GPT-4 (Photo: a screenshot from OpenAI website)
SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Korea Bizwire) – In a push to overcome the dominance of English and Chinese-based artificial intelligence systems, South Korean tech companies are developing AI models specifically tailored to Korean language and cultural contexts.
Most AI models undergo training and fine-tuning processes using predominantly English and Chinese-based data, raising concerns among developers and companies about potential translation errors and cultural misunderstandings when using open-source AI models.
A representative from AI software developer Moreh highlighted the cultural implications of existing AI systems. “The United States and China have the largest AI markets and most active research,” they said. “For instance, when searching for ‘Takeshima,’ GPT-4 describes it as a territory under dispute, while our Motif model explicitly explains that ‘Takeshima’ is a Japanese term and Dokdo is clearly Korean territory.”
Some industry observers believe that releasing Korean-language AI models as open-source software could benefit the domestic industry by allowing developers worldwide to test and improve them, ultimately contributing to the development of a specialized Korean AI ecosystem.
Beyond natural language processing, specialized Korean AI models are emerging in various fields, including image recognition, legal, and medical domains. The Korean AI model market is expected to become increasingly active.
NCSoft has released Varco-Vision, a small to medium-sized open-source visual language model specialized in Korean language processing. Meanwhile, OpenAI signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Development Bank last month, announcing plans to develop AI models tailored to Korean contexts.
Moreh plans to launch and open-source Motif Vision, a text-to-image generation model, this month.
Professor Choi Kyoungjin of Gachon University’s Law School, former president of the Korean Artificial Intelligence Law Society, emphasized the importance of cultural context in AI development.
“When an AI system lacking Korean cultural understanding generates images, it might depict children playing the traditional Korean game of jachigi wearing Chinese clothing,” he explained.
“The key to AI capability lies in its adaptability at various levels, requiring large amounts of diverse regional data to provide more accurate and varied responses.”
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
