Why do South Koreans love AI so much?

为什么韩国人如此热爱人工智能？

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. When I landed in Seoul after a grueling 12-hour flight from San Francisco, I walked through an unmanned immigration checkpoint, where a machine scanned my face and passport. 本文最初发表于我们的 AI 每周通讯《The Algorithm》。若想第一时间在收件箱中获取此类报道，请点击此处订阅。当我结束从旧金山出发、长达 12 小时的艰苦飞行抵达首尔时，我穿过了一个无人值守的入境检查站，机器扫描了我的面部和护照。

On the subway home, people were glued to their phones (powered by flawless 5G even underground), as we raced past platforms lined with LED screens of ads celebrating K-pop idols’ birthdays. When I got off the station in Gangnam, a cartoon-eyed robot on wheels was waiting patiently at a crosswalk to deliver someone’s dinner. 在回家的地铁上，人们目不转睛地盯着手机（即使在地下，5G 网络依然完美无缺），列车飞驰而过，站台上满是庆祝 K-pop 偶像生日的 LED 广告屏。当我在江南站下车时，一个长着卡通眼睛的轮式机器人正耐心地在人行横道旁等待，准备去送餐。

Internet cafés dotted the sidewalks, crammed with teenagers playing computer games, maybe hoping to become the next legendary pro gamer. I stood at a bus stop with interactive touch screens showing real-time bus schedule updates. It will soon become an “AI bus stop,” the Gangnam district announced in June, with a kiosk that answers riders’ questions in multiple languages. 人行道上遍布着网吧，里面挤满了玩电脑游戏的青少年，他们或许正梦想着成为下一个传奇职业玩家。我站在一个公交车站旁，互动触摸屏显示着实时的公交时刻表。江南区在六月宣布，这里很快将升级为“AI 公交站”，配备能用多种语言回答乘客问题的自助服务终端。

The news didn’t surprise me. Having grown up in the city, I’ve watched Seoul transform from a scrappy boomtown into the gleaming tech capital it is today. South Korea loves AI. While a public backlash against AI is brewing across the US, South Koreans are optimistic. 这个消息并没有让我感到惊讶。作为在这座城市长大的人，我见证了首尔从一个充满活力的繁荣城镇蜕变为如今闪耀的科技之都。韩国人热爱 AI。尽管美国国内对 AI 的抵制情绪正在酝酿，但韩国人却持乐观态度。

Only 16% say they are more concerned than excited about AI—the lowest of any of the 25 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center—while 50% of Americans were more worried than excited. A majority of Koreans use AI every day, either as a sort of personal assistant or to do tasks at work, according to surveys by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 皮尤研究中心对 25 个国家进行的调查显示，只有 16% 的韩国人表示对 AI 的担忧多于兴奋，这一比例是所有受访国家中最低的；而美国人中，这一比例高达 50%。根据韩国文化体育观光部和大韩商工会议所的调查，大多数韩国人每天都在使用 AI，将其作为个人助理或用于处理工作任务。

One of the most wired countries in the world, South Korea loves to street-test every new technology on the block—AI webcomics, virtual K-pop idols, and humanoid monks. And the appetite for experimentation doesn’t stop with ordinary citizens. Government agencies are early adopters too, deploying AI textbooks in schools and AI eldercare robots in welfare centers. 作为世界上网络化程度最高的国家之一，韩国热衷于在街头测试每一项新技术——从 AI 网络漫画、虚拟 K-pop 偶像到人形僧侣。这种实验热情不仅限于普通民众，政府机构也是先行者，他们在学校部署 AI 教科书，并在福利中心使用 AI 养老机器人。

South Koreans share a deep conviction that embracing technology is integral to modernizing the country and cementing its place in the global order. Their fascination with AI is just the latest incarnation of that ethos—and it’s making them anxious to stay ahead. 韩国人深信，拥抱技术是国家现代化并巩固其全球地位的关键。他们对 AI 的痴迷正是这种精神的最新体现，这也让他们渴望保持领先地位。

Engineered enthusiasm

被“设计”出来的热情

All this techno-optimism has largely been engineered by South Korea’s national agenda to make AI a motor of economic growth. “The South Korean government has designated an AI-powered Fourth Industrial Revolution as the country’s path forward and aggressively promoted and invested in it,” says Chihyung Jeon, a professor of science and technology policy at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. “South Koreans have consistently and relentlessly been told by the government about AI’s potential to create a better future.” 这种技术乐观主义在很大程度上是由韩国的国家议程所推动的，旨在将 AI 作为经济增长的引擎。韩国科学技术院（KAIST）科学技术政策教授全治亨（Chihyung Jeon）表示：“韩国政府已将 AI 驱动的第四次工业革命定为国家的发展路径，并积极推动和投资。政府不断地向韩国民众灌输 AI 创造美好未来的潜力。”

