Korean robot and self-driving lobbies ask government for clear humanoid safety rules at deregulation meeting

South Korea's government held a regulatory-innovation meeting on Oct 2 with industry associations from new-technology sectors, including the Korea Association of AI and Robot Industry, the Korea Autonomous Driving Industry Association and the drug, fintech and AI-software associations, Yonhap News reported; the robot association reposted the report in its news section, and MEKAWIRE has not found a government release on the meeting.

According to the report, participants asked for clearer safety standards for new types of robots such as humanoids and for concrete rules on de-identifying video and location data collected by self-driving vehicles.

Son Dong-kyun, head of the regulatory reform office, said the government would work to resolve the problems raised in autonomous driving, robots and biotech quickly. The government said it is also looking at easing permits for driverless vehicles and introducing a moving-target system that lets national R&D projects adjust their goals.

It follows a similar meeting chaired by Prime Minister Han Seong-sook in August. The request for humanoid rules came eleven days before Korea's regulatory sandbox cleared Robros to run 20 walking humanoids next to workers on industrial sites, which MEKAWIRE reported on Oct 13.