Helping Public Decision-Making with AI-Based Policy Intelligence System

Newswise — Korean researchers are pushing for a new AI-based policy intelligence research project that can assist the public decision-making and policy execution of domestic and foreign local governments.

Electronics and Communications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on July 1 that they have decided to establish a cooperative system with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)¹⁾ to conduct further research regarding the development of an AI policy intelligence system that can assist public policy decision-making.
^{1) International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA): An independent international research institute located in Laxenburg, Austria. Founded in 1972, IIASA mainly focuses on interdisciplinary scientific research to provide valuable policy insights and solutions to complex global-scale issues that requires worldwide support and cooperation such as climate change, sustainable development, energy security, human welfare, etc. The IIASA aims to bring together researchers from all around the world to ensure a high level of cooperation and collaboration, providing a scientific foundation for global policymakers to respond to urgent global issues and challenges.}

Together with IIASA, the research team of ETRI is planning to develop a policy intelligence system that can provide practical help in the government’s execution of public policies. In addition, they also plan to expand the field of public policy intelligence and put their focus on the research of new sustainable future technologies.

Through this agreement, the two institutions will strengthen their international cooperation to address global challenges such as population issues, climate changes, environmental change, etc., starting with the advancement of the MABM (Macro Agent-Based Model)²⁾.
^{2) MABM (Macro Agent-Based Model): A model that puts an emphasis on the behaviors of individual agents and the interactions between them to analyze and simulate macro-economic phenomena or social systems. This model is a part of a methodology to study the micro-level behavior of individual components (agents) to properly understand and predict the overall behavior and mechanism of the complext system as a whole.}

It is viewed that this technical cooperation between ETRI and IIASA will enable the setting of a virtual nation with common economical/social frameworks, opening up the possibility for creative experiments that can help us address complex policy elements that are difficult to deal with in reality. With this approach, it is expected to enable local and central governments to make reliable policy decisions based on scientific evidence.

For example, when changes in economic indicators are detected through the monitoring within a real national economic system, technologies such as digital twins can be used to conduct policy simulations and prospects in a virtually set national economic system that replicates the real world. In this virtual system, macro/micro data are also entered and synchronized in addition to financial data. After that, the AI decision-making agents conduct the experiment to come up with an optimal policy. Through this process, this series of fiscal/economic digital twin frameworks plays a pivotal role in actively supporting the decision-making required for optimal planning and execution of policies.

ETRI has a number of R&D performances and core technologies related to the following areas: ▲Analysis & Prediction of National Economic/Social Phenomena ▲AI Technology for National Policy Decision-Making ▲Policy Intelligence Convergence Platform Technology. Meanwhile, IIASA is focusing their resources on studying various complex issues such as environment, energy, climate change, economy, technology, policy, etc., through advanced system analysis to address those issues and come up with a sustainable solution.

Lee Yeon-hee, the director of ETRI’s Fiscal and Economic Policy Intelligence Research Center, said, “Through our technical cooperation with IIASA, we will be able to improve our capacities in various areas such as systemic analysis of complex issues, scientific prediction, and modeling research for the development of a sustainable policy intelligence solution.”

Poledna Sebastian³⁾, Leader of the IIASA Exploratory Modeling of Human-natural Systems (EM) Research Group, also claimed, “The signing of a new cooperation agreement with ETRI will serve as a wonderful opportunity for both institutions to expand the scope of the recently developed monetary policy model into other areas such as policy analysis based on government function and future decision-making activities.”
^{3) Poledna Sebastian: Leader of the IIASA Exploratory Modeling of Human-natural Systems (EM) Research Group}

Through this study, ETRI aims to develop a quality policy intelligence that can propose and verify public policies, including national fiscal policies and public policies, utilizing social/economic big data and AI technology. They are also working on other technologies such as a virtual national economy simulation program equipped with virtual experiment and large-scale data collection features to monitor the real-world economy, an AI-based decision-making system to derive optimal policies, financial/economic digital twin framework, etc.

Meanwhile, the data framework management interface developed by the researchers of ETRI has been adopted as the new international standard at the International Telecommunications Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector Study Group 11 (Protocol & Test Standards) Meeting, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland last May.

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Since 2022, ETRI has been carrying out the task “AI/Data-Based Financial & Economic Digital Twin Platform Development” as a part of the “ICT Convergence Industry Innovation Technology Development Project,” which is supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Institute for Information & Communication Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP).

About Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)

ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research institute. Since its foundation in 1976, ETRI, a global ICT research institute, has been making its immense effort to provide Korea a remarkable growth in the field of ICT industry. ETRI delivers Korea as one of the top ICT nations in the World, by unceasingly developing world’s first and best technologies.