South Korea says it 'cannot afford' to slow AI development

South Korea “cannot afford” to slow the development of artificial intelligence as it seeks to catch up with global leaders and create new markets, the country’s science minister said Wednesday.

“It is an entirely different matter for a country already ahead to adjust its pace, than for a nation that is catching up while simultaneously having to create new markets to slow down,” Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said in a social media post, according to Yonhap News.

“We cannot afford to slow down the pace of AI development,” he added.

Bae warned that the divide between countries possessing frontier AI models approaching human intelligence and those without them could extend beyond technology to industrial competitiveness, national security, and long-term economic growth.

He, however, cautioned against unconditional acceleration, saying AI safety and public trust must advance alongside technological development.

His comments came amid a widening global debate over the pace of AI development.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and SpaceXAI's Elon Musk have called for slowing frontier AI development to allow safety measures to catch up, while proposing greater independent oversight.

US President Donald Trump has rejected such calls, describing fears of AI threatening humanity as a “hoax” and arguing that slowing US development could benefit China.

China has also pushed back, saying “fear-mongering, confrontation and vicious competition” would hamper global AI governance, and calling instead for open and inclusive development of the technology.