The South Korean government has initiated a $33 million project to capture the "instinctive know-how and skills" of "master technicians" into a database for AI-powered manufacturing. This state-backed initiative, announced last month, aims for robots to boost productivity and offset an aging, shrinking workforce, directly impacting the nation's native working class. Labor groups have voiced significant apprehension, fearing that this push will lead to widespread job displacement and the hollowing out of the skilled workforce, long considered the nation's competitive advantage.
RLWRLD, a South Korean artificial-intelligence startup, is actively collecting workers’ techniques from various sectors, including hotels, warehouses, and convenience stores. The company is collaborating with entities such as the Lotte Hotel Seoul, CJ, and the Japanese convenience store chain Lawson to compile an extensive library of human expertise. This data is harvested from skilled workers across these industries, forming the foundation for AI brains intended for robots.
At Lotte Hotel Seoul, David Park, a food and beverages manager with nine years at the hotel, demonstrated tasks such as folding a banquet napkin while wearing body cameras on his head, chest, and hands. Each motion performed by Park is recorded and fed into a database designed to teach a robot to replicate the same actions. Park also wiped wine glasses, knives, and forks, noting the cameras on his hands felt too tight.
RLWRLD is also gathering data from logistics workers at CJ, meticulously capturing their methods for gripping, lifting, and handling goods in warehouses. Similarly, staff at Lawson are being tracked to document how they organize food displays. The overarching goal is to develop an AI software layer capable of operating robots across a range of factories and other work sites in the coming years, with potential expansion into homes. Engineers emphasize that replicating the dexterity of human hands is a key priority, reflecting a belief that humanlike machines, or humanoids, will dominate the field.
Elite Interests Drive Displacement
South Korea views "physical AI"—machines equipped with AI and sensors that can perceive, decide, and act autonomously—as crucial to its ambition to become an AI powerhouse. This national strategy leverages the country's semiconductor and manufacturing strengths within a fiercely contested global market. The competition includes U.S. tech giants like Tesla and numerous Chinese firms investing billions into humanoids and other AI robots. While South Koreans may face challenges in chatbot development due to English-language proficiency advantages held by U.S. firms, they perceive a stronger opportunity in physical AI, relying on their deep base of skilled workers to train these robot systems, even as those workers face displacement.
Major corporations are already committing to this transformation. Hyundai Motor plans to introduce humanoids built by its robotics unit, Boston Dynamics, at its global factories in two years, beginning with its Georgia plant. Samsung Electronics aims to convert all its manufacturing sites into "AI-driven factories" by 2030, incorporating humanoids and task-specific robots across production lines. Billy Choi, a professor at Korea University’s center for Human-Inspired AI Research, noted that South Korea’s highly developed manufacturing sector is squarely focused on humanoids tailored for these industries.
The Cost to the Native Workforce
The rapid push for robot deployment has deeply unsettled labor groups, who fear that robots will seize jobs and erode the skilled workforce that has historically been the nation’s competitive edge. in January of the same year, Hyundai’s union issued a warning that robots could trigger an "employment shock." In response, President Lee Jae Myung delivered a rare rebuke, characterizing AI as an unstoppable "massive cart" and urging unionists to adapt to changes "coming faster than expected," effectively dismissing their concerns.
Kim Seok, policy director at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, articulated the human cost, stating, "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 warned that widespread robot deployments risk "severing the pipeline" for skilled labor and called for government and employers to engage with workers to address job concerns and secure their buy-in.
Hyemin Cho, who handles business strategies at RLWRLD, highlighted the importance of "capturing motion data in real-world settings" and the quality of that data. Song Hyun-ji of the company’s robotics team added that the process captures fine details such as joint angles and the amount of force applied. After converting worker footage into machine-readable data, RLWRLD engineers repeat the tasks themselves, using cameras, VR headsets, and motion-tracking gloves to train test robots.
Lotte Hotel, a partner in this data collection, anticipates robots will be ready for cleaning and other behind-the-scenes tasks in three years. The hotel also plans to offer robot rental services for the hospitality and other service industries, with a potential expansion into homes. David Park, the hotel manager, estimated that humanoids might take over about 30% to 40% of the workload in back-of-house event preparation, but acknowledged the difficulty for them to replace the remaining 50% to 70% involving human-to-human interaction.