[Desk Column] Naver and 'Deus Ex Machina'

The last time Lee Hae-jin, the founder of Naver and Global Investment Officer (GIO), who had been reclusive, appeared before the public was during the 2017 National Assembly audit. Before that, he rarely attended external events. The reason for his attendance was extremely uncomfortable: accusations that Naver's news editing was biased. Particularly, members of the Liberty Korea Party continued to scold him. "Step away from the news service that acts as a major media outlet." (Min Kyung-wook) "We must not tolerate the skewed portal comment culture." (Kim Jung-jae)

At that time, it was the first year of the Moon Jae-in administration, and the aftermath of Park Geun-hye's impeachment had not yet faded. As a result, the Liberty Korea Party was in disarray. Considering these circumstances, public opinion was already a tilted playing field. The opposition party's scolding was a form of venting. Lee Hae-jin appeared again at the following year's audit, and through these two experiences, Naver was left with a heavy task: how to resolve disputes over the fairness of news editing.

Two years later, Naver appears much more resolute. When asked, "Is Naver News biased?" they respond, "Absolutely not." This is a much firmer expression than simply saying "No." The background is somewhat clear. It is because they use artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, excluding human involvement in the news editing process. This is the 'AiRS' system introduced in September 2018. Naver explains that since subjective human judgment is not involved, they can be free from disputes over fairness. But is that really the case? Half is true, and half is false.

First, AI has a different dimension of bias than Naver's explanation. A representative example is Amazon's employee recruitment AI, which gave higher scores to male applicants than female applicants. To improve AI accuracy, it learned from recruitment data over the past 10 years, most of which were male, resulting in 'male bias.' To resolve AI bias like this, continuous human correction is necessary. "Unlike humans, AI lacks the ability to correct itself when faced with prejudice. AI bias must be corrected by humans." (Chas Kozyrkov, Google's Chief Decision Scientist) Cathy O'Neil, author of "Weapons of Math Destruction," also pointed out technical limitations, stating, "We must acknowledge that algorithms cannot do everything before demanding that they function more effectively."

Second, fairness in news editing also operates through partisan logic. The recent controversy over Rep. Yoon Young-chan's 'Druwa' text message is an example. As the long-standing journalism adage goes, "There is no news that satisfies everyone," any news inevitably produces winners and losers. Naturally, the losers become dissatisfied with portal news, leading to disputes over fairness. This is why controversies over bias never cease during election seasons or audit periods.

If the first is a fundamental concern inherent in AI engineering, the second is a practical problem arising from biases in news consumption. Therefore, Naver's statement is half right and half wrong. Regardless of AI's completeness, dissatisfaction with portal news will inevitably be expressed in some form. Even if a 'god' edited the news instead of AI.

How can this dilemma be resolved? There is no Deus ex Machina (a sudden solution to a complex problem in Greek drama), but the direction is vaguely visible. It lies in Lee Hae-jin's remarks during the 2017 audit: "The internet should be viewed not just domestically but from the perspective of the global market."

From his viewpoint of the 'global market,' news content is a limited service. Moreover, it was once 'low risk, high return,' but now it is 'high risk, low return.' Therefore, there is no reason to hold the reins too tightly. Naver's recent abolition of ranking orders following the removal of news comments can be interpreted as part of this approach. Boldly reducing controversies in the news distribution process, acknowledging AI's limitations as Cathy O'Neil advises, and improving upon them?this is the way for Naver to survive.