[Lee Gu-sun's Slow Steps] In the AI Era, Let's Create a Digital Welfare Policy

[Financial News] There was a time when having a single “Pentium PC” at home was a dream. A PC that cost three months of a reporter’s salary—money that had to be saved up in full—was simply out of reach. Then one day, the government issued a press release saying it would offer a “National PC” for 1 million won, less than half the market price. It was one of the few policies I welcomed as a consumer before I welcomed it as a journalist.
In 1999, the Kim Dae-jung administration introduced a policy to remove barriers to Internet use nationwide, aiming to encourage investment in costly high-speed Internet networks and foster the e-commerce industry.
It pursued an industrial policy of expanding the domestic PC market by launching the National PC and spurring competition among PC makers. It also used a welfare policy, drawing on government funds to help vulnerable groups pay for PCs and Internet service so that everyone could use the Internet equally.
Rather than having the government unilaterally hand out free PCs, the approach used industrial development and welfare policy as its two pillars—and in doing so, achieved a world-leading nationwide high-speed Internet network and made the country one where the Internet was widely used.


The Lee Jae-myung administration has set “becoming the country that uses AI best in the world” as a national policy task. Its goal is to go beyond developing AI models and expanding computing infrastructure, and enable people and businesses to use AI in their daily lives and work.
But the two pillars needed to make this a country that uses AI well—industrial policy and digital welfare policy—are not clearly visible.
In fact, I sometimes wonder whether the government has ever put together a clear digital welfare policy.
The main example of telecom welfare is the discounts that major telecommunications carriers provide on phone bills for vulnerable groups.
Discounts on phone bills for vulnerable groups are an important measure that eases the burden on households. But without government-set goals or a framework for digital welfare policy, it may be hard to call this a welfare policy. There are also questions about whether the plan to offer people free access to “AI for Everyone,” developed by companies, can deliver sustainable AI welfare when it lacks a vision for market growth and industrial development.
Clearly, there are limits to building a country where everyone can continually access digital devices and AI services and use them proficiently simply by lowering communications costs and providing free AI services.
Now is the time to develop a digital welfare policy for the AI era that supports the national goal of making ours a country where everyone can use AI well.
The government should consider and establish a framework for digital welfare policy so that people can use AI services regardless of their income, age, disability or place of residence.
I wonder if the “top three AI powers” status championed by our government can be achieved when AI industrial policy and digital welfare policy operate as two pillars—spurring competition in networks and services so that stable, fast communications networks can be built, and enabling AI models to be sold in the market at their proper price.
The government should take the lead in identifying who needs what kind of support and designing its scope, from access to devices and communications to AI service fees, education and practical use. It should also have a way to identify, guide and support people who need assistance, wherever possible, so they are not unable to apply simply because they do not know about the programs. The national strategy should include finding people who have no opportunity to use AI—and creating that opportunity for them.
The government should also design the funding responsibly. I hope it will propose a transparent framework, based on public budgets, that allows businesses—including telecommunications companies, platform companies and AI providers—to participate in digital welfare according to established criteria.
The burden of digital welfare should not be reduced to benefits that particular companies provide to consumers. Expanding digital access is not a benefit that depends on companies’ goodwill; it is an investment in growing the industry’s user base and market. Companies should invest, and the government should draw up the blueprint for digital welfare and encourage investment. By growing the market and giving companies opportunities to invest, the government can take responsibility for digital welfare. Once such a policy is in place, people will be able to experience what it means to be one of the “top three AI powers.”

[email protected] Lee Gu-sun Reporter