Some 60% of S.Koreans think AI will take away jobs: Survey

A recent survey conducted by The Poll, a blockchain-based opinion poll company, has revealed that six out of ten Korean citizens are concerned that artificial intelligence (AI) will replace human jobs. The survey was conducted from Mar. 28 to Apr. 3, and targeted 26,860 respondents across the country.

Of those surveyed, 59.3% (15,922 people) said that they believe AI technology will lead to a decrease in jobs, while only 21.1% (5,673) believed that the number of jobs would increase.

These results suggest that a significant portion of the Korean population is worried about the impact that AI could have on the workforce.

However, the survey also revealed that there are positive opinions about AI. When asked about the productivity of ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI, approximately half of the respondents said that they believed it would be helpful.

Specifically, 20.2% of respondents said that it would be "very helpful," while 29.7% said that it would be "somewhat helpful." Negative opinions, such as "not helpful at all," only accounted for 22% of respondents.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com