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Editor\u2019s note<\/p>\nEditor\u2019s note<\/p>\n
As Korea pushes to embed artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics across its factories and offices, the impact on jobs is no longer abstract. Workers are already feeling it. This is the second in a four-part series examining how AI is reshaping work on the ground \u2014 the opportunities it creates, the protections it erodes and the rules that unions, employers and policymakers are, or are not, putting in place to govern that transition. \u2014 ED.<\/p>\n
It is a familiar sound: the brisk, slightly metallic voice at the end of a TV shopping segment, rattling off legal disclaimers. For many voice actors, that sound now means a lost livelihood and a warning of what may come next. Instead of hiring a professional, companies now pick a digital voice and just start typing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat used to be our work,\u201d Choi Jae-ho, head of the Korea Voice Performance Association, told The Korea Times. \u201cNow they go into a system, download a voice they like and type in the script. That work is simply gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the most powerful new colleague \u2014 and competitor \u2014 for Korea\u2019s creative and language professionals, from voice actors and webtoon artists to interpreters. It is cutting deep into some people\u2019s incomes, quietly erasing entry-level jobs and forcing unions and associations into emergency talks on how to protect their jobs, even as many professionals say it is also making their best work faster and better.<\/p>\n
Few professional groups have felt the shock as viscerally as voice actors. Choi says the average income among many members has fallen by half over the past year or two as AI-generated voices seep into nearly every corner of the market that used to pay them.<\/p>\n
The seeds were planted a decade earlier, when global content companies like Netflix started pouring money into Korean dubbing. At the time, it looked like a boom, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really thought, \u2018this is the move from TV to streaming platform,\u2019\u201d Choi recalled.<\/p>\n
Only later did he and other actors realize how profoundly AI would transform the business. The contracts they had signed contained clauses allowing companies to process, reuse and repurpose recorded voices for future \u201cnew technologies\u201d \u2014 long before the true power of large language models was ever imagined.<\/p>\n
In the following years, some domestic tech firms also began recording voice actors en masse to train Korean synthetic voice models. Voice actors were offered lump sums, he said, often with clauses that gave firms effectively unlimited, exclusive use of their modeled voices.<\/p>\n
The consequences are now audible almost everywhere. Corporate public relations videos, government promotion clips and many online ads use AI narration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey used to be our voices, with pay for each job,\u201d Choi said. \u201cNow almost all of them are AI, trained on real actors\u2019 voices, but the work is gone and there is little income for us even when our sound is still being used.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, the association is lobbying for AI-specific standard contracts and a new \u201cvoice publicity right\u201d that would treat every person\u2019s voice as a protected commercial attribute. He said the actors want legal tools to challenge unlimited AI use based on old contracts and to ban training or cloning without explicit consent.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Webtoon artists listen to a special lecture about artificial intelligence and how to use the technology in their work at a webtoon forum, March 13. Courtesy of Korea Cartoonists’ Association<\/p>\n
Webtoon artists’ dilemma <\/p>\n
If voice actors are fighting AI in their ears, webtoon creators are fighting AI in their files and feeds.<\/p>\n
\u201cMongletoon,\u201d an AI-generated series from Chun Woo-won, grandson of former President Chun Doo-hwan, drew extensive attention and debate recently over what counts as \u201creal\u201d creation. For professionals, the spectacle captures both the promise and the threat of the new tools that now enable anyone to produce something that looks like a webtoon \u2014 without years of drawing practice or a production team backing them.<\/p>\n
Many artists, especially young ones, already feel the chill, according to Kwon Hyuk-joo, head of the Korea Cartoonists’ Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most striking change is that requests for simple illustrations and promotional comics have decreased,\u201d he said. \u201cAssistants, in particular, feel this as a direct threat. The problem isn\u2019t just that there is less work; it\u2019s that the very perception that \u2018this can be done by AI\u2019 is changing the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
That perception cuts both ways. He acknowledges that, while work for simple coloring and background assistants is likely to decline, short-form animation and other content spin-offs may create new opportunities for artists who also take advantage of AI tools.<\/p>\n
When asked about the most serious AI issue facing the industry, Kwon pointed to large-scale, unauthorized training on scraped comics as his top concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this process, there is no consent or compensation for the artists and there is no way to know which works were used for which models. We are told that webtoons offered as paid content on platforms are not used for training. But there is currently no way to verify that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To set up what he calls a \u201cminimum safety net,\u201d Kwon wants mandatory transparency about training data.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to make it obligatory to disclose what data AI uses,\u201d Kwon said. \u201cTransparency is the starting point for any institutional discussion.\u201d <\/p>\n
At present, artists only find out \u2014 if at all \u2014 after their work has already been ingested into datasets. He wants a preemptive system so authors can clearly mark their work as off-limits before training happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing is clear: An AI industry built without protecting creators can never be sustainable. Korea\u2019s webtoons are the world\u2019s largest market and a key export. If the creator ecosystem collapses, the industry itself cannot exist,\u201d Kwon said.<\/p>\n
Asked whether AI would eventually replace most human artists, he was cautious but firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will certainly replace some parts of the work,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it cannot replace the essence of creation. Webtoons are not just a technical product \u2014 they are work that deals with \u2018fun.\u2019 So the most realistic scenario would be that the creator\u2019s role shifts from \u2018producer\u2019 to \u2018planner.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Interpreters squeezed<\/p>\n
Another field now at the center of AI-replacement fears is translation and interpretation, where mid-tier jobs are already feeling the impact of automated captions and translation apps.<\/p>\n
At international events, organizers who once hired simultaneous interpreters now project automated captions on a screen, relying on AI tools that promise \u201cgood enough\u201d real-time translation for free or at a fraction of the cost. In corporate settings, too, mid-level meetings that might previously have brought in freelance interpreters are increasingly handled with AI-powered apps.<\/p>\n
Huh Ji-un, head of the Korean Association of Translators and Interpreters, which represents graduates of professional graduate schools in the field, said the squeeze is most visible in the middle of the market rather than at the very top.<\/p>\n
\u201cTop-class interpreters will survive,\u201d she said. \u201cBut people who only offer basic services will find it harder and harder and the market is likely to become much more polarized.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the translation side, Huh said the impact is more advanced and more visible, especially through the spread of \u201cpost-editing\u201d work, in which AI translation services produce a first draft and then human experts correct and refine it. For large volumes of manuals, user guides and other technical documentation, \u201cthe share of post-editing is growing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On top of the pressure and changes created by AI, Huh urged the government to build basic protections for professional interpreters and translators, noting that many freelancers are not covered by social insurance and policies designed for corporate workers and, therefore, remain more vulnerable to AI challenges. She also warned against state agencies selecting the cheapest bidder \u2014 which is typically the one using AI tools \u2014 for interpretation services in settings such as courts and parliamentary hearings, arguing that this can both undermine citizens\u2019 right to understand the proceedings and hollow out the pipeline of skilled human interpreters.<\/p>\n
The demands of the three groups converge on a single point: Korea is racing to deploy AI across industries, from health care to cultural exports, but has yet to offer concrete protections for the people whose work is being used to train the very systems replacing them.<\/p>\n
All three said the country needs rules and safeguards so AI becomes a tool that supports, rather than replaces, people\u2019s creative and language work \u2014 and that a human core must be protected if these industries are to survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note As Korea pushes to embed artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics across its factories and offices, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-408232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}