Deputy Prime Minister Baek Kyung-hoon Calls for Increased Funding and Personnel for AI Safety Research Institute

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Baek Kyung-hoon stated on October 6 that there is a need to expand the personnel and budget for the AI Safety Research Institute.

During a National Assembly audit of the Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, Baek responded to a question from Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Joo-hee regarding the budget and personnel for AI safety. He emphasized, "As AI performance rapidly advances, trust and safety are becoming increasingly important." 

Baek explained that he is pursuing two main countermeasures. He mentioned, "We are preparing our own cybersecurity response capabilities through a security-specialized AI model project, and we are also preparing a frontier AI project." 

He also outlined plans to establish and announce a national master plan for creating an AI safety ecosystem in December. This plan will consist of three main strategies: building a national AI safety management system, enhancing advanced AI safety response capabilities, and creating an AI environment for the daily lives of citizens.

Meanwhile, lawmaker Lee pointed out that while the budget for AI-related performance infrastructure amounts to 6.149 trillion won, the budget for safety and trust is only 27.4 billion won, highlighting a ratio of 224 to 1. She remarked, "The accelerator is rapidly increasing, but there are no brakes."