Regulatory Governance of AI in the Generative AI Era: A Comparative Study of South Korea’s AI Basic Act and the EU AI Act for Sustainable Digital Transformation

This study conducts a comparative legal analysis of South Korea’s Framework Act on Artificial Intelligence (enacted January 2025, effective January 2026) and the EU AI Act (effective August 2024), focusing on the structural implications of their divergent regulatory philosophies for sustainable digital governance. Employing legal interpretive analysis (textual, systematic, and teleological) and comparative legal methodology, supplemented by risk-based regulation theory and the theory of hardening of soft norms, this paper examines three interconnected dimensions: the conceptual distinction between “high-impact” and “high-risk” AI, the legal nature of self-regulatory structures, and the potential distortion of civil liability attribution. The analysis reveals that Korea’s adoption of the “high-impact” concept, while strategically reducing compliance costs and avoiding stigma effects, generates significant legal gaps, including potential violations of the constitutional principle of clarity, a “liability lightning rod” phenomenon transferring responsibility from AI operators to frontline practitioners, and insufficient institutional prerequisites for effective self-regulation. In contrast, the EU’s ex-ante preventive framework provides greater legal certainty through direct enumeration of high-risk sectors and mandatory conformity assessments. Drawing on the growing body of EU AI Act scholarship, this paper proposes a five-step legislative model for dynamic regulatory adjustment tailored to Korea’s constitutional structure, encompassing statutory core criteria, periodic re-evaluation with parliamentary oversight, phased mandatory enforcement, and a presumption of conformity system, thereby offering a co-regulatory framework that balances innovation promotion with fundamental rights protection.