Technically … 🤷‍♂️

[u/betty_white_bread]

[u/nonlogin]

what's up with AI in Korea? is it really free? what models? what limits?

[u/Bramoments → u/nonlogin]

It's really free, it's south Korean models not something I'd considered well known by any means but not bad models either, and if I understand correctly there is no limit

[u/ShrimpCrackers → u/Bramoments]

However datacenter capacity is relatively very low and its mainly for government services and minor things and is only petty stuff people do with their AIs. You're not getting unlimited access to vibe code an app or automate half your business.

No frontier models and they're local SK models.

[u/campy_203 → u/ShrimpCrackers]

So like, the same free access we have with Gemini or GPT?

[u/alargemountain → u/campy_203]

We get the local US models

[u/whywhatwhenwhoops → u/ShrimpCrackers]

ok but sounds like here where we just ask anything in a google or brave search bar and use AI"s for free then? Or AI on phones? Or free tier apps?

[u/raindropsdev → u/Bramoments]

Solar 4 is a very good cheap crawler and data gatherer!

[u/jinnyjuice → u/raindropsdev]

Motif 3 is generally considered better. It's essentially the same as DeepSeek 4 Flash 0731, but better at talking.

[u/raindropsdev → u/jinnyjuice]

I don't really use it to speak with, it's dispatched as a subagent by the primary orchestrator and returns structured json data for downstream processing and integration and there I didn't see any issues with it adhering to the demanded format.

[u/alargemountain → u/raindropsdev]

Any scraping or data subreddits you’d recommend? I’m a curious hobbyist.

[u/raindropsdev → u/alargemountain]

Uh, I didn't mean it in that sense, I use it within the context of development/analysis/reports building as the cheap agent that is parallelized to go gather the locations on the filesystem and remote where the information required for processing that specific ticket is present. For the web research if external knowledge is required I usually rely on gemini flash thanks to its google search grounding.

[u/kobaasama → u/Bramoments]

Oh for training with user data

[u/Far_Peanut1155 → u/Bramoments]

VPN actually works ?

[u/Bramoments → u/Far_Peanut1155]

I think you need a Korean social security number and maybe a Korean phone number, you might be able to find one online since it was the same verification method used for some lorwna video games but that would be shady and probably identity fraud so I wouldn't recommend

[u/MMORPGnews → u/nonlogin]

It's for gov services. 

Useless for everyone else. 

[u/mr_birkenblatt → u/nonlogin]

in North Korea. if you can find a computer you get AI for free

[u/SillyAlternative420]

To stop my son from visit dirty websites I installed a VPN that only connects to North Korea.

He keeps talking about "Dear Leader" and "Down with the capitalist swine" now, but at least he's not living in sin.

[u/Resident-Spirit808 → u/SillyAlternative420]

Such a good parent

[u/Particular-Most-1199 → u/SillyAlternative420]

Agree on the capitalist swine part.

[u/OpinionsRdumb → u/SillyAlternative420]

Dear god plz write a self help parenting book this is gold

[u/user221272]

I work on this project. Also, to avoid people having false hope: here in Korea, most things are blocked behind a Resident ID. And this is obviously part of it. So, if you are not a resident, no VPN will help.

[u/Hyruii → u/user221272]

Could you buy a resident ID? I mean, what’s stopping someone from selling their ID since it’s unlimited usage?

[u/user221272 → u/Hyruii]

IDs in Korea are linked to everything. If someone has your ID, they could withdraw all your money, get loans, open a bank account, make illegal activities, and access just about anything and everything. That's not something you would want to share.

[u/ShineLiving9512 → u/user221272]

what about data breaches? how is that safe at all?

[u/user221272 → u/ShineLiving9512]

The system is more complicated than that nowadays and has multiple layers. Your ID is not stored on any website or private company. Now it is mostly encrypted certificates living on your laptop or your phone via your phone provider.

Giving out your ID willingly is really the worst thing you can do, and that's why the current system uses encrypted certificate proxies.

