Establish a national AI command center

Lim Jong-in
The author is an endowed chair professor at the Graduate School of Information Security at Korea University and an advisor of the JoongAng Ilbo’s Reset Korea campaign.

Artificial intelligence is a true game changer of our time that will transform all of society, including industries, labor and daily life. In particular, ChatGPT — which gained more than 100 million monthly users within the two months of its launch, and with 100 million weekly users presently — shows how deeply AI has penetrated into our lives. ChatGPT is used by 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies and has over 2 million developers using its application programming interface (API), demonstrating its great influence.

As AI is applied to the defense and security fields, military and nonmilitary competitions between countries have changed significantly, and a country’s level of AI technology has become a key indicator of national military and security capabilities. Taking into consideration its influence and impact, AI is comparable to nuclear arms, the absolute weapon during the Cold War period. With the prospect that leaders of the AI technology competition will likely be ahead in all areas, many countries have joined the race for AI technology supremacy.

As AI quickly becomes an integral part of our lives, concerns arise about its safety and reliability. AI, without anyone taking responsibility, can cause serious damages — discrimination, human rights violations like privacy invasions, infringement on democracy from fake news and election meddling, and human casualties from accidents — due to technical errors, carelessness and developers’ bias, and hacking of AI systems.

The infinite competition of AI technology could worsen environmental problems and threaten international peace, leading to a catastrophic situation for humanity in the worst case scenario. Therefore, we are seeing an increasing need to establish a global control system just like for nuclear weapons. In order for AI to be used as a tool for human development and global prosperity, it is increasingly recognized that regulations and cooperation among countries are essential to ensuring the safety and reliability of AI.

As ChatGPT has been abused to develop fake news, deepfake materials, and hacking tools, countries around the world have begun the attempt to regulate AI technology. On Oct. 30, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order to draw up pan-governmental measures for the safe development and utilization of AI. On the same day, the leaders of the Group of 7 (G7) countries agreed on guidelines for AI system development and codes of conduct. On Nov. 2, 28 countries participating in the AI Safety Summit held in the United Kingdom issued a joint declaration to agree on risk management measures for AI. Countries are showing awareness on the crisis facing humanity due to reckless and irresponsible development of AI.

Next year, Korea will host major international events related to AI, including the AI Safety Summit and the Summit on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (REAIM). It is imperative that we concentrate all our efforts on those events and capitalize on the momentum to become a leader in the global discussion on AI. While the United States is pushing forward pan-governmental responses initiated by the president, the Korean government is still making ministerial level responses, such as the Ministry of Science and ICT’s operation of the highest-level strategic dialogue on AI. Korea must prepare a comprehensive government response system as soon as possible. We must establish a national strategy on AI, draw up response plans, and set up a presidential committee on AI that will oversee and manage each ministry.

The presidential committee should also devise a comprehensive plan to implement the promises of AI technology cooperation agreed upon at the recent Korea-U.S.-Japan summit, and coordinate, manage and supervise interministerial efforts. Although the three countries pledged to cooperate on AI technology at the trilateral summit at Camp David in August, no progress has been made on actual cooperation. Instead of developing AI risk management standards and countermeasures independently, the three countries should work together to develop and share them quickly. For Korea to strengthen AI technology capabilities and become a leader in the AI field, it should fully utilize its partnership with America and Japan as leverage.

In the current situation, establishing a national AI committee and strengthening cooperation with Japan and the U.S. will resolve immediate problems such as fake news, deep fake materials and cyberattacks. In doing so, Korea will become a leader in AI and ensure the country’s future prosperity and stability. This is our formula for success.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.