Category: Korea-General Topics

Recently on PBS Frontline they actually featured Lee Se-dol taking on the A.I. computer and it was actually fascinating to watch. That is still the only time a human has beat an A.I. at the game Go:

South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol, who retired from professional Go competition last week after gaining worldwide fame in 2016 as the only human to defeat the artificial intelligence (AI) Go player AlphaGo, said his retirement was primarily motivated by the invincibility of AI Go programs.

“With the debut of AI in Go games, I’ve realized that I’m not at the top even if I become the number one through frantic efforts,” said Lee.

“Even if I become the number one, there is an entity that cannot be defeated,” he said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul on Monday.

AlphaGo, built by Google’s DeepMind Technologies, won four of its five matches against Lee in March 2016, but Lee’s sole win in Game 4 remains the only time a human has beaten the AI player.

Reflecting on the historic Game 4 on March 13, 2016, Lee attributed his win to a bug in the AlphaGo program.

In the game, Lee’s unexpected move at white 78 developed a white wedge between blacks at the center. The apparently embarrassed AlphaGo responded poorly on move 79, suddenly turning the game in Lee’s favor. AlphaGo then declared its surrender by displaying a “resign” message on the computer screen.

Lee’s white 78 is still praised as a “brilliant, divine” move that offered a ray of hope to humans frustrated by AIs.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interesting read about South Korea’s “Dirt Spoons” that are baring the effects of the poor economy in South Korea:

The sparse rooms, in premises called goshi-won, were previously mostly used by less well-off students to temporarily cut off from the outside world while they studied for civil service job tests.

Now they are increasingly becoming permanent homes to young people like Hwang, who identifies himself among the “dirt spoons”, those born to low-income families who have all but given up on social mobility.

“If I try hard enough and get a good job, will I ever be able to afford a house?” the 25-year-old said in his small, cluttered room where clothes were piled on the bed. “Will I ever be able to narrow the gap that’s already so big?”

The concept of dirt spoons and gold spoons, as those from better-off families are known, have been around for many years but exploded onto the political scene in recent years, undercutting support for liberal President Moon Jae-in.

Moon came to power in 2017 on a platform of social and economic justice, yet halfway through his five-year term, he has little progress to show the country’s youth who have borne the brunt of deepening inequality.

Reuters

You can read more at the link.

That is what this Bloomberg article is calling for:

Back in Seoul, officials appear more focused on addressing a cyclical slowdown than the broader shift in economic and social life. The Bank of Korea is on its way to zero interest rates and fiscal taps are being opened to buttress slowing activity. Yet only policies that create more people have a prayer.

That’s why immigration has to be part of the solution. Foreigners make up about 3.7% of South Korea’s population, according to an OECD report in January. While that’s low by global standards, the good news is that this proportion is growing fast. During a recent cross-country trip, I noticed that few of the servers at restaurants were local. Vietnamese, Chinese and South Asians took orders and whisked food to tables. “Without foreigners, work won’t get done,” Lee, the shop owner, explained. “Korean young people won’t do it; the few that are left here don’t want to do physical work.”

Many immigrants work in manufacturing, construction and retail, filling gaps left by aging locals. The risk is that foreigners get hemmed into low-paying jobs. Korea has attracted a lot of students from abroad in the past decade, but only 15% of graduates remain. More needs to be done to retain this talent.

Bloomberg

You can read more at the link.

Here is what is coming up next for the $15 minimum wage crowd, restaurant automation:

The food and beverage industry here has seen an increasing use of robots to serve food and beverages and even complete basic tasks such as making noodles in less than a minute. 

Industry officials said Sunday that more robots will be used in restaurants with the development of robotic technologies and soaring demand to utilize robots for routine and repetitive tasks, replacing human employees.

LG Electronics said it has deployed a robot chef called the CLOi Chefbot to a Seoul branch of VIPS restaurant in cooperation with the family restaurant chain operator CJ Foodville.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out:

The nation’s human rights watchdog has recommended a nightclub to stop denying entrance to foreigners based on their race or skin color. The owners of the facility, however, refused to accept the recommendation, saying they have had numerous “problems” involving foreign customers.

According to the National Human Rights Commission Korea (NHRCK), Wednesday, an Indian American filed a petition last year after he was barred from entering the nightclub due to being a foreigner while his Korean American friend was not.

The NHRCK said it concluded that the club’s rejection of his entry was clear discrimination based on the petitioner’s race and skin color, as the staff of the club did not check ID cards showing nationalities and allowed the entry of the Korean American.

In July, the commission recommended the club stop deciding customers’ entry based on their race and skin color.

However, the club said it would not follow the recommendation.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Not a good look for ex-president Chun considering he is claiming he has dementia:

Video footage of former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan playing golf, who has been avoiding attending a defamation trial claiming dementia, has sparked public anger.

He has been accused of defaming late Rev. Cho Bi-oh regarding the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising.

Justice Party Vice Chairman Lim Han-sol on Friday released a video clip of Chun playing golf with his companions.

Civic groups, including the May 18 Memorial Foundation, immediately released a statement condemning Chun.

“This is an insult and mockery of history. We can’t really tell how outraged we are now,” read the statement.

“Chun has cited dementia as an excuse to avoid the trial. But the footage clearly reveals that’s false. The court shouldn’t be lenient.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.