Technology Diffusion

Korea should use its AI-memory windfall to finance the shared capabilities, research infrastructure, and commercialization pathways needed to create the next boom. The Future Response Fund should address enduring commercialization gaps, not create permanent spending commitments.

Canada funds university research but gives universities too little reason to turn that into Canadian firms, patents, and industrial capacity. To better align their incentives with national goals, funding should flow in part on standardized commercialization outcomes, with universities left to decide how to deliver them.

The right goal for Korea is not an AI tax, but an AI diffusion strategy paired with sound tax reform. The government should help firms adopt AI, help workers transition, and make sure productivity gains are broadly shared, without making the use of AI itself more expensive.

In the AI economy, competitive advantage will depend less on memorizing information and more on the ability to question intelligent systems, identify errors, and refine outputs. Korea’s education system should adapt to prepare students for workplaces where managing AI-generated mistakes is more valuable than speed of recall.

As Korea moves toward its goal of commercializing Level 4 autonomous driving by 2027, the central constraint may not be technological readiness but whether the government reforms the mobility market in advance. Without regulatory changes, Korea risks deploying advanced autonomous vehicles within a closed, taxi-centered system.

Opposition to AI automation at the Canada Revenue Agency misses the point. Smarter systems can improve targeting, boost compliance, and deliver better results with fewer resources than a labour-intensive enforcement model.

As Korea’s labor debate moves into digital policy, unions risk harming workers in the next generation of industries by prioritizing protections for existing jobs over preparing workers for technological transition.

While the Hyundai Motor case now sits at the center of Korea’s AI jobs debate, the evidence suggests that the nation’s more immediate constraints are weak productivity growth and uneven labor-market adjustment—not large-scale technological displacement. How Korea responds will shape its competitiveness in a high-cost, aging manufacturing economy under intensifying global competition.

The culture of digital and AI opposition is a growing threat to American prosperity and power. Unless we return at least to neutrality, other nations unburdened by this self-doubt will surpass us.

After South Korea reduced its tax credit for automation in 2018 from 7 percent to 3 percent for large firms, South Korean industries, on average, reduced robot installations by 28 percent compared with their Japanese counterparts.