[Walking Through Seoul] Population Structure Changes Make Seoul a 'City of Robots'

Last spring and fall, during my stay in Korea after two and a half years, the changes I felt most were the deeply integrated IT and machines in everyday life. In restaurants, orders and payments were made through machines or smartphone apps, and in art museums, robot guides were commonplace. App payments have become widespread, replacing credit cards, and some franchise stores even refused cash bills. Although changes have occurred in the United States as well, the pace cannot be compared to that of Korea.

At first, it was inconvenient. I struggled in front of kiosks, not knowing how to use them. It was also uncomfortable to repeatedly apologize to the people waiting behind me. There were quite a few apps that I couldn’t use because I didn’t live in Korea. The time spent in Seoul sometimes felt like a continuous annoyance. When I returned to Seoul in the fall, I had become so accustomed to this environment that I hardly felt any inconvenience. Spending the winter back in the relatively slower IT-adopting United States, I reflected on Seoul’s changes.

To understand ‘IT Seoul,’ it is necessary to first look historically at the relationship between cities and science and technology. Cities experienced rapid expansion due to the Industrial Revolution and underwent many changes as science and technology advanced. Cities with rapidly growing populations, like those in the UK, the US, and Western Europe, eagerly introduced new infrastructure. Competition over who would adopt new technologies first was not uncommon. In 1807, London became the first city in the world to install gas lamps as streetlights. Not to be outdone, Paris installed numerous streetlights in the early 19th century, earning the nickname ‘City of Light.’

At that time, Seoul was under the Joseon Dynasty, Japanese colonial rule, and the Korean War, and conditions were not conducive to proactively adopting new science and technology. However, with rapid industrialization and urbanization in the 1960s, Seoul actively introduced new technologies like London and Paris once did. Underpasses, overpasses, and elevated roads appeared throughout the city, and in 1974, Seoul opened its first subway line. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the subway expanded to Line 9, making Seoul the city with the fourth-largest subway network in the world today. With the rapid spread of high-speed internet and mobile phones in the 1990s and 2000s, Seoul, the capital of the ‘Internet powerhouse,’ developed into a widely recognized IT city. Robots in art museums and restaurant kiosks did not suddenly appear out of nowhere.

However, recent IT developments show a somewhat different pattern. The advanced technologies introduced in Seoul have mainly pursued convenience. Recently, they have begun to replace humans in the labor market. This trend is spreading more and more. Why replace people with machines?

I found the answer in a conversation with the owner of a pork cutlet restaurant I frequented last spring. He said it was difficult to find part-time workers. I heard the same from a nearby caf? owner who had installed a kiosk. Looking at Korea’s population structure, one can guess the reality of how hard it is to find young part-time workers. Korea is known as the country with the lowest birth rate in the world and is rapidly aging. As of 2022, the population aged 20?24 has significantly decreased compared to those aged 25?29, and the 15?19 age group is even smaller. The 0?4 age group is almost the same size as the 75?79 age group. With such a population structure, it would be difficult to find young workers not only for part-time jobs but in almost every field.

As an alternative, policies encouraging labor market participation by older adults or retirees could be considered, but if aging continues rapidly as it is now, the effect will be limited. Like in North America or Europe, actively accepting foreigners is another option, but if only ‘foreign workers’ who stay for a short time are accepted without stable roots in Korea, the problem will be difficult to solve.

Ultimately, the most realistic alternative chosen is automation. Although now it is only kiosks and robots, it is not new to predict that many tasks currently done by people will soon be performed by machines through the combination of increasingly advanced technologies. Soon, even at your regular caf?, hand-drip coffee might be made by machines, while the owner manages the machines and only greets customers.

Automation will progress worldwide, but Seoul will be at the forefront and attract global attention. Like Paris, which earned the nickname ‘City of Light’ in the early 19th century by installing numerous streetlights, Seoul is highly likely to earn the nickname ‘City of Robots’ through the introduction of countless robots in daily life.

A bird's-eye view of Seoul Robot & AI Museum (Seoul RAIM). The Seoul Robot & AI Museum installs a large oval-shaped unique exterior structure using robots and drones. Photo by Seoul City

This is not a distant future. Numerous robots are already working in Seoul. Robot labor is not limited to the service industry. In manufacturing alone, Korea has introduced 1,000 robots per 10,000 workers, the highest ratio in the world. Interesting experiments are underway at construction sites. The Seoul Robot Artificial Intelligence Science Museum, under construction in Dobong-gu, is a place where robots and drones play important roles in construction. Construction began in May 2021 and is scheduled for completion in fall 2023. It has already been featured on several overseas architecture blogs.

In the past, concerns that robots would make people unemployed were prevalent. However, due to changes in population structure, Korea now needs robots’ help to maintain business and employment. Instead, tasks that cannot be replaced by robots and can only be done by humans will gradually become more sophisticated, requiring strengthened education and training programs. Korea already has relatively well-established programs across society to respond adequately. Therefore, Seoul is expected to become a city that not only introduces robots but also pioneers coexistence with them.

Seoul is neither a planned city nor an advanced city that skillfully utilizes the latest technology. There is much to improve in infrastructure and residential environments to enhance quality of life. However, through the introduction of robots, Seoul, which will be called the ‘City of Robots,’ has greatly increased its chances of maintaining economic momentum amid demographic changes and becoming the first city in history to accept robots as members of society. So, what will the future of Seoul, coexisting with robots, be like?

Robert Fauzer, Former Professor at Seoul National University