Jang Sung-wook, Vice President of Kamo, "In the Autonomous Driving Market, the Winner with Data Will Dominate"

Jang Sung-wook, Vice President of Kakao Mobility, is giving a presentation at the 'Seoul AI Policy Conference 2024' on the 12th.

Jang Sung-wook, Vice President of Kakao Mobility, argued that in the full-fledged autonomous driving era, companies possessing high-quality data will dominate the market.

On the 12th, at the 'Seoul AI Policy Conference 2024' hosted by Seoul National University at Ferrum Tower in Jung-gu, Seoul, Vice President Jang stated, "There are various perspectives on how the autonomous driving era will unfold in 2024 and 2025," but added, "The winner will dominate the market, and the failing companies will disappear."

He continued, "Success or failure can depend on who collects the most data," emphasizing, "For this reason, only a few select companies will survive, and they will dominate the market."

Vice President Jang also noted, "In Tesla's case, although it entered the autonomous driving market late, it is showing remarkable performance," explaining, "This is because Tesla utilizes all the data coming from its vehicles and applies this data to research and development (R&D)."

He added, "By securing a large amount of data through cameras and sensors and using it for autonomous driving training, outcomes vary depending on who collects more and higher-quality data."

Vice President Jang evaluated that institutional improvements related to autonomous driving are being made and discussions on R&D are actively underway. Until now, in Korea, license plates collected through cameras installed on mobile devices such as autonomous vehicles had to undergo mosaic or blur processing to make them unrecognizable. The industry has demanded flexible legal interpretations, arguing that it is practically difficult to obscure all collected license plates and that the effectiveness significantly decreases when using pseudonymized data. Reflecting this, the government has allowed the use of license plates for AI development or autonomous driving technology without pseudonymization. Additionally, legislation is being prepared to allow original data use of videos containing pedestrians' faces or gaze processing necessary for the advancement of autonomous driving technology.

Furthermore, Vice President Jang stated that social consensus must be considered for the commercialization of autonomous driving. He said, "The autonomous driving industry is coming out of a tunnel, and personally, I think it has reached a turning point," adding, "Drivers, passengers, policymakers, manufacturers, and all stakeholders have their own perspectives and may have different understandings, so securing social acceptance is necessary to move toward commercialization."