[Column] What the debate over Atlas and robots in factories missed

Hyundai Motor Group’s new humanoid robotic, “Atlas,” was unveiled at CES 2026 in Las Vegas in January. (Lee Jae-ho/Hankyoreh)

By Ha Jong-gang, dean of the Sungkonghoe College Labor Academy

This January, Boston Dynamics, a US-based robotics firm underneath the Hyundai Motor Group, unveiled its humanoid robotic “Atlas” on the Shopper Electronics Present 2026 held in Las Vegas. Its actions have been so exact and its joint flexibility so exceptional that it may have been instantly deployed on an automotive meeting line. Hyundai Motor’s inventory worth soared, and the response was so optimistic that it felt like a beacon of hope to those that had been anxious that South Korea, as soon as an IT powerhouse, was lagging far behind within the fields of synthetic intelligence and robotics.

Subsequently, the media reported the Hyundai Motor union had declared an “all-out warfare” to dam the introduction of robots, stating, “Not a single robotic can enter the manufacturing facility flooring.” Public opinion has been overwhelmingly important of the union. Round this time, in Q&A periods after my lectures, individuals would usually pose biting questions on how I may defend the union’s anachronistic place.

Nonetheless, there’s a side that the media has didn’t correctly be aware. The actual fact is that the Hyundai Motor union’s declare was preceded by the situation, “with out an settlement between labor and administration.” In different phrases, the union was proposing that the corporate introduce robots after session between labor and administration to reduce any adversarial results. 

For a lot of readers who didn’t learn the articles fastidiously however solely noticed headlines alongside the strains of “Hyundai Motor Union Declares All-Out Warfare on Robots,” the union’s proposal inevitably seemed to be a Luddite-esque backlash.

Robots have been part of car manufacturing for years already. There’s in all probability not a single Hyundai Motor employee who believes it’s doable to stop a robotic from getting into the manufacturing facility. Whereas expressions utilized by the union in its newsletters — equivalent to “Not a single robotic can enter the meeting line with out labor-management settlement” — could seem radical, it is just when the labor union expresses such agency resolve that corporations and the federal government will make even the smallest efforts to reduce the adversarial results of robotic adoption.

Way back, when the federal government tried to denationalise the Korea Nationwide Railway, the railway union went on strike, demanding the privatization scheme be fully withdrawn. The media criticized this as “opposition with out providing another.” Nonetheless, as a result of the union opposed the privatization with a “fight-to-the-death” angle, the route shifted from privatization to reworking the railway right into a public company, ensuing within the creation of a government-owned company. This is identical precept as demanding a wage elevate of 15% firstly of negotiations to finally agree on a 5% enhance.

Options to reduce the adversarial uncomfortable side effects of introducing robots and synthetic intelligence into manufacturing websites exist already, and the route is comparatively simple. Even when jobs are misplaced because of the introduction of robots and AI, productiveness will increase dramatically, so the quantity of products produced turns into a lot bigger. We merely want to plot a method to distribute these items equitably — together with to those that are unemployed.

When astrophysicist Dr. Stephen Hawking handed away in 2018, a response he gave to a query on technological unemployment by way of Reddit’s “Ask Me Something” occasion was broadly circulated, as if these is likely to be his remaining phrases.

The query posed was as follows: “Have you considered the opportunity of technological unemployment, the place we develop automated processes that finally trigger giant unemployment by performing jobs sooner and/or cheaper than folks can carry out them? Some evaluate this thought to the ideas of the Luddites, whose revolt was triggered partially by perceived technological unemployment over 100 years in the past. Specifically, do you foresee a world the place folks work much less as a result of a lot work is automated? Do you suppose folks will all the time both discover work or manufacture extra work to be performed?” 

To this, Hawking responded, “If machines produce the whole lot we want, the end result will rely upon how issues are distributed. Everybody can take pleasure in a lifetime of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most individuals can find yourself miserably poor if the machine-owners efficiently foyer in opposition to wealth redistribution.”

As his remaining line, he wrote, “Up to now, the pattern appears to be towards the second choice, with expertise driving ever-increasing inequality.”

Whether or not his prediction is true or improper, the very fact stays that every one of us needs to be attempting to make the primary choice even doable.  

On Jan. 29, throughout a gathering with senior advisers, President Lee Jae Myung commented on the Hyundai Motor union debate.

“I believe the labor union declared that they wouldn’t permit any robots into their worksites,” he stated. “There’s no escaping this juggernaut.” No sooner had he spoken these phrases than did numerous media shops ship out stories that made it seem to be he’d performed some epic takedown of Hyundai’s union.

However there’s one thing that these media shops buried of their stories. The actual fact is that Lee stated of the union’s claims that they have been “in all probability a bargaining tactic greater than an actual risk.”

In the end, the Hyundai Motor union, Stephen Hawking, and Lee Jae Myung have been all mainly saying the identical factor. Contemplating that Lee stated that “the aspect that owns the technique of manufacturing will accumulate inordinate wealth, whereas it’s going to get more durable for the overwhelming majority to seek out jobs, and we have to be ready and reply to that,” his intentions develop into all of the clearer. 

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