AI adviser’s Busan run exposes policy doubts

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo. For Ha Jung-woo, senior presidential secretary for AI future planning, I may have been only one of many reporters he had to deal with. But since his days at Naver, I had privately thought of him as my AI tutor. Whenever I had questions about AI technology or trends, I turned to him. Even when busy, he explained them in plain language fit for a humanities major. That was why expectations were high when Ha was appointed last June as the Lee Jae Myung administration's first senior AI secretary. In a Democratic Party government often seen as skeptical of technological progress and platform companies, many hoped he would keep policy balanced. Some dismissed him as "Naver's AI salesperson" because he had energetically briefed the press, persuaded corporate clients and worked with Seoul National University as co-director of an AI center. But an AI researcher active in top global venues such as NeurIPS, who could also communicate with universities and industry, was not a liability. It was rare talent. President Lee, after taking office, made joining the world's top three AI powers a key national task and created the post for Ha, calling him a "national AI expert." Ha answered that the next three to five years would be Korea's "golden time" for AI and pledged to pour his energy into strengthening competitiveness. Only 10 months have passed since he presented plans such as securing 260,000 GPUs. Those were not minor talking points but part of a national strategy in a field where infrastructure, talent and time determine outcomes. Perhaps expectations were too high. News that Ha offered to resign on Monday to run as the ruling party's candidate in the Busan Buk Gap by-election left more than personal disappointment. As a citizen, it felt like a betrayal. The seat became vacant as Rep. Jeon Jae-soo prepared to run for Busan mayor in the June 3 local elections. AI is not merely a field in which one company wins everything. It is a core capability that could shape national survival, and Korea now stands at a crossroads over whether it can build AI strength comparable to that of the United States and China. Against that backdrop, the symbolic figure who led AI policy is leaving public office not for a national growth strategy but for a party election strategy. No matter how generously it is framed, the word that comes to mind is "out of place," as one ruling bloc figure reportedly put it. Some in the AI field are even cynical, saying Ha may be leaving early because the "sovereign AI" he championed is unlikely to produce results. It resembles the bad signal sent when a senior executive sells shares: Investors assume the stock has nowhere to go but down. The concern is that many Koreans will now see the administration's top-three AI slogan as a political consumable nearing disposal. The comparison with Taiwan's Audrey Tang comes naturally. In 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party government led by President Tsai Ing-wen appointed Tang, then a 35-year-old developer renowned in the hacker community, as a minister without portfolio. In 2022, Tang became the first head of Taiwan's new Ministry of Digital Affairs and served until 2024. Tang helped reorganize public data so the private sector could use it more easily through APIs and platforms, built tools for information sharing among ministries and drew attention during the Covid-19 pandemic with an open-data response that showed mask inventories in real time. The commitment to transparency included the disclosure of official records and meeting notes. There was no confusion caused by presidential aides offering conflicting explanations about Ha's political ambitions on the same day. Taiwan and Korea both recruited technology elites into public office. Taiwan upgraded government through technology. Korea now appears to have sold technology cheaply as a tool of politics. Tang reportedly entered government with the principle of working n...