SEOUL, South Korea (AP) \u2014 His head, chest and hands strapped with body cameras, David Park deftly folded a banquet napkin the way he has thousands of times during his nine years at the five-star Lotte Hotel Seoul. Each of his motions is fed into a database that will one day teach a robot to do the same.<\/p>\n
The hotel chain is one of many companies South Korean artificial-intelligence startup RLWRLD (pronounced \u201creal world\u201d) is working with to create an extensive library of human expertise, harvested from skilled workers across industries, to develop AI brains for robots that could be coming to industrial sites and homes. <\/p>\n
It collects similar data from logistics workers at CJ, capturing how they grip, lift and handle goods in warehouses, and from staff at a Japanese convenience store chain Lawson, tracking how they organize food displays. <\/p>\n
The 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. RLWRLD\u2019s engineers say replicating the dexterity of human hands is a key priority, reflecting their views that humanlike machines, or humanoids<\/a>, will drive the field. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this about once a month,\u201d said Park, one of about 10 members of Lotte Hotel\u2019s food and beverages team being wired up to capture their techniques.<\/p>\n After folding the napkin into a tight, layered square, Park wiped wine glasses, knives and forks in a corner of a banquet hall as colleagues prepared for real services nearby. He complained lightly to an engineer that the cameras on his hands felt too tight.<\/p>\n South Korea focuses on physical AI<\/p>\n RLWRLD is among a wave of South Korean high-tech firms and manufacturers competing in the unproven yet fiercely contested global market for \u201cphysical AI.\u201d The term refers to machines equipped with AI and sensors that can perceive, decide and act in real-world environments with some degree of autonomy, moving beyond conventional factory robots designed for repetitive tasks.<\/p>\n While it remains unclear whether these machines will fully meet expectations of transforming industries, they are central to South Korea\u2019s ambitions<\/a> to leverage its semiconductor and manufacturing strengths to become an AI powerhouse. The competition is tough, with U.S. tech giants like Tesla<\/a> and a flood of Chinese firms pouring billions into humanoids and other AI robots.<\/p>\n Just as chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini train on vast troves of internet text, AI robots likewise require extensive data on human action to handle advanced physical tasks. 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, given their deep base of skilled workers in manufacturing and other sectors that could help train robot systems. <\/p>\n Robots are central to South Korea\u2019s AI ambitions <\/p>\n The government last month announced a $33 million project to capture the \u201cinstinctive know-how and skills\u201d of \u201cmaster technicians\u201d into a database for AI-powered manufacturing, hoping robots will boost productivity and offset an aging, shrinking workforce. <\/p>\n RLWRLD, which last week unveiled its robotics foundation model, an AI system for robots, expects industrial AI robots to be deployed at scale sometime around 2028, a timeline shared by major businesses.<\/p>\n Hyundai Motor plans to introduce humanoids built by its robotics unit, Boston Dynamics, at its global factories in coming years, starting with its Georgia<\/a> plant in 2028. Chip giant Samsung Electronics<\/a> plans to convert all manufacturing sites into \u201cAI-driven factories\u201d by 2030, with humanoids and task-specific robots across production lines.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Korea has a highly developed manufacturing sector and the focus is squarely on humanoids tailored specifically for those industries,\u201d said Billy Choi, a professor at Korea University\u2019s center for Human-Inspired AI Research. <\/p>\n South Korea\u2019s AI push has unsettled labor groups, who fear robots could possibly take jobs and hollow out the skilled workforce long seen as the nation\u2019s competitive edge, the very asset it\u2019s now counting on for its AI transition. <\/p>\n After Hyundai\u2019s union warned in January that robots could trigger an \u201cemployment shock,\u201d President Lee Jae Myung<\/a> issued a rare rebuke, describing AI as an unstoppable \u201cmassive cart\u201d and calling for unionists to adapt to changes \u201ccoming faster than expected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMastery of skills is ultimately a human achievement \u2014 even if AI can replicate existing abilities, the continuous development of craft will remain fundamentally human,\u201d said Kim Seok, policy director at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. He said widespread robot deployments would risk \u201csevering the pipeline\u201d for skilled labor and urged the government and employers to engage with workers over AI to win their buy-in and ease job concerns.<\/p>\n Robots are trained on human behavior <\/p>\n