South Korean Hotel Worker Trains Robot to Fold Banquet Napkins

A hotel worker at the five-star Lotte Hotel Seoul had his head, chest and hands strapped with body cameras while he folded a banquet napkin, one of the tasks he performs about once a month. Each motion is fed into a database that will be used to teach a robot to perform the same actions.

The hotel chain is working with a South Korean artificial-intelligence startup to create a library of human expertise from skilled workers across industries. The government announced a $33 million project last month to capture the instinctive know-how and skills of master technicians into a database.

The company is also collecting similar data from logistics workers at CJ, recording how they grip, lift and handle goods in warehouses. Data is likewise being gathered from staff at a Japanese convenience store chain to track how they organize food displays.

The goal is to build an AI software layer that can work in robots across factories and other work sites in coming years, before potentially expanding into homes. Engineers at the startup say replicating the dexterity of human hands is a key priority.

They believe humanlike machines, known as humanoids, will drive progress in the field.

The $33 million government project is intended to boost productivity and offset an aging, shrinking workforce. The startup, which last week unveiled its robotics foundation model, expects industrial AI robots to be deployed at scale around 2028. That timeline is shared by major businesses in the country.

One car manufacturer plans to introduce humanoids built by its robotics unit at its global factories in coming years, starting with its Georgia plant in 2028. A semiconductor company plans to convert all manufacturing sites into AI-driven factories by 2030, with humanoids and task-specific robots across production lines.

A professor at a Korean university said the country has a highly developed manufacturing sector and the focus is on humanoids tailored for those industries.

Labor groups have expressed concern that robots could take jobs and reduce demand for the skilled workforce. One union policy director said mastery of skills is ultimately a human achievement and that widespread robot deployments would risk severing the pipeline for skilled labor.

The director urged the government and employers to engage with workers over AI to ease job concerns. The startup's head of business strategies said the ability to perform delicate tasks with hands will determine whether humanoids can be used in diverse industrial settings and homes.

Capturing motion data in real-world settings is extremely important and the quality of that data matters greatly, she said. After converting worker footage into machine-readable data, engineers repeat the tasks wearing cameras, VR headsets and motion-tracking gloves.

That data is used to train test robots, often guided by pilots using wearable devices. The process captures fine details such as joint angles and the amount of force applied. One of the company's labs is located in a 34th-floor suite at the Lotte Hotel, where a wheeled robot with humanlike metal hands was demonstrated lifting and placing cups at a minibar.

Test footage shows a more advanced system in which a humanoid opens a box, places a computer mouse inside, closes it and sets it on a conveyor belt. The company is among a smaller group developing AI for five-fingered hands that mimic human touch. Such designs could prove important as robots move into homes, where closer interaction with humans will be required.

Hospitality workers provide training data for machines learning precise tasks. Although current humanoids would need several hours to clean a guest room that human workers finish in about 40 minutes, the hotel hopes robots will be ready for cleaning and other behind-the-scenes tasks by 2029.

The hotel also plans robot rental services for the hospitality and other service industries, with potential expansion to homes. 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, the hotel worker said.