[AI Hegemony War Korea's Winning Move] "An Era of Learning AI Textbooks Like Korean, English, and Math Is Coming"

Voices of AI Experts in Academia
"Aiming to Foster Convergent Creative Talent"
Calls for Regulatory Relaxation and Infrastructure Support

Jang Byung-tak, director of the Seoul National University AI Research Institute, stated on the 20th, "Artificial Intelligence (AI) will become a tool for all tasks and academic fields," and predicted, "In the future, AI might become a basic subject like Korean or Mathematics."

In a phone interview with Asia Economy on the same day, Director Jang said, "In the era of ultra-large AI brought about by ChatGPT, the traditional rote and repetitive education methods will no longer work."

Jang Byung-tak, Director of AI Research Institute at Seoul National University / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

He foresaw that AI becoming a fundamental tool in academics, regardless of humanities or sciences, will produce creative talents never seen before and provide students with new motivation for studying.

The currently government-promoted ‘AI Digital Textbook’ only utilizes personalized recommendation functions for level-appropriate learning tailored to students. However, Director Jang believes that in the future, AI should be used as a tool for all learning to foster 'convergent creative talents' beyond the traditional humanities and sciences framework.

Director Jang said, "From the perspective of nurturing future talents, AI education needs to be reestablished. Originally, AI research aimed to create 'machines like humans.' Therefore, not only mathematics and science but also humanities and social sciences literacy are necessary."

He expressed a positive outlook that if AI utilization is properly taught in elementary, middle, and high school curricula, new levels of creative talents applying AI in various fields can emerge.

Regarding the current shortage of AI personnel in the industrial field, he said, "The Ministry of Education needs to take extraordinary measures." He pointed out, "The field increasingly requires computer science or software majors, but due to institutional regulations such as enrollment limits, the number cannot increase."

Support for university infrastructure is also urgent. Although Seoul National University has opened AI courses as general education subjects, it has been found that there is a lack of teaching assistants to help university students with practical training.

Kwon Heon-yeong, Dean of the Graduate School of Information Security, Korea University

Kwon Heon-young, director of the Graduate School of Information Security at Korea University, suggested that in the AI revolution era, efforts should be focused on nurturing three types of talents. The first is talents who develop 'AI literacy' to effectively utilize AI in their work. Director Kwon said, "Education and training are necessary so that AI can be applied in various fields."

The second is 'AI developers.' He emphasized that securing a global advantage in directly developing AI is of utmost importance. Since some big tech companies in the U.S. are already dominating, Korea is in a position to urgently catch up. Director Kwon said, "Developing ultra-large AI is becoming important not only in language but also in fields such as video and healthcare, so strategic national research and development (R&D) investment is essential."

The third is 'AI communicators.' Director Kwon stated, "As fears of AI grow or excessive blind faith increases, social errors may occur," and added, "Talents who possess the ability to facilitate communication between humans and AI are needed."