South Korea bets free AI can loosen ChatGPT’s grip

[SEOUL] On Sep 4, the executives of SK Telecom, KT and Kakao stood together at the Korea Press Center in Seoul to announce their plans for the nation’s “AI for All” programme, in which each of South Korea’s 52 million citizens would receive free, unlimited access to generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).

No subscription. No token limit. For most users, the front door will be KakaoTalk, already on 50 million phones. No government has tried an initiative of this scale before.

Abroad, the meme followed within hours: “South Korea – gave its entire population free AI. Me using VPN.”