Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.
Korea sets national principles for AI ethics
By Lee Gyu-lee
AI expert calls for sector-specific rules beyond non-binding principles
Those developing and using artificial intelligence (AI) should keep human dignity and the common good of society as core values while also focusing on fairness, accountability, safety and transparency in practical use, according to the government's AI ethics principles.
The government announced national principles for the ethical development and use of AI, Monday, setting out three core values and seven principles to guide its use, as the technology rapidly expands into areas ranging from business to public services, contributing to decisions affecting people's lives.
The ethics principles provide a common but nonbinding reference for all parties involved in AI, including developers, providers, users, government agencies and civil society, the Ministry of Science and ICT said.
The principles are built around three overarching values — human dignity, meaning people should be respected as ends in themselves rather than purposes; the common good, as AI is required to promote social trust and common good beyond individual interests; and the sustainability of humanity to benefit present and future generations.
With these three values at its center, the seven guiding principles cover human-centeredness, privacy protection, fairness and inclusiveness, accountability, safety, reliability and transparency.
The initiative comes as AI expands rapidly across industries and everyday life, bringing productivity gains as well as new challenges, including overreliance on AI, changes in jobs, copyright disputes and the spread of false or manipulated information.
The ministry said the new principles reflect the growing use of AI and emerging safety and trust concerns as the technology becomes more capable.
“The true measure of success in the AI race lies not only in developing advanced technologies, but in delivering AI that is put to use across industries and in people’s everyday lives,” Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said.
“As the adoption of AI grows, ethical principles to ensure safety and trust are becoming increasingly important. We will foster a healthy AI ecosystem where technological innovation and responsibility go hand in hand.”
The principles call for AI to support human judgment and decision-making rather than replace them, urging developers to clearly define AI's role and allow human intervention when necessary and cautioning against excessive reliance on AI.
Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon speaks during a conference for open artificial intelligence (AI) computing ecosystems in central Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of Ministry of Science and ICT
The privacy principle calls for personal information to be processed only for specified purposes and within the necessary scope. The fairness and inclusiveness principle sets out standards for ensuring fair treatment and inclusion in the development and use of AI.
The accountability principle assigns responsibility among AI-related actors, while the safety and reliability principles call for risk management and performance standards appropriate to each system's purpose.
The transparency principle requires information on AI use, its limitations and decision-making criteria, particularly when it affects people's rights, obligations or opportunities.
Limits in nonbinding declaration
Despite their broad scope, Choi Kyoung-jin, director of the center for AI, data and policy at Gachon University, said the principles’ effectiveness will ultimately depend on how they are translated into concrete practices, as they are not legally binding.
The principles are intended to serve as a common foundation for more specific ethical standards and guidelines across individual sectors, rather than replace existing laws. The government also plans to develop case-based guidance and sector-specific self-guided checklists to support their implementation.
“The principles should be understood as declaring the fundamental principles that we need to think about in this era,” Choi said. “Ethical principles are something that would be good to follow, but there are no sanctions for not following them.”
He said treating the principles as overly prescriptive could undermine their practical value, as ethical questions can differ substantially depending on the AI system, service and industry involved.
“This is not an obligation,” he said. “It seems to have been created with the goal of guiding society by saying that the government considers these things important in the current era.”
The professor said the principles should serve as a broad foundation rather than a one-size-fits-all set of rules, with more detailed guidance developed for specific services and fields.
“Principles are principles, but there should be more efforts in the private sector to give greater weight to concrete codes of conduct for individual services or to ethical issues that may arise depending on how AI is used in each field,” Choi said.