2019, Vol.26, No.3

Informatization Policy 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 4.08

pISSN : 1598-3498
https://journal.kci.go.kr/nia

In the fourth industrial revolution age, because of advance in the intelligence information technologies, the various roles of AI have attracted public attention. Starting with Google's Alphago, AI is now no longer a fantasized technology but a real one that can bring ripple effect in entire society. Already, AI has performed well in the medical service, legal service, and the private sector's business decision making. This study conducted an exploratory analysis on the possibilities and issues of AI-driven policy decision making in the public sector. The three research purposes are i) could AI make a policy decision in public sector?; ii) how different is AI-driven policy decision making compared to the existing methods of decision making?; and iii) what issues would be revealed by AI's policy decision making? AI-driven policy decision making is differentiated from the traditional ways of decision making in that the former is represented by rationality based on sufficient amount of information and alternatives, increased transparency and trust, more objective views for policy issues, and faster decision making process. However, there are several controversial issues regarding superiority of AI, ethics, accountability, changes in democracy, substitution of human labor in the public sector, and data usage problems for AI. Since the adoption of AI for policy decision making will be soon realized, it is necessary to take an integrative approach, considering both the positive and adverse effects, to minimize social impact.

The use of social media in government has expanded steadily around the world on the basis of Web 2.0 technology. The government uses social media as a tool for enhancing transparency, participation, collaboration, and saving costs. However, the use of social media in the public sector has not only been positive. It has also been described as a double-edged sword. Most local governments in South Korea use social media for a variety of reasons but there has not been enough practical study of the effectiveness of social media use in the public sector. Local governments generally have positive views of their social media use but the real application of social media is not consistent in each local government. This study tried to determine the reality of social media use in local government and what factors influenced its use. The research analyzed the data from a survey conducted by the Korea Local Information Research & Development Institute (KLID) in 2015 and data from Facebook in each local government. The results show that most local governments were using Facebook for promotional purposes and local government officials similarly recognized that they were using Facebook well. However, local governments showed great differences in their use and practical effect. Meanwhile, the study found that population, financial independence, level of government, the entity operating social media, the median age, and whether social media are used for interaction or to gather opinions were the most influential factors that make a difference in utilization in local government.

The aim of this study was to empirically investigate the difference in life satisfaction between people with disabilities who utilize the Internet and those who do not. The study also found out through an interaction term analysis if there were differences in their life satisfaction and digital utilization by gender, age, education level, employment status, household income, as well as personal characteristics such as disability type and degree. While the existing studies have been mainly focused on the digital divide between the non-disabled and the disabled, this study attempts to further apply the advanced concept of digital divide - digital utilization divide - within the group of people with disabilities. Based on these research findings, this study shows that the digital utilization by people with disabilities has a statistically significant effect on their quality of life, and that life satisfaction of the people with disabilities who use the Internet is affected by their education level, residence, and disability degree. Consequently, these findings indicate implications that suggest an expanded form of digital divide policies for people with disabilities through broadening perspectives on policies for closing such divide.