Traveling AI‐essentialism and national AI strategies: A comparison between South Korea and France

Jongheon Kim

Review of Policy Research, 2023, vol. 40, issue 5, 705-728

Abstract: In this paper, I investigate what common discourses National AI Strategies (NAISs) share and how they have unfolded differently in diverging national contexts. For this purpose, I compare the South Korean and French cases by relying on the notions of sociotechnical imaginary and future essentialism. I analyze (1) the emergence of the common discourses, which I call AI‐essentialism, over the past decade; (2) the development of imaginaries around IT in Korea and France in the twentieth century, namely technological developmentalism and the American challenge, respectively; and (3) the integration of the traveling AI‐essentialism and nationally embedded imaginaries of IT into each country's NAISs. The analysis indicates that: (1) AI‐essentialism incorporated discursive strategies, enabling political and industrial leaders to naturalize AI development, hence justifying increased investments in the field; (2) two countries' imaginaries of IT diverged due to the successes and failures throughout the second half of the twentieth century; and (3) while two countries' NAISs share AI‐essentialism's discursive instruments, their specific measures and unfolding have varied in relation to each case's existing imaginaries of IT. En este artículo, investigo qué discursos comunes comparten las Estrategias Nacionales de IA (NAIS) y cómo se han desarrollado de manera diferente en contextos nacionales divergentes. Para ello, comparo los casos de Corea del Sur y Francia apoyándome en las nociones de imaginario sociotécnico y esencialismo futuro. Analizo (1) el surgimiento de los discursos comunes, que llamo esencialismo de IA, durante la última década; (2) el desarrollo de imaginarios en torno a las TI en Corea y Francia en el siglo XX, a saber, el desarrollismo tecnológico y el desafío estadounidense, respectivamente; y (3) la integración del esencialismo de la IA itinerante y los imaginarios de TI integrados a nivel nacional en los NAIS de cada país. El análisis indica que: (1) el esencialismo de la IA incorporó estrategias discursivas, lo que permitió a los líderes políticos e industriales naturalizar el desarrollo de la IA, justificando así mayores inversiones en el campo; (2) los imaginarios de TI de dos países divergieron debido a los éxitos y fracasos a lo largo de la segunda mitad del siglo XX; y (3) si bien los NAIS de dos países comparten los instrumentos discursivos del esencialismo de la IA, sus medidas y desarrollos específicos han variado en relación con los imaginarios de TI existentes en cada caso. 本文中，我研究了国家人工智能战略(NAIS)具有哪些共同话语，以及这些共同话语如何在不同的国家情境中以不同方式展开。为此，我使用社会技术想象和未来本质主义的概念来比较韩国和法国的案例。我分析了(1)过去十年出现的共同话语，我称之为人工智能(AI)本质主义；(2)20世纪韩国和法国围绕IT的想象发展，分别为技术发展主义和美国挑战；(3)快速传播的AI本质主义和嵌入全国的IT想象如何整合到每个国家的AI战略中。分析表明:(1)AI本质主义结合了话语策略，使政界和工业领导人能够将AI的发展自然化，从而证明该领域的投资增加是合理的；(2)由于整个20世纪下半叶的成功与失败，两国对IT的想象出现了分歧；(3)虽然两国的AI战略都运用了AI本质主义的话语工具，但它们的具体措施和展开方式因各自对IT的现有想象而异。

Date: 2023
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