[The Future of Labor, the Impact of Physical AI]②Ken Goldberg: "Robots and Humans Are Complementary...The Beginning of Cooperation, Not the End of Work"

Physical AI: The End of Labor or a New Step in Evolution?
Asking Four Global Scholars and Policy Experts About the "Future of Work"

Editor's noteThe era of "physical AI," in which artificial intelligence (AI) that once stayed on screens now inhabits robotic bodies and performs real-world labor, has arrived. Recently, the labor union at Hyundai Motor strongly protested the introduction of the bipedal robot "Atlas," showing that the conflict between technological progress and job insecurity is no longer hypothetical. Is physical AI the end that heralds the disappearance of labor, or is it a step in evolution that will extend humanity's capabilities? The Asia Business Daily asks four global scholars and policy experts - Stanford University Professor Jerry Kaplan, UC Berkeley Professor Ken Goldberg, KAIST Professor Seo Yongseok, and Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Cha Jiho - about the future of human labor. Going beyond the shock of technology, we seek alternatives and ways for coexistence in an era of demographic cliffs over the course of four installments.

"The fear that artificial intelligence (AI) will wipe out all human jobs looks only at one side of the technology. I believe in the power of 'complementarity,' where humans and machines fill in each other's gaps."

Ken Goldberg, a leading scholar in global robotics and professor of industrial engineering at UC Berkeley as well as director of the AUTOLAB research lab, cited "complementarity" as the key concept of the physical AI era in an interview with this newspaper on the 25th. He argued that, rather than preparing first for the end of labor caused by AI, we should prepare for an era of mutual supplementation, in which human strengths and machine strengths fill each other's blind spots. In the written interview, conducted because he is currently on sabbatical, he even personally typed the Korean word "sangboseong" (complementarity) to define the collaborative relationship between humans and robots.

There is a "brain," but not yet a "body"

Professor Goldberg noted that everyone is currently asking, "When will robots have their ChatGPT moment?" but he does not believe that robots (the body) equipped with rapidly advancing AI intelligence (the brain) will immediately be able to replace human labor. This is because machines excel at data processing and repetitive tasks, but still cannot match humans in intuition, empathy, and dexterity. That is why he repeatedly emphasized complementarity between humans and robots throughout the interview.

The gap between humans and robots that Professor Goldberg particularly focused on is "dexterity." He believes there are still major engineering challenges in enabling robots to reproduce the fine, unconscious finger movements of humans or the subtle adjustment of force according to the texture of an object. In the 1980s, roboticist Hans Moravec proposed "Moravec's paradox," which states that physical tasks that are easy for humans, such as picking up an object, are extremely difficult for robots, whereas high-level reasoning that is difficult for humans is relatively easy for computers.

Professor Goldberg said, "It will still take several more years for robots to acquire the manipulation capabilities needed for complex interactions, such as most of the tasks performed by electricians, mechanics, and plumbers," adding, "We are still far from bridging the dexterity gap between humans and robots. The likelihood that human workers will be largely replaced by robots within the next 10 years is low."

At Hyundai Motor Group's press conference held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on the 5th of last month (local time), one day before the opening of the world's largest consumer electronics and information technology (IT) exhibition, CES 2026, the next-generation electric Atlas prototype (left) and an Atlas development model were unveiled on stage. Yonhap News

Above all, he urged people not to become trapped in fear of the "singularity," in which AI dominates humans as depicted in science fiction films. He analyzed that robots will first take root as tools that perform undesirable or dangerous work in place of humans, rather than as invaders that drive humans out.

Instead of the singularity, Professor Goldberg coined the concept of "multiplicity," predicting that an era will come in which multiple forms of intelligence, created by combining human intuition with machine precision, solve difficult problems on the industrial front lines. Even if an era arrives when robots can pick up objects better than humans, his argument is that humans will not become unemployed, but will be elevated to "managers" who think about how to arrange the items picked by robots to create added value.

The front line of physical AI is logistics

Where will the most immediate and dramatic changes occur as physical AI grows? Without hesitation, Professor Goldberg pointed to the logistics market. He said, "The logistics market, which is suffering from labor shortages, will grow significantly within the next 5 to 10 years," adding, "Robots and physical AI are already being deployed and utilized in logistics sites." In fact, in June last year, Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce giant, drew attention when it announced the deployment of its one-millionth robot across its global fulfillment centers.

The autonomous mobile robot Hercules operating in an Amazon fulfillment center. Amazon website

Professor Goldberg said, "In Korea as well, leading companies such as Samsung, LG, and RS Automation are at the forefront of new technologies globally," adding, "Korea has many excellent engineers and researchers, and I am working with some of them in my lab at Berkeley." RS Automation, which he singled out by name, is regarded as a company with unrivaled technological capabilities in controllers and encoders that control the movements of robots.

An encoder is a precision sensor that measures the angle and position of a robot's joint motor, and it is a core component that determines the robotic "dexterity" that Professor Goldberg focuses on. Through this interview, he once again emphasized that the goal of robotics is not to replace humans, but to achieve "completion as a tool" that extends human capabilities.

Professor Goldberg double-majored in electrical engineering and economics at the University of Pennsylvania and obtained his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. To date, he holds 12 U.S. patents and has published more than 450 papers. Building on his research achievements, he co-founded the logistics automation solution companies Ambi Robotics and Jacobi Robotics, accelerating the development of robotic technologies that can be applied in industrial settings.