based on a total of 116 opinions.
The ethics principles consist of three core values—human dignity, the public good of society, and the sustainability of humanity—and seven principles: human-centeredness, protection of privacy, fairness and inclusiveness, accountability, safety, reliability, and transparency. They emphasize not only the ethics and roles of providers but also those of users, and include messages to the international community such as differentiated responsibilities between advanced and developing countries in AI and a call for the peaceful use of AI. Going forward, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to prepare and disseminate case-based commentaries, sector-specific voluntary checklists, and ethics education materials tailored to different audiences, while continuously reviewing and supplementing the ethics principles and sharing and spreading them within the international community.
The third agenda item, the (draft) strategy for revitalizing deep-tech startups, is one of the follow-up measures to the ‘Future Growth Engine 「Seven SEED」 Briefing Session,’ and its detailed content was resolved as non-public. The core of this strategy is to provide support so that technology, researchers, investment, and incubation systems combine at the right time, enabling the achievements of the 「Seven SEED」 to be swiftly commercialized and become future growth engines. The government will build a system that selects outstanding R&D achievements and links them to startup support, and will establish a Deep-Tech Comprehensive Demonstration Support Center and hubs in key sectors. It will also provide AI agents to support the startup process, expand the deep-tech startup capacity-building program for young people in science and engineering (TeX-Corps), and promote investment-type R&D pilot projects such as the creation of deep-tech-specialized ultra-long-term funds and the establishment of special purpose companies (SPCs).
The three agenda items addressed at this meeting are closely tied to national tasks such as realizing an ‘AI basic society’ that enhances public safety and quality of life, fostering NEXT strategic technologies, and realizing future mobility and a ‘K-AI City.’ It is assessed that they are directly linked to citizens’ lives, in that the commercialization of self-driving vehicles leads to actual transportation and logistics services, the ethics principles lay a foundation of trust for the everyday use of AI, and support for deep-tech startups converts research achievements into jobs and industries.
지역 홍보대사 신청 기자양성과정 신청 코리안투데이 지부장 신청 코리안투데이 인천강화코리안브랜드대상 신청 최고경영인대상 신청 소비자만족도대상 신청
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