As South Korea rose from the ashes of the Korean War, technology lifted the nation from poverty into an economic powerhouse. In the 1970s, South Korea manufactured steel and ships, then semiconductors in the 1980s, broadband in the 1990s, and smartphones in the 2000s. Today, Samsung and SK Hynix supply most of the world’s high-bandwidth memory chips, which power the cutting-edge Nvidia hardware used to train AI models. 随着韩国从朝鲜战争的废墟中崛起，技术将这个国家从贫困中拉出，使其成为经济强国。20 世纪 70 年代，韩国制造钢铁和船舶；80 年代转向半导体；90 年代发展宽带；2000 年代则主攻智能手机。如今，三星和 SK 海力士供应了全球大部分的高带宽内存芯片，这些芯片为训练 AI 模型所需的尖端英伟达硬件提供了动力。

South Korea’s economy now orbits these two semiconductor giants: The country’s main equity index, Kospi, surged to record highs in 2026, powered by the soaring share prices of both companies, each valued above $1 trillion. Lee Jae-myung, president of South Korea, has pledged to vault the country into the ranks of the “top three AI powers” alongside the US and China. 韩国经济如今围绕着这两大半导体巨头运转：受这两家公司股价飙升的推动，韩国综合股价指数（Kospi）在 2026 年创下历史新高，两家公司的市值均超过 1 万亿美元。韩国总统李在明承诺，要让韩国跻身与美国、中国并列的“全球三大 AI 强国”之列。

After taking office in 2025, he launched the Presidential Council on National AI Strategy to help buy massive amounts of computing power and a sovereign AI foundation model project that funds Korean companies to develop homegrown AI models. The government has also supported semiconductor titans, including Samsung and SK Hynix, through generous tax credits and low-interest financing. 2025 年上任后，他成立了总统直属的国家 AI 战略委员会，旨在协助购买海量算力，并启动了主权 AI 基础模型项目，资助韩国企业开发本土 AI 模型。政府还通过慷慨的税收抵免和低息融资，支持包括三星和 SK 海力士在内的半导体巨头。

South Korea’s policy posture also prioritizes accelerating AI development over safety considerations. In 2024, South Korea’s legislature passed the AI Basic Act, one of the world’s first comprehensive AI laws, to promote AI development and establish light-touch regulatory guardrails. Seventy percent of South Koreans say advancing science and medicine through AI innovation is a bigger priority than protecting industries through regulation, according to the 2026 Stanford AI Index. 韩国的政策立场也将加速 AI 发展置于安全考量之上。2024 年，韩国立法机构通过了《AI 基本法》，这是全球首批全面的 AI 法律之一，旨在促进 AI 发展并建立轻量级的监管护栏。根据 2026 年斯坦福大学 AI 指数，70% 的韩国人认为，通过 AI 创新推动科学和医学进步，比通过监管保护行业更为重要。

All of that effort might be paying off. The same index ranked South Korea as having the third largest number of notable AI models in the world, based on criteria such as state-of-the-art advancements or high citation rates. For many small countries like South Korea, AI is a chance to punch above their weight. 所有这些努力或许正在获得回报。同一指数显示，基于尖端技术进步或高引用率等标准，韩国拥有的知名 AI 模型数量位居世界第三。对于像韩国这样的小国来说，AI 是一个以小博大的机会。

The blind spots

盲点

But that single-mindedness can crowd out critical reflection on AI’s broader societal impacts. “Because the national agenda on AI prioritizes economic development,” says Jeon, the professor of science and technology policy, “there isn’t much reflection on the social, political, ethical dimensions of the technology.” 但这种单一的专注可能会挤压对 AI 更广泛社会影响的批判性反思。科学技术政策教授全治亨表示：“由于国家 AI 议程优先考虑经济发展，人们对该技术的社会、政治和伦理维度的反思并不多。”

In 2025, the South Korean government faced a fierce backlash for rolling out AI textbooks riddled with factual inaccuracies and data privacy risks without testing them first in a pilot program to evaluate how they affect student learning. And despite their optimism, South Koreans are still worried that AI could displace them from their jobs. 2025 年，韩国政府因推出充斥着事实错误和数据隐私风险的 AI 教科书而遭到强烈抵制，因为这些教材在推出前并未经过试点项目来评估其对学生学习的影响。尽管韩国人持乐观态度，但他们仍然担心 AI 会取代他们的工作。

After Hyundai announced in January that it will deploy Atlas humanoid robots across its car factories, the Hyundai Motor Group union protested vehemently. “Without labor-management agreement, not a single robot using new technology will be allowed to enter the workplace,” the union said. Sixty-four percent of South Koreans fear AI could displace human labor and exacerbate inequality, although 52% believe it could also increase productivity. 在现代汽车于一月份宣布将在其汽车工厂部署 Atlas 人形机器人后，现代汽车集团工会进行了强烈抗议。工会表示：“未经劳资双方达成协议，任何使用新技术的机器人都不允许进入工作场所。” 64% 的韩国人担心 AI 会取代人类劳动力并加剧不平等，尽管也有 52% 的人认为它能提高生产力。