In Korea, we have been seeing more people talking about the significance of computer programming in making developments for the future in recent years.

In a 2020 survey, where the education ministry and the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training asked secondary school students what their wanted job in the future, a computer programmer or software developer was the 8th most popular vocation among middle school students and the 4th among high school students. The education ministry explained in its report that more students have become interested in online-based activities in recent years due to the fast-paced industry developments from the prolonged pandemic.

The incumbent government plans to make coding part of the national education curriculum, too. On 22 August 2022, the education ministry announced that it plans to double the teaching hours of computer classes for primary and middle school students from 17 to 34 hours and 34 to 68 hours per year. The ministry added that it will find ways to make coding courses mandatory from 2025, although some experts point out that schools need more resources and personnel to do more lessons. 

Still, not only the kids, the whole country is rushing into the rosy fantasy of the computer programming industry. Interviews with computer programming academies saying that we need to learn coding “for survival” or articles about the market’s big demand for tech workers, promising a high salary for computer programmers and software developers, are often found in South Korea.

Despite high hopes for the future in computer science, there is no such thing as ever-lasting success in any business field. From the beginning of 2023, reports say more than 25,000 tech workers have been fired from big tech companies globally. Amazon and Meta, dream destinations of many aspiring computer programmers, announced a minimum of 29,000 layoffs recently.

Computer science can only be a perfect solution for some occasions, too, as it is based on the bias of human developers and users. We already have encountered cases where manmade software draws unexpected outcomes, like artificial intelligence-powered text bot ChatGPT or AI illustration tools collecting existing works without filtering sources that may be subject to copyright issues. Algorithms of certain AI tools can also work by developers’ bias in terms of social groups.

This is why some people raise concerns about the country’s inclination towards tech education over arts and humanities. 

Yoon Song-yee, president and chief strategy officer of Korean game developer NCSoft, talked about the necessity of convergence of computer science and humanities for further, safer development in the industry at the “Digital Humanities” symposium held in Seoul, South Korea, on 13 January 2023.

“I suggested having an equal number of women and men for in-game characters to the developers before, and they shook their heads and asked, ‘why do we have to do that'” Yoon said. “AI tools that are based on developers’ prejudices can undermine the value of diversity that mankind has achieved after paying a tremendous social cost for the past 100 years.

“That’s why engineers should also study humanities such as ethics and philosophy.”

“We use to talk about ‘AI ethics’ or ‘robot ethics’ because they are autonomous unlike traditional devices and machines, and we need to ask of ‘ethics’ to autonomous actors if they are coexisting with humans,” Jeon Chang-bae, chairman of the Korean Society for Artificial Intelligence Ethics, wrote in an opinion article in 2021. “Without ethics, we don’t know how such autonomous beings would impact humans or what they would do. […] To make an AI tool for everyone, we would have to solve dangers and side-effects of the tools as well.”

“If a technology develops without a basis of technical developments, the imminent future would be nothing but dystopian, but engineering colleges don’t teach the human values and responsibilities within the technology,” Yoo Byeong-Yeon, a contributor to Korea Business Daily, wrote. 

“This is why we have to teach humanities, including ethics and philosophies when teaching technology. Our society is deliberately neglecting the dark sides of technology-powered ‘utopia’. There is a need for appropriate ethical standards and universal empathy to solve new problems derived from cutting-edge technologies,” he added.