S.Korea to Install AI-Based Security Systems to Curb Border Defection

The South Korean military will install an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based security system at the eastern coastal border, weeks after a North Korean man crossed over to the country.

The man in his 20s passed through a drainage conduit beneath the barbed wire fences set up along the shore in mid-February. He was on the military surveillance cameras 10 times but soldiers failed to notice eight of them even after alarm bells rang. He was caught after hours of manhunt.

Plans to install the new AI systems was revealed to Defense Minister Suh Wook during a meeting on defense reform. It will be expanded to the whole 22nd Infantry Division in Goseong by 2022, Yonhap News Agency reported today.

The military will postpone the planned disbandment of the Army's 8th Corps, which has the division under its wing, from December this year to mid-2023 to give time for upgrading the security system.