Cheong Wa Dae says president used AI to check facts, not to govern

Cheong Wa Dae said Thursday that the government remains committed to ensuring the fairness and political neutrality of investigations and the independence of prosecutorial decisions, amid controversy over the head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency attending Cabinet meetings.

Senior Secretary for Public Communication Seong Ki-hong made the remarks at a briefing for reporters at Chunchugwan, saying it was "entirely inconsistent with how the people's sovereignty government conducts Cabinet meetings" to interpret the agency chief's attendance as political interference in or control over investigative bodies.

Seong added that Cabinet meetings under the current administration serve as a forum for heads of government agencies to share governing philosophy and discuss pressing public-welfare issues, and stressed that specific individual cases — including decisions on indictments — would not be addressed there.

Seong also expressed displeasure at some media coverage of President Lee Jae-myung's decision to cite a response from the AI assistant Gemini in connection with the agency chief's Cabinet attendance.

"Is it accurate to report that it is unprecedented for the nation's top leader to cite an AI response as the basis for governing?" Seong said. "President Lee was not asking AI how to run the country — he was checking the facts."

Seong said the president had used the tool as a means of finding facts, emphasizing that the relevant constitutional and statutory provisions could be quickly and easily confirmed by querying Gemini.

On Wednesday, Lee posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying he had "asked Gemini" and that calls to exclude the heads of the prosecution and serious crimes agencies from Cabinet meetings were "a sophistry that flatly denies the president's administrative supervisory authority and governmental command structure as prescribed by the Constitution and the Government Organization Act."