According to a report by the online desk of the Donya-e-Eqtesad newspaper, Bae Oh-doo, who spent his childhood in the years following the Korean War, recalls having to go into the forest to gather firewood to heat his home.
Sitting beneath a tree in a neighborhood park in Jongno, Seoul, the 70-year-old violin vendor says that the era of manual labor is ingrained in his flesh and skin.
He still remembers the days when he drew water with a foot pump and clearly recalls the excitement of the locals when the first tractors arrived in South Korean villages.
As the Economist recounts, he has seen with his own eyes over recent decades how the internet and smartphones have made life easier. But what is his view on artificial intelligence?
In his opinion, this technology is nothing to worry about; it is a good thing and should continue to advance. He says humanity has come a long way up to our generation, and no one knows what shape the world will take next.
Glancing at the headlines of Western media gives the impression that a wave of opposition to AI is rapidly sweeping the world. However, the findings of a new Globescan poll commissioned by the magazine present a completely different picture.
The results of this survey show that nearly two-thirds of South Koreans, much like Bae, are optimistic about AI. Outside the circle of wealthy countries, this positive outlook is even more pronounced.
For instance, nearly 9 out of 10 citizens in Nigeria and Vietnam believe that artificial intelligence will improve not only their own lives, but also the future of all humanity.
Of course, this survey was conducted online across 34 countries, and this methodology may tilt the scale slightly in favor of AI proponents.
Nevertheless, even in this same survey, the atmosphere in wealthy Western countries was much gloomier. In the US, Canada, and France, pessimists about the future of AI outnumbered optimists. In other Western countries, while the overall outlook was positive, it fell significantly short of the optimism seen in developing nations.
A joint survey by the Gallup organization and Microsoft across 37 countries reached a similar conclusion. AI is generally popular, but it has far fewer supporters in wealthy Western nations.
What is the root of this gap between the West and the rest of the world? Perhaps in poorer countries, once people encounter AI or data centers up close and see that this technology benefits some while harming others, this optimism will subside slightly.
According to Microsoft research, in the second quarter of 2026, only about 9 percent of the working-age population in Kenya used AI, yet in the Globescan survey, 85 percent of those same people stated that the technology would improve their lives.
Of course, many people, both in rich and poor countries, are more or less aware of the risks of AI. In a Pew Research Center survey, people in South Korea and Australia expected AI to fuel widespread unemployment and widen inequality more than any other nation. Yet, for now, the alluring promises of this technology have outweighed such fears.
Part of the story is that the workforce outside wealthy nations has far less to lose from AI compared to their Western counterparts.
In most developing countries, jobs are often informal and precarious. The fear of losing a stable office job due to technology is primarily a concern of the wealthy world, although in a country like India, IT and administrative support workers also appear to be at risk.
On the other hand, poorer countries also stand to gain a great deal from AI. Where efficient institutions and formal education fall short, AI helps people manage on their own. Payal Arora, author of the book 'From Pessimism to Promise,' which explores differing views on technology, says that pessimism is a luxury reserved for those who can afford despair. Serving as a crutch for small businesses in India, users have free or low-cost access to applications such as Google's Gemini or ChatGPT.
A recent Microsoft review shows that in the second quarter of this year, nearly one-fifth of India's working-age population turned to generative AI, while the proportion in the US was one-third.
In Africa as well, the free Chinese app DeepSeek has many fans, and according to Microsoft's estimates, about one in ten working-age individuals in many African countries used generative AI in the second quarter.
A narrow street in a crowded suburb of Mumbai clearly demonstrates the benefits of this technology. Many shopkeepers on this street create their advertisements using ChatGPT.
Dinesh Chandra, a neighborhood optician, asked the chatbot to design an extraordinary, anti-gravity image for his business. The result was a picture of a pair of eyeglasses riding on a feather floating above the clouds, which now features prominently on his store's brochures.
In the neighboring shop, Omkar Sapre, who sells dried fruits, spices, and pickles, posts eye-catching images created with ChatGPT on Instagram and WhatsApp, saying his business is booming.
Ashlsha, who works at a dry cleaner's on the same street, says they work hard, and since everyone is on Instagram nowadays, AI has become a great helper for them.
All these shopkeepers are satisfied with the ease of working with AI, and none of them fret over safety, privacy, data leaks, and certainly not the low quality of AI-generated content.
