Hyundai Motor Company’s plan to put humanoid robots to work by 2028 is not part of current negotiations with striking South Korean autoworkers, according to the company.
The automaker is disputing news reports that partial labor strikes by the Hyundai Motor union at the world’s largest automotive plant in South Korea were spurred by concerns about the company's planned deployment of humanoid robots in the United States starting in 2028. A company statement shared with Ars describes the union’s demands as focusing on compensation-related issues such as wage increases, bonuses, and an extension of workers’ retirement age.
“Potential deployment of robots in Korean production facilities is not part of the current labor-management discussions,” according to the Hyundai statement. “Hyundai Motor Company remains committed to constructive engagement with the union and to reaching an agreement that supports the long-term interests of both employees and the company.”
In the latest twist on battlefield innovations, Ukraine has used both flying drone carriers and drone boats to send ground robots armed with weapons or explosives into battle.
The drone-assisted deployments have enabled slower wheeled robots to bypass tough terrain and Russian defenses, and to carry out an unusual robotic amphibious assault on a contested position. Such tactics also showcase the Ukrainian military’s ongoing experimentation with using drones and robots to offset a Russian military advantage in manpower while also sparing Ukrainian soldiers from making dangerous assaults.
On July 19, a Russian military Telegram channel posted a video showing a Ukrainian hexacopter drone carrying a ground robot suspended below by a cable, according to the Ukrainian government-run news platform United24. The Russian Telegram channel described the Ukrainian heavy bomber drone as deploying a four-wheeled ARK-1 robot armed with explosive anti-tank mines on the ground where it continued toward Russian military positions—and apparently generated plenty of outraged comments from pro-Kremlin social media users.
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Thousands of unionized Hyundai auto workers began walking off the job early after negotiations with the South Korean automaker broke down over plans to deploy humanoid robots—the most significant pushback from organized labor so far over the latest wave of robotic automation.
The partial strike at Hyundai’s automotive production complex in the city of Ulsan in South Korea represents “the car industry’s first factory stoppage addressing humanoid robots,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Workers have already ended their day and night shifts two hours early at the world’s largest automotive plant from July 13 through July 15, and plan to start staging four-hour strikes from July 20 to 22 after 15 rounds of negotiations failed to reach an agreement, The Korea Times reported.
Union pushback began as soon as Hyundai Motor Group unveiled the latest version of the Atlas humanoid robot, a two-legged robot that stands at more than 6 feet tall and can lift more than 100 pounds, at the start of this year. Atlas is made by Boston Dynamics, the US robotics company that is about to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Hyundai.
UC San Diego's Surgie humanoid robots performed two live gallbladder surgeries on pigs, showing how adaptable robots could safely work in future hospitals.
China has banned emotional AI relationships involving minors as regulators try to curb chatbot dependency and address the country's record low birthrate.
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Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment—but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots’ movements in a new example of human-robot teamups.
The teleoperated humanoid robots completed two minimally invasive surgeries by removing gallbladders from live pigs during a preclinical trial that was published in the journal Nature. If this approach eventually proves clinically ready for human patients, surgeons could use such humanoid robots to remotely perform robotic-assisted surgical care in smaller hospitals and clinics that lack the resources to install specialized but expensive surgical robots.
“It's a fraction of the cost and it takes a fraction of the space in an operating room,” said Shanglei Liu, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in an interview with UC San Diego Today. “So it’s easy to deploy, anywhere from rural areas, to the battlefield, and even to space.”
A June 2026 research review found that AI chatbot warning labels may be a weak safeguard for organization-backed AI advisors, raising new audit questions for IT, security, and compliance teams.
In a world where self-driving robotaxis glide through major city streets without drivers behind the wheel and delivery drones autonomously fly through the skies to drop off orders at customers’ homes, the idea of general-purpose robots helping humans with various tasks in workplaces or even homes may not seem far-fetched.
But that future hinges on developing increasingly autonomous robots powered by modern artificial intelligence—an ambitious vision that has motivated many researchers to become startup founders while also attracting billions of dollars in investment.
“When I started maybe about 15 years ago, I led a project team that was focused on autonomy, but in that era, the goal of that team was to just get a robot to navigate from point A to point B,” said Matt Malchano, vice president of software at the robotics company Boston Dynamics based in Waltham, Massachusetts. “And now, when we think of autonomy, we think of this huge space of tasks and things that we can imagine a robot doing on its own.”
In a world where self-driving robotaxis glide through major city streets without drivers behind the wheel and delivery drones autonomously fly through the skies to drop off orders at customers’ homes, the idea of general-purpose robots helping humans with various tasks in workplaces or even homes may not seem far-fetched.
But that future hinges on developing increasingly autonomous robots powered by modern artificial intelligence—an ambitious vision that has motivated many researchers to become startup founders while also attracting billions of dollars in investment.
