About 60% of S. Koreans worry about AI stealing humans' jobs: survey

[Gettyimages Bank]

SEOUL -- About 60 percent of South Koreans worry that artificial intelligence-based solutions could steal humans' jobs in the future, a survey showed. Currently, AI-based robots and other smart solutions are widely used in South Korea with about 21 million working people.
 
AI systems that mimic the way how people think and work are adopted by business operators to cut down operating costs and speed up simple processes such as sorting documents and moving parcels from one section of a building to another section. Delivery robots are commonly found at restaurants and hotels to carry food and drinks. Some restaurants use chef robots instead of hiring human cooks.
 
The adoption of AI systems at work is predicted to be accelerated after the introduction of AI-based chatbots that can understand and follow comprehensive orders such as writing an essay based on specific keywords or setting up a business strategy for a small supermarket. Many AI chatbot services including Chat GPT and Google's Bard came online during the last few years.
 
A survey of 26,860 people, conducted by South Korean online pollster Thepol, showed that 59.3 percent of people said that "AI will take over many types of workplaces and jobs for humans will be reduced in the future." Only 21.1 percent said that there will be more jobs for humans in the future.
 
49.1 percent of people said that they feel very negatively towards AI completely taking over all workplaces while 29.2 percent was positive because people will be freed from work and new policies will be adopted. 49.7 percent said that they found chatbots like Chat GPT useful for work. 14 percent said that AI chat solutions are not very useful.