The World's First Strike Against a Robot That Hasn't Arrived Yet
Thirty-five thousand Hyundai workers walked off the line over a humanoid robot that will not enter a Korean factory for years. They are not fighting the machine. They are trying to win the right to approve it before it shows up, a bet with no precedent in the history of factory automation, and the whole industry is watching Ulsan to see if it works.
Read full story →Everyone Has the Data. Nobody Agrees What It Says.
One report says AI is collapsing the entry-level market; another says the firms spending most on AI are hiring fastest. Both are true, which is what makes the fight so slippery. A survey that six in ten companies blame AI for cuts they made for financial reasons hints at why, and why the real argument has quietly become about who keeps the gains.
Read full story →Three Countries, Three Very Different Bets on the Humanoid
At the World AI Conference in Shanghai, China showed scale, America sold intelligence, and Japan, which built the first humanoid in 1973, brought one robot that played basketball. Each strategy is a wager on what the machine is actually for, and a trade-group veteran offers the cold water: most humanoids in factories still work at 20 to 50 percent effectiveness.
Read full story →China Is Selling Loyal Robot Companions and Banning AI Lovers in the Same Week
Ubtech launched a silicone-skinned companion robot promising to be "always loyal," just as new Chinese rules forced Doubao, Qwen and Yuanbao to pull their AI girlfriends and boyfriends offline. What a country embraces in hardware it is nervous about in software, and the line it drew may not survive the day the two converge.
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