Park Young-sun: "The narrative style is pedantic and disappointing"
Lee Hae-min: "Government, National Assembly, and private sector must cooperate"
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, faced criticism from the opposition regarding his policy of "training 100,000 AI personnel," which he introduced during the negotiation group leaders' speech at the National Assembly on the 10th.
Former Minister of SMEs and Startups Park Young-sun evaluated on Facebook on the 11th, "I had some hopeful expectations, but after reading Lee's National Assembly speech this morning, I am disappointed." Park said, "If the AI supplementary budget was mentioned, it should have included more innovative content," and criticized, "The overall narrative style is pedantic."
In his negotiation group leaders' speech at the plenary session of the National Assembly the previous day, Lee proposed training 100,000 technical personnel in the AI field through boot camps (specialized intensive training institutions), and establishing a national AI data center equipped with more than 100,000 AI semiconductor GPUs.
Former Minister Park stated, "These are contents that have always been mentioned in the past. Whenever new technologies emerge, training 100,000 personnel has been like a formula," and argued, "There should also be measures on how efficiently South Korea can utilize its data."
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is meeting with Kim Jung-wook, the newly appointed president of the Korean Bar Association, at the National Assembly on the 10th. 2025.2.10 Photo by Kim Hyun-min
She added, "The three major elements of AI strategy can be divided into computing power, data utilization, and algorithm development," and explained, "For South Korea to become a leading AI nation, strategic reviews are needed in each of these three areas."
Lee Hae-min, a member of the Party for National Innovation and former Google employee, also directly criticized Lee Jae-myung's policy of training 100,000 AI personnel, saying, "This is not acceptable." Lee said, "I don't know who is advising the Democratic Party on AI, but this really shouldn't be done." "Isn't this the same level of AI understanding as (Seoul Mayor) Oh Se-hoon?" Previously, Mayor Oh had stated that 10,000 AI talents should be trained.
Lee argued, "To protect South Korea's software sovereignty, instead of setting a low hurdle of 'Korean-style,' we need to have an extraordinary determination to 'occupy more than 10% of the global service market' and develop global competitiveness," and insisted, "The government, National Assembly, and private sector must join forces."
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