About a quarter of South Koreans already pay for AI services, compared to just 2% of Americans
South Korea is preparing to offer free generative AI services to its entire population, using the technology to help people handle everyday tasks such as booking medical appointments, finding housing, and sorting out taxes.
The program is intended to expand access to homegrown AI systems while giving the government a larger role in how they are used for everyday services.



RIP Korean students in formative years learning critical thinking and social skills.
Govt-funded Chatbot about to gaslight them that every idea and question is genius-level, and that social connections are something a computer can fulfil.
What students? They’ve been shutting down school because they have no students to teach. They are on the leading edge of a demographic trend the ‘developed’ world will soon see.
Care to explain? Sounds interesting, my last impression was that SK was a society with massive competitive pressure in education and career. What happened?
There aren’t any children being made. Therefore no students to teach. Same is happening all over the world but way higher pace in SK. It’s easy to forget how shitty their society can be with the glitz of k-pop culture distracting us. I don’t mean that as an insult specific to Korea. Many other countries look great from the outside but is never without issues.
Younger person looking at their own society collapse around them because having children is too expensive: at least this old generation will take their stupid dogma with them along with their institutional knowledge of machining, woodworking, trades, etc.
Older person looking at their own society collapse around them because having children is too expensive: at least we made the dogma stick!
It’s all related. Massive societal pressure = no time for children. No time for children means birth rates are significantly below replacement rate. At first the issue was ignorable. Now it’s not. Cracks are starting to show. With so few children, nobody is “picking up the torch” for virtually very industry, and whatever workers are left are dwindling as they retire.
You see a similar thing happening in Japan, too. And a similar issue is occurring in America and Europe, though their situation is not as bad in comparison. It’s speculated that all advanced economies will eventually face this challenge, but South Korea is really trying to speedrun total societal collapse
Declining birth rates.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with declining birth rates when your population is so oversized. If you try the “there’s nobody to look after the old people” argument, that’s infrastructure and priorities, not an actual resource shortage.
I wasn’t suggesting it was wrong or anything, just offering an explanation. Personally, I reckon there too many fucking people in the world.
You know that you can use ChatGPT for free, right? Also, paid plans aren’t so expensive that a student couldn’t afford one.
If you think free access is the only thing between students using AI and learning traditionally, I’m afraid you will be disappointed.
Free AI won’t change much for most people, except that the government can choose what models the citizens will use. This way they can be independent of US companies dominating the market.
This is home.grown south-korean AI we’re talkong about here. It will never be satisfied with anything you do and will always criticize you no matter how good you are.