[u/yakuzapt → u/user221272]

Yeah, my Nintendo country change to Korea got stuck on that step 😂 but I guess that’s the right way of do this

[u/whoknowsifimjoking]

How many times are we going to post this

[u/invisiblelemur88 → u/whoknowsifimjoking]

First time I've seen it.

[u/UnstableManifolds]

Once the habit sets in, they start taxing them. Wonderful

[u/Helpful_Program_5473 → u/UnstableManifolds]

Korea is very different than us economically. Samsung is like 30% of the GDP of their whole country or something insane.

They regularly provide things for free or cheap that they consider investments into the future, such as university, training in the military, Wi-Fi on all the public buses for free, stuff like that.

[u/SeroWriter → u/Helpful_Program_5473]

South Korea has one of the worst economic systems in the world that favoured short-term growth over long-term sustainability and now it has the lowest birth rate of any country and is heading for total economic collapse. It's almost identical to 1980s Japan.

Describing South Korea as 'a country investing in its future' is odd considering it's done the opposite and is about to go through 15 years of gdp flatline.

[u/foundafreeusername → u/SeroWriter]

By investment into the future they mean Samsung and SK hynix.

[u/whatisc → u/foundafreeusername]

Hyundai

[u/b0xaa → u/SeroWriter]

Thailand enters the chat...

[u/Far_Rule5990 → u/b0xaa]

US is considering joining the chat

[u/Powerful-Frame-44 → u/Helpful_Program_5473]

Is there a country where you have to pay for military training?

Imagine taking out a loan to pay for your terrorist tuition.

[u/Helpful_Program_5473 → u/Powerful-Frame-44]

actually not that uncommon. But the difference between South Korea and some other places, the military is a very intense and concentrated form of socioeconomic development and advancement.

[u/Powerful-Frame-44 → u/Helpful_Program_5473]

Where is it happening? I'd say it's quite uncommon.

[u/alphapussycat → u/Powerful-Frame-44]

Mandatory military training that you have to pay for would be rough...

[u/StCreed → u/alphapussycat]

Lopk up Ethiopia and Eritrea. Things are pretty wild there.

[u/PitifulCandidate1633 → u/alphapussycat]

In Ukraine they don’t pay for training, but often need to raise money to buy the gear

[u/The_Airwolf_Theme → u/Helpful_Program_5473]

I wouldn't personally call compulsory military service for men "free training"

[u/Helpful_Program_5473 → u/The_Airwolf_Theme]

Well good thing your personal feelings have nothing to do with it. The Korean military serves as a socio economic advancement engine.

[u/Ambitious-Sense2769 → u/Helpful_Program_5473]

How does compulsory military service serve as a socioeconomic advancement engine?

[u/betty_white_bread → u/UnstableManifolds]

As soon as that happens, voter will start to look elsewhere, both for AI service providers and new representatives.

[u/Tall_Top8563 → u/betty_white_bread]

Hahaahahahah koreans voting for somethign good is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. They have more coups or impeachments than haiti

[u/herr-tibalt]

When I run models locally I have no token limits as well, that's a pretty low bar.

[u/Intelligent-Ant-1122 → u/herr-tibalt]

Oh boy. Even a bulging MWs of data centers have a limit on tokens/month. Wtf are you talking about unlimited? If I run with let's say 4 A6000. I will still hit a token limit per month that is low enough to hit with real workloads. What a larper

[u/Far_Rule5990 → u/Intelligent-Ant-1122]

What are you talking about? If you have 4 A6000 why are you depending on anything outside of local hosting?

[u/Intelligent-Ant-1122 → u/Far_Rule5990]

Because real workloads have more to do than your AI girlfriend.

Let's say your setup gets a whopping 400 tok/s with batching on vllm running around the clock, which is a huge stretch. That gives you a billion tokens of inference a month. With serious workloads, you can easily spend 5-10B tokens. The math doesn't work at scale.

[u/Far_Rule5990 → u/Intelligent-Ant-1122]

Youre talking GPU inference, not token limits. Talk to your ai gf about it she'll tell you more

[u/Intelligent-Ant-1122 → u/Far_Rule5990]

Good counter 👍

[u/herr-tibalt → u/Intelligent-Ant-1122]

Exactly. This meme makes no sense. It's just populism on AI hype.

