SEOUL -- South Korea will invest about 1.2 trillion won ($898 million) in 2024 to nurture its artificial intelligence industry. At a conference in Seoul, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said the country plans to reduce various regulations and focus on improving AI-based services used in everyday environments including the legislative and medical sectors.
"While tightening next year's budget as much as possible, the government has allocated 1.2 trillion for the AI sector, up 15.8 percent from 2023," Han said, adding that large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are significantly changing daily lives. An LLM is basically a smart program capable of understanding and generating human-like conversations in text.
"We will try hard to reduce related regulations so that they won't become an obstacle to companies developing AI-related technologies and services," the prime minister said. During his speech, Han highlighted the Paris Initiative, proposed by President Yoon Suk-yeol during the Paris Digital Vision Forum in June to set up digital norms and an international body that can oversee all digital platforms.
The statement was made at the fifteenth Global Good Growth Forum (GGGF) at the Plaza Hotel in central Seoul on September 6. The forum that is currently being held under the theme of "Survival Strategy in the Era of Superintelligent 'Re:Define'" will be continued until 4:30 p.m. (0730 GMT) on September 7. The conference is also attended by Leon Gatys, a German generative AI specialist who formerly worked at Apple.
The South Korean government earlier revealed that domestic industries related to AI are growing at an annual average growth rate of about 30 percent, but the actual adoption of AI technologies in people's everyday environment is low. In January 2023, the country allocated some 265 billion won for a five-year project that aims to develop AI technologies that can be utilized by people in their everyday environments.
The government will provide AI-based helper robots to the elderly who live alone. AI will be also applied to public medical services as well as administrative and legislative services.