It seems that disparaging AI outputs does not find much traction outside the US and Europe. Aileen Ang, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, says Westerners have historically held a monopoly on the production of knowledge and ideas, and now AI is challenging that monopoly. She asks whether this transformation is only a crisis for those who lose out from it.
As Bae's example demonstrates, even in some wealthy and middle-income countries that have more to lose from the technological wave, AI is surprisingly popular.
According to Microsoft, the people of Singapore are among the heaviest AI users in the world, and nearly two-thirds of them told Globescan that the technology will have a positive impact on their lives. In Malaysia as well, where the construction of data centers is booming, sporadic local protests have not yet turned into widespread opposition.
Some countries that are optimistic about AI share common pain points, regardless of their income level or prosperity. One of these issues is the impending labor shortage. Regions like East Asia, which have experienced low fertility rates for years, are aging rapidly.
Many hope that AI and intelligent robots will fill the labor void and shoulder the burden of caring for an aging population.
Another shared characteristic in these countries is the tangible generational experience of seeing society turned upside down by technology within their lifetimes. Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan managed to rise from poverty to wealth partly thanks to their rapid adoption of imported technologies.
In China and India as well, technological leaps—from digital payments to delivery apps—have granted people unprecedented convenience and independence.
Ms. Meng, a 40-year-old advertising professional in Beijing, says her generation has lived through countless changes, and in China, before the dust of one transformation even settles, another massive wave arrives a couple of years later. In Payal Arora's words, in India too, smartphones have placed extraordinary power in the hands of hundreds of millions of people within just a few years. The fine line between hope and disillusionment: conversely, Western pessimism toward AI may stem from the feeling that their lives are not improving, that AI might make things worse, and that there is no hope in politicians to protect the public interest.
Daniel Dobrygowski, author of 'Technology Governance,' believes this perspective stems from people's bitter experience with social media and tech giants that Western governments have failed to rein in.
The rhetoric of politicians and corporate executives regarding AI also plays a role. Leaders of tech labs in the US, while competing to build artificial general intelligence, constantly warn about job destruction and human extinction.
Politicians and tech executives in Asia rarely make such statements, perhaps because they are not on the front lines of building the most advanced models. They focus more on practical applications and, instead of pondering what AI will do to them, they think about what use can be made of it. It is unlikely you would ever hear Samsung's CEO publicly talk about an AI apocalypse.
In China, where major strides have been made in this arena, officials are genuinely concerned about cyber threats and economic turbulence, but state media continue to beat the drum of encouragement and promotion.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to assume people in optimistic countries have no worries or concerns. Some of them have simply accepted technological progress as an inevitable destiny.
Ms. Meng in Beijing says the impact of AI may differ from all previous transformations, but the wheel of fortune turns as it will, and if someone is bound to be displaced, it happens; thus, one cannot spend every day in grief and anxiety.
Cho Kyu-jin, a professor at Seoul National University, believes South Koreans have embraced AI despite all their concerns because the fear of being left behind is greater to them than the fear of losing stability.
Kim Ah-ran, a 40-year-old labor lawyer, says the Industrial Revolution had both good and bad consequences, and they will find a way to manage this time as well. Her young son, standing next to his mother at the Galaxy Robot Park in suburban Seoul while clutching an AI robot coding instruction book, practices the moves of a humanoid martial arts robot.
This pragmatic acceptance indicates that the optimism of individuals like Bae may not be entirely permanent. Kim Jong-nam, a professor at KAIST and a member of the South Korean Presidential Council on National AI Strategy, says the country's public support is conditional on proper and effective policymaking.
He worries that if AI leaves behind clear losers—for example, distorting fairness in exams or destroying jobs—public patience will run out. This scenario may hold true in other countries as well.
Anderson Santos, a motorcycle courier in São Paulo, Brazil, initially asks with surprise how they expect to build an AI that can ride a motorcycle, but a moment later, when driverless cars are brought up, his face falls and he grows worried.
In other parts of the world, the first sparks of opposition to data centers have been ignited, though they have yet to reach the level of fierce and explicit protests seen in many parts of the US.
In the Philippines, people have taken to the streets against the 'Pax Silica' initiative, a US-led effort to develop the AI and semiconductor supply chain.
In the city of Thane near Mumbai, hundreds of people have protested the construction of a massive Amazon data center in their neighborhood. However, public anger is not yet widespread. One local resident says this center is like any other factory, and in any case, the future belongs to AI.
Source: Donya-e-Eqtesad
