Robot suppliers tell an Ulsan forum that plants allow testing and ban filming

Three of the six panelists came from firms that sell robots or AI systems: SK Telecom, Didden Robotics and InterX ^[8][14]. One came from Hyundai Motor's automation technology division, one from Ulsan Metropolitan City and one from a research institute ^[8]. That composition does not make the complaint wrong, but the constraint named on stage is also three suppliers' commercial ask. The account of the forum does not say why plants bar filming ^[16].

"In many cases we are allowed to test products but not to film them, so data collection is impossible," said Kim Joon-ha, chief executive of Didden Robotics ^[3]. Testing and filming are separate permissions, and Kim's objection is to the filming ban. Kim put it harder: "Blocking the collection of data, which matters most in AI, is effectively telling us not to develop AI at all," he said ^[4].

"Graphics processing units and robots alike ultimately move for the sake of data," said Kim Jae-sung, chief business officer at InterX ^[5]. A GPU order clears in a quarter, while a recording permission has to be granted by the plant the robot is being sold to.

SK Telecom's route around the camera is simulation. "SK Telecom turns equipment and process data into digital twins and runs various simulations inside them," said Cho Ik-hwan, the company's executive vice president for physical AI ^[6]. "Based on synthetic data, AI trains robots and verifies them before they are deployed on site," he said ^[7]. In that sequence the acceptance test sits inside the model, and the robot stops learning its job on the customer's line.

Cho's request to the city was specific. "If Ulsan connects companies that need these technologies with robot, AI and training platforms, the city can make the most of its manufacturing competitiveness," he said ^[10]. Ulsan's AX policy officer, Kim Hyung-soo, turned the request back toward the manufacturers: "I ask companies to take an active role, such as grading their data and distributing anything below a certain grade," he said ^[11], and added, "If data sharing becomes more active, Ulsan will build industry-by-industry data sets" ^[12].

The competing explanation for the refusal is that a manufacturer with a running line values continuity above a supplier's training set, and testimony from suppliers cannot settle which of the two is operating. This is one panel, at a forum that has run each year since 2022 and reached its fifth edition ^[13][15]. What gives the complaint some weight is its direction: a supplier blaming a customer's site rules is blaming the party that signs its contracts.