[Insight & Opinion] Creating a Future Economic and Social Paradigm with Astro Boy and Doraemon

Humanoid Robots from Childhood Comics Become Reality
10 Million Artificial Humans Expected in Korea by 2030
A New Economic and Social Paradigm Needed

When I was young, I was a comic book fanatic. I read every comic I could get my hands on, but I especially loved Osamu Tezuka’s "Astro Boy." It tells an exciting story about Astro Boy, an android with emotions just like humans, powered by nuclear energy. In the early part of the comic, there is an episode where humanoid robots, each resembling individual members of society, suddenly appear en masse, causing widespread chaos throughout society. This vividly captured one of the possible fictional scenarios that might occur in the not-too-distant future, already depicted in a comic over 60 years ago.

One of the TV programs my children watched most eagerly when they were young was Doraemon. It’s the story of Doraemon, a problem-solving robot treated just like a human, playing with children. While portraying the ordinary daily lives of children in an entertaining way, Doraemon’s presence adds a childlike cuteness and friendliness despite being a robot.

Astro Boy and Doraemon are types of humanoid robots featured in comics and animations. Various humanoid robots coexisting with humans also appear in sci-fi movies. However, from the perspective of the economic value and marketability of humanoid robots, the outlook was very pessimistic just over a decade ago. It was predicted that the future robot market would grow centered on industrial robots, with the humanoid robot market growing relatively slowly. But the rapid advancement of robot technology combined with AI recently has proven those predictions to be way off.

One of the people who foresaw the rapid growth of the humanoid robot market was Elon Musk. At the ‘AI Day’ event held in 2021, he first introduced the robot Optimus, which resembles a human with a height of 173 cm and a weight of 73 kg. Since then, Optimus has rapidly evolved, walking, running, thinking, and moving its hands much more delicately like a person. The artificial human ‘GPT 4o’ unveiled by OpenAI in early May is even more astonishing. It communicates naturally with people and perceives and acts like a human.

The era when humanoid robots, artificial humans, and we humans coexist seems to be arriving much sooner than expected. According to my prediction, by around 2030, at least 10 million artificial humans will be distributed domestically. The era of 10 million artificial humans will become an everyday reality in just a few years.

One of the reasons behind the mass distribution of artificial humans is the possibility of rapid price reductions through intense competition. Elon Musk announced that by next year, he will mass-produce the Optimus artificial human at a price in the 20 million won range. However, considering the current pace of technological advancement and competition, it is only a matter of time before the price of artificial humans drops to the hundreds of thousands of won range. Imagine being able to buy an artificial human costing 3 million won, equipped with superintelligence, capable of assisting with many tasks people have done. Won’t a phenomenon similar to the opening of the 1-person 1-smartphone era just a few years after the smartphone’s launch occur?

A world where tens of millions of artificial humans, armed with superintelligence and super productivity and indistinguishable from us humans in appearance, live alongside us is not far off. But how prepared is our society? Discussions about which jobs will disappear and which new jobs will emerge as AI spreads are far from enough. It is time to design a completely new future economic and social paradigm created together by humans and artificial humans and to steadily prepare what is needed, one step at a time.

Kim Hyungon, Director of the National Assembly Future Institute