With advances in artificial intelligence (AI), an era has opened in which a team of just three—a planner, an artist, and a developer—can produce high-quality content. However, some said that to continue producing content competitive in the global market, ecosystem design including production infrastructure and a shift in policy must go hand in hand.
On Mar. 27, the 1st K-CultureTech AX Forum, co-hosted by National Assembly Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee Chair Kim Gyo-heung and lawmaker Seo Young-kyo, brought together industry, academia, and policy officials to discuss ways to strengthen K-culture competitiveness.
On the day, Kang Dong-ju, a PD at the Culture, Sports and Tourism Technology Promotion Center of the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), said, "If AX in manufacturing is a matter of efficiency and optimization, content AX is about reconfiguring creation and rights and redesigning organizations and value chains," adding, "For content AX, we need to build an AI studio that enables hypothesis-based iterative experiments, secure high-quality content databases free from platform lock-in, and establish a contribution-based settlement system through provenance tracking."
Kim Don-jeong, a professor at Korea University HIAI (Human-Inspired AI Research), emphasized the need for a "CultureTech alliance." Kim said, "As of 2024, there are 120,000 content corporations, but 86.6% have less than 1 billion won in revenue and 93.7% have nine or fewer employees, a small-scale structure," adding, "As global big tech learns from content worldwide, building a collaboration system between large and small corporations is urgent for the survival and growth of domestic content corporations."
Choi Seung-hun, policy director at the Korea Association of Game Industry, said, "AX is possible only when a policy transformation (PX) is in place," adding, "A production cost tax credit and an integrated employment tax credit would serve as policy signals that encourage investment and hiring." Choi added, "It is also necessary to improve the 52-hour workweek system by extending the application unit of the flexible working hours system from the current maximum of six months to one year."
Lee Se-yeon, CEO of Starverse Lab, said, "If we build an AI data hub that accumulates K-pop, K-drama, Korean pronunciation, and various scripts, along with a creation pipeline that anyone can use, tailored high-quality content production will expand significantly," and proposed, "We also need to revise the Copyright Act to establish an automated system that tracks and allocates rights throughout the entire creation process."
In a congratulatory remark, Lee Jeong-heon, head of the Association of Innovative SMEs, said, "Creators have vivid scenes in their minds, but the moment they enter them into AI, that vividness disappears, and Korean sensory expressions like 'monggeul-monggeul' and 'sallang-sallang' remain difficult to quantify," adding, "The K-CultureTech AX Forum will serve as a hub connecting the realm of art and the realm of development."