Hyundai Motor workers should adapt to coexist with robots: ILO director

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A senior official from the International Labour Organization (ILO) advised Hyundai Motor workers to acquire new skills that will remain essential even after the introduction of Atlas humanoid robots on the carmaker’s assembly lines. Speaking to The Korea Times on the sidelines of the Global Labor Market Conference in Saudi Arabia's capital city of Riyadh on Monday (local time), Lee Sang-heon, director of the ILO's Employment Policy Department, described the Hyundai Motor union’s recent efforts to block the use of artificial intelligence (AI) robots as “unrealistic.” “The union’s protest is a typical bargaining tactic,” he said. “The strategy itself is not surprising, but for workers, finding ways to coexist with robots is a more practical approach.” Lee, the first and only Korean policy director at the Geneva-headquartered United Nations agency, made the remarks as the union engaged in what some observers and Korean news outlets described as a kind of modern-day "Luddism." On Thursday, the union warned that “not a single robot” could be deplWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times