As a professor, translator and self-appointed cultural ambassador, I have traveled to many countries in my life. One of the best places I have ever visited is Malaga in Spain. Thanks to the generous invitation of Vice Chancellor Victor Munoz and Professor Antonio Domenech, I had a chance to be affiliated with the University of Malaga as a visiting professor for a semester. Thanks to the warm hospitality of Gonzalo Ortiz, the former Spanish Ambassador to South Korea, I also had a chance to visit

ViewpointsNov. 27, 2024

Vietnam has positioned itself in recent years as an attractive destination for Big Tech companies looking to move away from China. But Hanoi’s policies regarding social media have increasingly been following Beijing’s lead. The Southeast Asian nation is now ramping up already tight controls over online platforms with new rules that will require companies to verify the identities of users and share this information with authorities when asked. If these sorts of digital regulations sou

ViewpointsNov. 27, 2024

South Korea’s plan to roll out the AI Digital Textbook system in 2025 has sparked some controversy. It is an ambitious project, and there’s nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world. But the boldness of the idea is matched by the intensity of the concerns it raises. The sheer cost, the way it is being implemented as a national policy and whether AI will truly help or hurt education have left people divided and questioning its viability. The AIDT is not just another digital tex

ViewpointsNov. 26, 2024

I have worked as a professor for almost 30 years at two Ivy League institutions -- the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. Ivy League institutions epitomize the Ivory Tower. We imagine that professors and students discuss rarefied subjects while being disconnected to the reality on the ground. However, I wholeheartedly reject this version of academia. Two weeks ago, I had the immense pleasure of organizing a K-pop conference at Yale University titled "K-pop Production and Consum

ViewpointsNov. 26, 2024

Generative AI’s ability to create or improve products and services means it has to potential to commoditize some businesses, while greatly enhancing the competitive advantage of others. In what follows I will discuss the characteristics that make products or services susceptible to disruption by generative AI, and those that make them more resilient. To illustrate, I will then compare Chegg and Duolingo, two businesses which have been impacted very differently by the emergence of generativ

ViewpointsNov. 25, 2024

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election earlier this month, securing another four-year term as the leader of the world’s most powerful country, has sent shockwaves across the globe and through various sectors on a magnitude and scope not seen in many years. Not only experts and scholars but also the general public, including small retail investors and office workers, have actively debated the changes Trump is likely to bring about when he takes office in two months and

ViewpointsNov. 25, 2024

Donald Trump recently said he would protect women, whether they like it or not. What did he mean by this? What is implied by this? It is an important statement and, unfortunately, tells us a great deal about why Trump won the election and his priorities as president. For the last several years, leading Republicans have warned that there is a war on masculinity in America. Indeed, manly men are being replaced, they say, by effeminate men or gay men or -- even worse -- by men who want to become wo

ViewpointsNov. 25, 2024

Now that former President Donald Trump has won the US presidential election, should President Yoon Suk Yeol practice golf and get used to hamburgers? By indulging in Trump’s favorites, can President Yoon win the US leader's heart and build a bromance with him for the sake of South Korea’s national interests? Unfortunately, these seemingly playful questions have become a serious topic lately in Seoul’s political and diplomatic circles. That is because as the most powerful l

ViewpointsNov. 22, 2024

With Donald Trump returning to the White House, leaders worldwide are grappling with the implications. Cooperation with the US president is critical for most countries, as it significantly affects their national interests. For South Korea, this is especially true. On issues of security and trade, collaboration with the United States is not just beneficial -- it is vital. Trump's past remarks, including a suggestion of demanding a $10 billion defense cost-sharing settlement from South Korea,

ViewpointsNov. 21, 2024

Over the past three years, one of the US’ top tech regulators has been Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan. Since publishing her remarkable Yale Law Journal article “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” in 2017, Khan has been a leading voice fighting concentrated corporate power and protecting consumers in the US Her FTC sued Amazon, and other big tech companies, for anti-competitive practices. It has also vastly improved its privacy enforcement efforts, and has compreh

ViewpointsNov. 21, 2024