Why South Korea Spurns Industry Calls for AI Slowdown
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - South Korea "cannot afford" to slow down artificial intelligence (AI) development, said its Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon, adding that the country is seeking to catch up with global leaders on this front.
"It is an entirely different matter for a country already ahead to adjust its pace, than for a nation that is catching up while simultaneously having to create new markets to slow down. We cannot afford to slow down the pace of AI development," Bae said in a social media post, as quoted by Yonhap News on Wednesday.
Bae also warned that the gap between countries with advanced AI models approaching human intelligence and those without such sophistication could extend beyond the technological realm, encompassing industrial competitiveness, national security, and long-term economic growth.
But the minister conceded that AI safety and public trust must advance alongside AI growth, thus cautioning against unconditional acceleration.
A former Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, made ripples in the AI bubble as he announced his resignation with a warning that AI could lead to human extinction by the end of the decade. Coxon's declaration also came after incidents of unauthorized cyberattacks by hundreds of "rogue" OpenAI models last month.
The series of events prompts a heated debate about the pace of AI development. The CEO of Anthropic, AI firm behind Claude, Dario Amodei, wrote in an online essay published on Saturday that the risks associated with AI development were "serious" and that companies and governments must be given time to address them.
His calls were joined by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and SpaceXAI's Elon Musk. The three AI frontmen called for a slowdown in AI development to allow safety measures to keep pace with technological advancements.
As reported by The Guardian, Amodei in his essay proposed a three-point plan to address the issue: embedding third-party evaluators inside AI companies; coordinating safety standards among Democratic countries; and, eventually, larger global coordination.
He reiterated his call at a Tuesday conference in San Francisco. “It’s very tempting to attack your competitor and say these guys are unsafe,” he said, using an automotive analogy to make his point, stating that a safety incident at a competing car company must trigger an industry-wide review of their own practices.
“But I think the more responsible way to respond to it is to say, let’s look at our own record. We may not have had this big, high-profile incident, but I’m sure we’re not perfect.”
US President Donald Trump rejected Amodei's call, calling concerns about AI threatening humanity a "hoax." According to Trump, slowing AI development in the United States could benefit China.
China also pushed back on the call for AI slowdown, saying that "fear-mongering, confrontation and vicious competition" would hinder global AI governance, as quoted from Antara, citing Anadolu.
China, instead, called for open and inclusive technological development.
Dismissal also came from rivaling firm Nvidia, whose CEO Jensen Huang spoke against the call, arguing new regulations on AI were simply not necessary. AI Companies, he said, should just ensure product safety before releasing them, instead of waiting for the US government to interfere.
On the same occasion, he pushed back against the idea that AI will destroy human jobs, calling it "complete nonsense."