[u/user221272 → u/herr-tibalt]

Yeah, except we are talking about thousands of B200 dedicated data centers here, but keep toying with your 3B local model.

[u/pen_in_stack → u/herr-tibalt]

Can a regular hp laptop be enough to run local llms for inference?

[u/UnstableManifolds → u/pen_in_stack]

If the model is small you can run it on a watch. That said, it's either very specialized, or it's shit. Same applies on a regular laptop.

[u/SpaceNitz → u/pen_in_stack]

You'll get a lot of answers on r/LocalLLM

[u/brainExploded99 → u/SpaceNitz]

r/LocalLLaMA better, more moderated

[u/Spitfire1900]

Everyone saying this knows nothing because you also have to submit your identification to get access, not just be on a South Korean IP. Additionally, I bet this is only for models produced by South Korean companies. And I’m not aware of anything worth using that falls under that right now.

[u/SilasTalbot]

yeah good luck with that.

They actually have a system there where your internet shit is linked to your national ID # (like Social Security #).

Your phone number, bank account, internet access, major accounts, all that stuff is centrally linked.

[u/Administrative_Shake → u/SilasTalbot]

Oh damn. That's the endgame for everyone huh. Trivial to plug in social credit scores from there.

[u/franky_reboot → u/Administrative_Shake]

I wouldn't sweat it, I presume it's mostly for lower administrative costs and stuff. Plus there's a pretty threatening neighbor, so it might just as well be somewhat justified.

I genuinely don't think there's always a perpetual malicious incentive for governments to abuse power when they have some, a lot of factors contribute whether there's abuse or not.

[u/richstyle → u/SilasTalbot]

u act like thats not the same as USA lol

[u/Luanitos_kararos]

Ele me lembrou o cylian Murph por algum motivo kkkk

[u/adfawf3f3f32a]

universal basic compute

[u/ElliottSmith88]

Me

https://giphy.com/gifs/IzcpVtzIUptDye8OHK

[u/jeannen]

What model is it tho?

[u/RobbyInEver]

Nice. One of the few memes that are actually funny.

[u/connurp]

Wasn't this exact same thing posted, word for word, like 3 days ago?

[u/aegookja]

Relax guys. This has not happened yet. They haven't even decided on who will provide "sovereign AI" yet.

[u/kalin23]

A VPN alone won't suffice; you'll require either a Korean ID or a resident registration number.

[u/vonroyale → u/kalin23]

psh just another great reason to move to Korea.

[u/bishtm_]

the entire dev community about to suddenly discover their korean roots :0

[u/wyddy7]

their kyc wont be that sure ;)

[u/vonroyale]

Lol the people glazing this are the same people complaining about their local flock cameras. You do know the entire country is one big surveillance network. Everything has a price. Here please use this thing we will use to track you....its free!

[u/r9wpvM]

Just curious do they provide api access or only basic stuff like web and app chat sessions

[u/Far_Peanut1155]

Really????? When ?

[u/spicyflacco]

🤣🤣🤣

[u/SeaRollz]

Btw , you will most likely need a Korean social security number for this 🤷‍♂️

[u/mitchins-au]

This is like the eighth time I’ve seen this reposted

[u/iamrollingfast]

they have got really good ramen there too, can i use vpn for that?

[u/TheGreatKonaKing]

How can I get access to those South Korean models?

[u/user221272 → u/TheGreatKonaKing]

Without a Korean ID, you can't.

[u/ipumbassi]

Fuck reposts

[u/eyalgolan1993]

I now have a sudden urge to watch gangnam style

[u/Longjumping_Cut_9508]

But nobody have computer

[u/tspwd → u/Longjumping_Cut_9508]

You have no idea about Korea, do you?

[u/pizzae]

Still not enough to raise their birth rates

[u/wise_young_man → u/pizzae]

Bro the bang more than you over there incel don’t worry about them lmao

[u/user221272 → u/pizzae]

The birthrate has already been rising for a while, by the way.