Bae Says South Korea Can’t Afford to Slow AI Development, Will Move Faster and More Safely

Bae Kyung-hoon, South Korea’s deputy prime minister and science minister, pushed back against growing calls in the global artificial intelligence industry to slow development, saying the country must keep accelerating AI research, development and adoption.

Writing on X on September 16, Bae said “one thing is clear from Korea’s perspective” and that the country “cannot afford to slow the pace of AI development now.”

He added that there is a fundamental difference between countries that are already ahead slowing down and countries that are still catching up while also trying to create new markets doing the same.

Debate has been spreading across the global AI industry over the pace of advanced AI development. Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei has argued that frontier AI development should slow to improve safety. OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and others have also backed moderating the pace. Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang and others, by contrast, have emphasized accelerating development while pursuing safety and technological progress at the same time.

Bae said South Korea should speed up AI research and industrial adoption while strengthening safeguards against deepfakes, cyber threats and privacy violations.

He also signaled follow-up plans for the country’s homegrown AI foundation model project. Bae said he would soon share with the public the next phase of the initiative, which has been under careful review. “We will not turn back South Korea’s AI clock,” he wrote. “We will move faster, but more safely.”