Chey Tae-won, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, speaks during KBS 1TV’s “Documentary Insight — War for Talent 2,” which aired on the night of the 28th. Photo courtesy of KBS
Chey Tae-won, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), defined the next 10 to 15 years as a transition period to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and said more engineers will be needed during this time. AGI refers to AI capable of self-learning with intelligence similar to that of humans. Chey emphasized that to weather the transition successfully, Korea must actively attract foreign talent in addition to nurturing domestic talent.
Chey made the remarks on KBS 1TV’s “Docu Insight – War for Talent 2,” which aired on the night of the 28th, when asked about Korea’s talent strategy to counter China’s technological rise. He said the notion that only engineering students are the talent needed for the AI era is entirely wrong, explaining that “those who can view things from a new angle—understanding humans well and figuring out how to integrate humans and AI together—are the real talent.”
“A new kind of talent for the future, quite different from the talent that emerged in today’s industrial era, will be born going forward,” Chey predicted. He added that “generalists who know multiple fields will be evaluated much more highly than specialists who have accumulated expertise only in a specific field.”
Chey also expects working styles to change in an era where humans and AI coexist. Multi-role positions, in which a single employee performs several functions within a company, will become frequent, and “N-jobbers” who do not stay in one occupation will become commonplace, breaking down the traditional formula of starting work at 9 a.m. and leaving at 6 p.m., he said.
Chey further argued that national power will be defined by “how much AI a country possesses, how much it produces using AI, and how much its citizens use AI.” He proposed Speed, Scale and Safety as the requirements for an “AI Nation.” He also unveiled an “AI City” concept, envisioning the creation of pilot demonstration cities led by AI industry experts.
On China’s leadership in AI technology based on its numerical advantage, Chey advised against being gripped by excessive fear. “Many of the advantages China has appear likely to be diluted by AI,” he said. “Later, when the AGI era arrives, we can continue to wage an evenly matched fight with China.”