“When I started maybe about 15 years ago, I led a project team that was focused on autonomy, but in that era, the goal of that team was to just get a robot to navigate from point A to point B,” said Matt Malchano, vice president of software at the robotics company Boston Dynamics based in Waltham, Massachusetts. “And now, when we think of autonomy, we think of this huge space of tasks and things that we can imagine a robot doing on its own.”
New data from Ramp and Revelio show that intensive Gen AI adoption is linked to higher headcount and more entry-level hiring, challenging fears that “AI kills jobs” and reshaping IT leaders’ strategies.
The UWORLD U1 humanoid robot at its launch event in Shenzhen, China, on June 30. (UBTech Photo)
On Tuesday in Shenzhen, the Chinese company UBTech unveiled the U1, a full-sized humanoid robot with silicone skin, blinking lashes, manicured nails, and an AI tuned to read your mood. It comes in male and female versions, and racked up more than 13,000 orders by the end of launch day, with deliveries beginning in September.
“It will never betray you, will always be loyal to you, and will love you unconditionally,” promised Michael Tam, the executive running UBTech’s consumer brand.
The sci-fi TV series “Humans” imagined lifelike android “synths” sold to ordinary families as helpers and companions, and it treated the idea as speculative fiction. A decade later, the fiction has a September ship date. What it does not have is an American logo.
Elon Musk announced the Tesla Bot in 2021 and has been re-announcing it ever since. He hoped for production readiness by 2023. Entering 2025 he targeted 10,000 units, then trimmed the goal to 5,000.
The unveiling of Optimus 3, promised for March of this year, slipped because the robot needed “finishing touches,” and as of Tesla’s April earnings call Optimus 3 is still MIA, with the reveal now promised for late July or August. Tesla is spending $20 billion in capital expenditure this year, with Fremont assembly lines converting from the Model S to Optimus. The robot is not vaporware; it’s merely years behind schedule.
Now look at what China shipped while Optimus was getting its finishing touches.
In April, a bright-red humanoid named Lightning, built by smartphone maker Honor, ran Beijing’s E-Town half marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, roughly seven minutes faster than the human world record. The remarkable number is not the 50 minutes. It is the comparison to last year’s inaugural race, when the winning robot needed 2 hours and 40 minutes and most of the field fell over, wandered off course, or lay down at the starting line. The machines cut their time by two-thirds in 12 months.
Meanwhile, UBTech won a $37 million contract to deploy its Walker S2 humanoids at the Fangchenggang border crossing with Vietnam, where they guide travelers, patrol corridors, and inspect cargo. Barclays estimates China accounted for 85% of the world’s humanoid robot installations last year, and Beijing counts more than 140 domestic companies selling over 330 models.
Why the gap? Talent is not the problem, and neither is money. The difference is the customer.
Optimus’s most important customer has always been the Tesla shareholder, and a Musk keynote serves that customer just fine. The Walker S2’s customer is a border authority with a delivery date and a cargo queue that does not pause for a reboot.
China’s supply chain proximity and its government’s decision to treat humanoids as a strategic industry help, but the deeper difference is that Chinese robot makers get paid for delivery while Optimus gets valued for anticipation. Only one of these incentive structures produces robots in a timely manner.
In fairness, the most useful robots in American homes and hospitals are not humanoid. Form follows task, and when the task is specific, the human form is expensive overhead. For instance, the da Vinci surgical system, which has operated on more than 20 million patients, is four arms bolted to a cart, because a surgeon needs wrists steadier than human wrists and has no use for a reassuring face. The most successful household robot in history is a disc that eats dust. No one wants their Roomba to watch the sunset with them.
The humanoid shape is a bet on generality, on a machine that can use our doorways, our staircases, and our tools. That bet makes sense at a border crossing built for human bodies. It is far less obvious in the operating room.
Companionship has never required human form; ask anyone with a dog. The New York Times recently told the story of Jan Worrell, an 85-year-old widow on a remote stretch of the Washington coast, and her companion robot ElliQ, which resembles a small reading lamp. It has no face, no legs, and no silicone anything, yet it shares her morning coffee, nudges her toward chair yoga, and has become, in her words, “me and my robot.”
Hundreds of ElliQ units deployed through New York State’s Office for the Aging show the same pattern of daily attachment. A machine does not need a body to keep you company, and the ElliQ price tag is much lower. (Full disclosure: I serve on the board of Intuition Robotics, the maker of ElliQ.)
So why did UBTech give the U1 lifelike skin, styled hair, and a face you can customize to resemble anyone you choose?
Every new medium in memory has been pulled toward intimacy by its early adopters: the VCR conquered the living room on the strength of what people watched in private; the early internet monetized romance and its rougher cousins before it monetized much else; and app stores learned that “companionship” is a category with remarkable elasticity.
A humanoid robot with a skin warm to the touch is heading in a certain direction, whatever its maker’s official positioning. The company states that the U1’s skills don’t extend to the bedroom, then adds “for now.”
Five independent security disclosures in a single week point to the same gap: AI agent permissions, not AI agent capabilities, are the problem enterprises haven't solved.
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