Lee Jae-myung, the president, on the 13th called the criticism over Blue House Deputy Minister Kim Yong-beom's proposal to introduce a "national dividends" program "fake news for manipulating public opinion." A day after the Blue House drew a line by saying it was "the policy chief's personal opinion," Lee directly posted on social media to rebut it.
Lee shared on X (formerly Twitter) a report titled "Venezuela comes to mind… Kim Yong-beom's 'AI windfall dividends' controversy," and said, "What Deputy Minister Kim said was that we are reviewing (a plan) to pay national dividends from the government's excess tax revenue generated by excess profits in the artificial intelligence (AI) institutional sector," adding, "Some media edited this remark and spread a smear fake news item that 'Deputy Minister Kim insisted on reviewing a plan to pay national dividends from corporations' excess profits.'"
He went on, "Even though Deputy Minister Kim denied this, offered a kind explanation, and related reports were published, why are they still carrying such smear reports?" He wrote, "Political condemnation or criticism, if not based on facts, harms democracy."
Deputy Minister Kim wrote on Facebook the previous day, "The fruits of the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure era are not the result pulled out by specific corporations alone," proposing the introduction of a "national dividends system" to return them to the public. He said, "Excess profits in the AI era are concentrated by nature," adding, "Even if the country becomes wealthier, the distribution of that wealth does not automatically spread. Korea has been strong in growth, but weak in socially spreading the fruits of that growth."
As criticism arose from the opposition, including the People Power Party, the Blue House said, "The content posted by Deputy Minister Kim is an individual opinion unrelated to any internal discussion or review at the Blue House."