[Yoo Choon-sik] AI talent push meets flip-flop doubt

The recently announced “AI Talent Development Plans for All” is a truly sweeping initiative, broad enough to underscore the South Korean government’s drive to strengthen artificial intelligence capabilities nationwide. It is a vision that sees AI not merely as a technology, but as a universal competency that must be nurtured from kindergarten classrooms to the highest levels of postgraduate research.

The initiative exemplifies South Korea’s ambition to chart a grand national course, seeking to transform its famed hardware prowess into a deep well of intellectual capital for the age of artificial intelligence.

This comprehensive set of plans seeks to develop AI talent and boost literacy among the public throughout their lifetimes. The scope is staggering, comprising a lifelong AI education pipeline aimed at addressing a shortage of skilled professionals, in which the country is lagging behind its peers.

The sweeping nature of the plan underscores how seriously the government of President Lee Jae Myung views the widening gap between the country’s still-weak capacity to develop, retain and attract AI talent and its global edge in the hardware and software needed to stay competitive in AI research and innovation.

The administration has framed the push to secure AI talent not as an economic choice, but as a “matter of national survival.”

The blueprint is rich in strategic details designed to accelerate the creation of an AI-fluent citizenry. At the postgraduate level, the government plans to establish a “fast track” program designed to shepherd the most outstanding students through their bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in a remarkable 5 1/2 years, compared to the typical timeline of more than eight years.

But the plan’s ambition does not stop at the university gates. It seeks a pervasive integration of AI knowledge into the fabric of the K-12 system.

The number of AI-focused high schools is set to be nearly doubled, while university admission tracks dedicated to AI are being significantly expanded. Crucially, the plan is backed by a substantial financial commitment: 900 billion won ($610 million) is earmarked for related elementary and middle school education and another 500 billion won for high school programs.

To bridge the gap between academia and the market, corporate-linked degree programs tailored to industry needs are being expanded, encouraging companies to actively participate in the training pipeline and secure AI talent ready to begin work on the first day of employment.

This is, by all accounts, a master plan fit for a nation with aspirations of becoming one of the world’s top three AI powerhouses. Yet, as with so many grand ambitions, a pervasive and long-standing structural weakness threatens to cast a deep shadow over its execution: consistency and predictability in policy.

The ink on the AI talent blueprint was hardly dry when the announcement was overshadowed by lingering suspicion about South Korea’s policy stability. Only months ago, the very same government decisively terminated the previous administration’s ambitious “AI Digital Textbook” project, which had been implemented only early this year.

This episode, which saw the ruling party–controlled parliament overwhelmingly approve a law revision to strip AI programs of their legal status as textbooks, effectively setting the stage for the termination, has reignited long-standing concerns about politically motivated “policy flip-flops.”

This phenomenon of abrupt reversal, which often follows a change in political power, is consistently cited by global companies as a major challenge to doing business in South Korea.

The cost of such volatility is measured in both economic and educational damage. The politically motivated decision gravely discredits the predictability of policymaking. Most directly, it caused heavy financial losses for textbook publishers and AI companies that had invested large sums for a long time in anticipation of the program’s continuity.

The backlash was significant enough to prompt a constitutional complaint filed by publishers, teachers, students and parents, arguing the termination violated their constitutional rights and inflicted huge financial damages.

The cancellation meant that millions of students and about half a million teachers were deprived of a crucial opportunity to gain more hands-on experience with AI in classrooms. The lost opportunity for mass-scale, early-stage AI literacy is precisely the deficit the new talent plan is meant to address. Yet, the administration itself created the deficit it now seeks to fill.

The cycle of policy shifts with changing government priorities is a structural flaw that hampers South Korea’s global credibility as a long-term innovation partner. Even leading global players have taken notice.

While praising South Korea as one of the world’s leading AI powers, a recent statement from OpenAI expressed concerns that policies in the country “tend to shift with changing government priorities.” The company warned that such a “fragmented approach undermines legal clarity, creates compliance burdens and hinders long-term planning” for international firms looking to invest and collaborate in the market.

This critique cuts to the heart of the matter. Building world-class AI infrastructure and talent requires patient, yearslong investment. If a flagship educational initiative can be terminated on a political whim, what assurance does a corporate investor or a top-tier global AI researcher have that the new 5 1/2-year fast track will not be abolished by the next political wave?

The government must understand that the AI talent race is not just about writing big checks or creating fast tracks; it is about building a stable, predictable institutional ecosystem that rewards long-term commitment.

The true measure of South Korea’s commitment to the AI century will not be the scale of the money it spends but the unwavering steadiness of the policies it implements. Until this fundamental issue of policy consistency is resolved, the shadow of the flip-flop will inevitably linger, threatening to eclipse even the brightest national ambition.

The race for AI leadership is a marathon. Inconsistency is the one obstacle that cannot be cleared by hardware alone.

Yoo Choon-sik

Yoo Choon-sik worked for nearly 30 years at Reuters, including as the chief Korea economics correspondent, and briefly worked as a business strategy consultant. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.

khnews@heraldcorp.com