인공지능 기술 전망과 혁신정책 방향(2차년도) - 안전하고 윤리적인 인공지능 R&D 및 활용을 위한 제도 개선 방안을 중심으로 -

As artificial intelligence(AI) is undergoing a renaissance in the 2010s, competitions among countries is intensifying beyond companies, and issues related to safety and ethics are also emerging in earnest. One of the major issues regarding safety is the damage caused by malfunctions occuring during the test or use of AI-based self-driving cars, robo-advisors, robots and intelligent personal assistant devices. There has been a lot of concern and criticism in ethical terms about using AI for military purposes and developing autonomous weapons of destruction. This study started with the notion that securing the safety of AI and solving ethical issues are prerequisites for sustainable AI R&D and market revitalization. Thus, our research aims to examine safety and ethical issues of AI in advance and present effective countermeasures so that AI can continue the current pace of technological development and be commercialized as expected to provide a breakthough in human life. In this study, AI safety is defined as “concepts and areas to prepare for unintended risks that may arise due to the technical and structural limitations and characterstics of AI”. Unlike social consensus, guidelines and regulatory-oriented AI ethics, AI safety is therefore at the core of the discussion for R&D to overcome technological limitations of AI. We also defines the scope of AI ethics as “universal social norms and related technologies that AI-related stakeholders should comply with”. The main difference of AI ethics from the AI safety is whether it is “intentional” or not. In other words, the abuse of AI by developers with bad intentions, or by the seller of related products and services, goes against the value of AI ethics. Thus, social confusion caused by unethical AI can be prevented through stakeholder agreements, guidelines and legislative regulations. By hiring AI ethics experts, global major companies want to actively address security issues such as personal information protection and privacy as well as social problems that can arise in the course of technology development. Besides companies, non-profit organizations such as academia are also taking the lead in developing a wide range of guidelines for the future AI era. In particular, theoretical discussions are underway to secure safety in the technology development stage by proposing a sociological background for improving transparency and reliability of algorithms. The major AI developed countries are also striving to establish a foundation for developing and utilizing reliable AI in preparation for the rapid spread of AI across society in the future. Governments are encouraging AI to be developed in accordance with ethics and social principles by presenting guidelines. In this trend, Korea also needs to improve the current status of relevant legal systems and concrete efforts to prepare regulatory policies to solve the safety and ethical issues of AI. In particular, the seven individual laws (i.e., civil law, intellectual property law, criminal law, information protection law, fair trade law, road traffic law and product liability law) that cover major AI issues need to be improved to promote AI R&D and technology. In addition, overhauling data-related laws including privacy protection and improving digital ethics guidelines for data protection need to be considered to activate data-based AI ecosystem in the near future.