By Kim Tae-gyu
As far as technology is concerned, this year was all about artificial intelligence (AI) rather than its competitors including the internet of things (IoT), robotics and autonomous vehicles.
That was especially the case in Korea because of Google's AlphaGo, which crushed human go champion Lee Se-dol in a convincing fashion here in March.
As a go board is 19 by 19, there are 361 possible moves followed by 360 second moves for each of the first 361 moves. Accordingly, its branching factor is a factorial of 361, which is much larger than the total number of atoms in the universe.
However, Google's financial leeway and technological prowess silenced critics once and for all after AlphaGo defeated Lee in four out of five games.
Deep Zen Go, a Japanese version of AlphaGo developed by Tokyo University, also beat professional go player Cho Chi-hun once in a best-of-three series midway through last month.
Of note is that AI will continue to develop at a breakneck speed on its own, an approach dubbed machine learning, while its human rivals improve at a snail's pace.
"I took part in a conference at Silicon Valley early this month to learn that there are already many algorithms much better than those of AlphaGo," said Prof. Jeong Jae-seung, a renowned AI expert at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
"Just nine months after AlphaGo surprised the world, it has already become a legacy. In the not-so-distant future, people will take advantage of AI quickly and frequently."
Korea's efforts
Korea has lagged behind global AI powerhouses like the United States but the country has been working to catch up.
For example, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) came up with an AI called Exobrain to take on humans in a quiz show last month.
Exobrain overwhelmed two previous quiz champions and two collegians, one of whom got a perfect score on last year's college entrance exam.
But it came five years after IBM Watson, which drew the world's attention by outpacing human title holders on the famous U.S. quiz show "Jeopardy" in 2011.
ETRI hopes Exobrain will eventually overpower Watson but it remains to be seen whether the state-run institute will be able to narrow the five-year gap in technology with minimal investments.
IBM funneled more than $1 billion to create Watson but ETRI's overall budget for Exobrain is less than a 10th of the amount.
In this climate, observers point out that the country's private enterprises might contribute by helping Asia's No. 4 economy play catch-up in the potential-laden AI segment.
Samsung Electronics, the world's foremost smartphone manufacturer, plans to incorporate AI features into its flagship handset, the Galaxy S8, which will be released next year.
A beefed up virtual assistant powered by AI agent technology is expected to carry out the commands of the handset user, which may come with a dedicated AI button.
SK C&C also vies to release AI-based educational toys in the near future on the back of collaboration with IBM ― they would speak both English and Korean to kids.
"The competition to take the lead in AI will continue next year. Korea would have to do its utmost to narrow the gap with global leaders, which is expected to take more than two years," an analyst in Seoul said.
As far as technology is concerned, this year was all about artificial intelligence (AI) rather than its competitors including the internet of things (IoT), robotics and autonomous vehicles.
That was especially the case in Korea because of Google's AlphaGo, which crushed human go champion Lee Se-dol in a convincing fashion here in March.
As a go board is 19 by 19, there are 361 possible moves followed by 360 second moves for each of the first 361 moves. Accordingly, its branching factor is a factorial of 361, which is much larger than the total number of atoms in the universe.
However, Google's financial leeway and technological prowess silenced critics once and for all after AlphaGo defeated Lee in four out of five games.
Deep Zen Go, a Japanese version of AlphaGo developed by Tokyo University, also beat professional go player Cho Chi-hun once in a best-of-three series midway through last month.
Of note is that AI will continue to develop at a breakneck speed on its own, an approach dubbed machine learning, while its human rivals improve at a snail's pace.
"I took part in a conference at Silicon Valley early this month to learn that there are already many algorithms much better than those of AlphaGo," said Prof. Jeong Jae-seung, a renowned AI expert at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
"Just nine months after AlphaGo surprised the world, it has already become a legacy. In the not-so-distant future, people will take advantage of AI quickly and frequently."
Korea's efforts
Korea has lagged behind global AI powerhouses like the United States but the country has been working to catch up.
For example, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) came up with an AI called Exobrain to take on humans in a quiz show last month.
Exobrain overwhelmed two previous quiz champions and two collegians, one of whom got a perfect score on last year's college entrance exam.
But it came five years after IBM Watson, which drew the world's attention by outpacing human title holders on the famous U.S. quiz show "Jeopardy" in 2011.
ETRI hopes Exobrain will eventually overpower Watson but it remains to be seen whether the state-run institute will be able to narrow the five-year gap in technology with minimal investments.
IBM funneled more than $1 billion to create Watson but ETRI's overall budget for Exobrain is less than a 10th of the amount.
In this climate, observers point out that the country's private enterprises might contribute by helping Asia's No. 4 economy play catch-up in the potential-laden AI segment.
Samsung Electronics, the world's foremost smartphone manufacturer, plans to incorporate AI features into its flagship handset, the Galaxy S8, which will be released next year.
A beefed up virtual assistant powered by AI agent technology is expected to carry out the commands of the handset user, which may come with a dedicated AI button.
SK C&C also vies to release AI-based educational toys in the near future on the back of collaboration with IBM ― they would speak both English and Korean to kids.
"The competition to take the lead in AI will continue next year. Korea would have to do its utmost to narrow the gap with global leaders, which is expected to take more than two years," an analyst in Seoul said.
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