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Why East Asia’s Attitude Toward AI Is More Positive

As a reaction to the news of yet another East Asian developer releasing a game based on generative AI, I’m offering an explainer (not advocacy) for western gamers. It isn’t exactly a great mystery why the general—but not universal—attitude toward AI is more positive in East Asia:

Structural labor shortage
Financial windfall from AI boom
Data centers not as concentrated in poor neighborhoods
Stronger labor protection

1. Crude birth rates in East Asia are among the lowest in the world (Reuters/CDC):

Taiwan: 4.6 births per 1k population
Korea: 5.0
China: 5.6
Japan: 5.7
US: 10.7

Due to the structural labor shortage, employees look to AI to improve their working conditions (Deloitte, imgs below).

Chart from Generative AI in Asia Pacific: Young employees lead as employers play catch-up: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/emerging-technologies/generative-ai-adoption-asia-pacific-region.html The bar chart shows the percentage of students and employees taking action in response to generative AI across the Asia Pacific region. India: 76%China: 71%Southeast Asia: 61%Singapore: 50%Asia Pacific average: 49% (highlighted in green) Taiwan (China): 45%South Korea: 39%New Zealand: 33%Australia: 31%Japan: 27%

Excerpt from Generative AI in Asia Pacific: Young employees lead as employers play catch-up: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/emerging-technologies/generative-ai-adoption-asia-pacific-region.html Those who use gen AI are already experiencing improvements in their work and study performance. According to our gen AI survey, 80% of gen AI users said that it’s improved the speed at which they can complete tasks. This has led to large time savings for completing tasks. On average, daily users of gen AI save approximately 6.3 hours per week. These productivity improvements have been supported by other studies. One study found that 85% of respondents in four surveyed locations in Asia Pacific (Australia, India, Japan, and Singapore) believe AI will allow them to do their job faster or more efficiently.7 Another study found around 80% of surveyed AI users in the manufacturing and financial sectors said that AI had improved their performance at work.

2. Workers at SK Hynix, TSMC, and other suppliers are getting record bonuses. Due to high stock ownerships in Korea and Taiwan, plus spending from the workers and stockholders, the AI windfall spills over to the rest of the population. So much so that the Bank of Korea warns of inflation.

Korea: 64% of trading volume by retail investors; 1 in 3.5 citizens owns stock (KSD)
Taiwan: 54% (TWSE)
US: 18% (SIFMA)

Since a large number of East Asians directly or indirectly benefit from the AI boom, it may influence their perspectives.

3. Wealth inequality is higher in the US than in East Asia (UBS, img below). That, plus the weak transit and discriminative financing, low income Americans live more segregated. Unsurprisingly these poor neighborhoods are often targets for data center development. This is less of a concern in East Asia.

Table from UBS Global Wealth Report 2026: https://www.ubs.com/us/en/wealth-management/insights/global-wealth-report.html Wealth inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient Rank Market Gini coefficient 2025 1 United Arab Emirates 0.82 2 Russia 0.82 3 South Africa 4 Brazil 0.81 5 0.81 Saudi Arabia 0.78 6 7 United States 0.77 8 Sweden 0.74 10 India 0.74 12 Turkey 0.73 15 Mexico 0.72 19 Singapore Chile 0.71 20 Switzerland 0.68 0.69 22 Germany 0.67 25 Israel 0.66 29 Hong Kong SAR 0.64 33 Portugal 0.61 36 Mainland China 0.60 39 Greece 0.60 40 United Kingdom 0.59 41 Taiwan 0.59 43 France 0.57 44 South Korea 0.57 45 Poland 0.57 46 Spain 0.57 47 Hungary 0.56 49 Italy 0.54 51 Japan 0.53 52 Australia 0.53 54 Qatar 0.47 55 Belgium 0.46 56 Slovakia 0.38

4. Japan already has stringent labor protection (seiri kaiko). Firing for AI is unlikely to pass the “four factor test”. In China, there are arbitration and court rulings (Beijing; Hangzhou) that specifically block firing for AI, and CAC provisions that protect workers from “algorithmic recommendation”. Korea also has regulations regarding “automatic decisions” for employment/recruitment (PIPA; AI Framework Act).

Bonus point: It may be hard for some western minds to comprehend, but many East Asians trust tech companies more than their governments (ntu.edu.sg, img below).

Table from Measuring Social Trust in AI: How Institutions Shape the Usage Intention of AI-Based Technologies https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/hbe2/4084384 Table 1. Descriptive statistics showing the mean trust scores (1–5 Likert scale) across various institutions and AI domains, disaggregated by country. Japan (N = 1017 ) South Korea (ROK) (N = 1012) Singapore (N = 1005) Taiwan (N = 1003) Overall (N = 4037) Trust in government 2.5 2.59 3.7 3.13 2.98 Trust in tech companies 3.21 3.18 3.44 3.37 3.3

Again, this is only an explainer, and I’m not suggesting that western gamers shouldn’t impose our own economic insecurity on Easter Asian developers. We are the consumers, and can freely let our preferences heard. Just know that choices like the AI Ryza are born from a different economic reality than ours.

[Originally posted on 2026-08-05 Pacific Time]

2026-08-07