Who Gets Turned Into Data
A South Korean artificial-intelligence startup is collecting workers’ techniques from hotels, warehouses and convenience stores to build AI brains for robots that could be used in factories, other work sites and eventually homes. RLWRLD, pronounced “real world,” is working with companies including the Lotte Hotel Seoul, CJ and the Japanese convenience store chain Lawson to create an extensive library of human expertise harvested from skilled workers across industries.
At Lotte Hotel Seoul, David Park, a food and beverages manager, was shown folding a banquet napkin while wearing body cameras strapped to his head, chest and hands. Park said, “I’ve been doing this about once a month.” The company said each of his motions is fed into a database that will one day teach a robot to do the same. Park, who has worked at the hotel for nine years, also wiped wine glasses, knives and forks in a corner of a banquet hall as colleagues prepared for real services nearby, and he complained lightly to an engineer that the cameras on his hands felt too tight.
RLWRLD is also collecting data from logistics workers at CJ, capturing how they grip, lift and handle goods in warehouses, and from staff at Lawson, tracking how they organize food displays. The company’s goal is to build an AI software layer that can work in robots across a range of factories and other work sites in coming years before potentially expanding into homes. Its engineers say replicating the dexterity of human hands is a key priority, reflecting their view that humanlike machines, or humanoids, will drive the field.
The Corporate Race for Physical AI
The company is among a wave of South Korean high-tech firms and manufacturers competing in the global market for “physical AI,” a term for machines equipped with AI and sensors that can perceive, decide and act in real-world environments with some degree of autonomy. The article says the market is unproven yet fiercely contested and that physical AI moves beyond conventional factory robots designed for repetitive tasks.
South Korea sees physical AI as central to its ambitions to leverage its semiconductor and manufacturing strengths to become an AI powerhouse. The competition includes U.S. tech giants like Tesla and a flood of Chinese firms pouring billions into humanoids and other AI robots. The article says South Koreans may struggle to compete in chatbots, where English-language proficiency gives U.S. firms major advantages, but they see a better chance in physical AI because of their deep base of skilled workers in manufacturing and other sectors that could help train robot systems.
The government last month announced a $33 million project to capture the “instinctive know-how and skills” of “master technicians” into a database for AI-powered manufacturing, hoping robots will boost productivity and offset an aging, shrinking workforce. RLWRLD, which last week unveiled its robotics foundation model, expects industrial AI robots to be deployed at scale sometime around 2028, a timeline shared by major businesses.
Hyundai Motor plans to introduce humanoids built by its robotics unit, Boston Dynamics, at its global factories in coming years, starting with its Georgia plant in 2028. Samsung Electronics plans to convert all manufacturing sites into “AI-driven factories” by 2030, with humanoids and task-specific robots across production lines.
Billy Choi, a professor at Korea University’s center for Human-Inspired AI Research, said, “South Korea has a highly developed manufacturing sector and the focus is squarely on humanoids tailored specifically for those industries.”
Workers Warn of the Cost
The push has unsettled labor groups, which fear robots could take jobs and hollow out the skilled workforce long seen as the nation’s competitive edge. After Hyundai’s union warned in January that robots could trigger an “employment shock,” President Lee Jae Myung issued a rare rebuke, describing AI as an unstoppable “massive cart” and calling for unionists to adapt to changes “coming faster than expected.”
Kim Seok, policy director at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said, “Mastery of skills is ultimately a human achievement — even if AI can replicate existing abilities, the continuous development of craft will remain fundamentally human.” He said widespread robot deployments would risk “severing the pipeline” for skilled labor and urged the government and employers to engage with workers over AI to win their buy-in and ease job concerns.
Hyemin Cho, who handles business strategies at RLWRLD, said, “Capturing motion data in real-world settings is extremely important and the quality of that data matters greatly.” Song Hyun-ji of the company’s robotics team said the process captures fine details such as joint angles and the amount of force applied.
After converting worker footage into machine-readable data, RLWRLD’s engineers repeat the tasks wearing cameras, VR headsets and motion-tracking gloves. That data is used to train test robots, often guided by RLWRLD “pilots” using wearable devices. One of RLWRLD’s labs occupies a cluttered, 34th-floor suite at Lotte Hotel, with scratched carpets buried under tangles of wires and computing gear, poles fitted with infrared laser readers in the corners, and a wheeled robot with black, humanlike metal hands moving back and forth beneath a chandelier.
During a recent demonstration, the robot, guided by engineers, gingerly lifted and placed cups at a minibar and at one point knocked over a dish. The company’s latest test footage shows a more advanced system: a humanoid carefully opening a box, placing a computer mouse inside, closing it and setting it on a conveyor belt.
Most robots, including Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, use task-specific hands such as two- or three-fingered grippers. RLWRLD is among a smaller group of companies developing AI for five-fingered hands that mimic human touch. The article says five-fingered designs may not always suit factory needs, but they could be crucial as robots move into homes, where closer interaction with humans will be required.
Hospitality workers provide valuable training data for machines learning precise or nuanced tasks, and Cho said those skills could also expand robots’ use in industrial settings. Although current humanoids would need several hours to clean a guest room that human workers finish in about 40 minutes, Lotte Hotel hopes robots will be ready for cleaning and other behind-the-scenes tasks by 2029. It also plans robot rental services for the hospitality and other service industries, with a potential expansion to homes.
Park said, “If you look at the entire process of preparing for an event in back-of-house areas, we think humanoids might be able to take over about 30% to 40% of that workload.” He added, “It will be difficult for them to replace the remaining 50%, 60% and 70%, which involves actual human-to-human interaction.”
The article was written by Kim Tong-hyung, who has covered the Koreas for AP since 2014 and has published widely read stories on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the dark side of South Korea’s economic rise and international adoptions of Korean children.