Korea's world lead in industrial robot density

 

As shown in this bar chart published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) in its World Robotics  2022, South Korea continues to lead the world in industrial robot density (robots installed per 10,000 employees).  It leads by quite a large margin over Singapore, Japan, Germany and China, the next top ranking countries.  As explained by the IFR "The Republic of Korea hit an all-time high of 1,000 industrial robots per 10,000 employees in 2021. This is more than three times the number reached in China and makes the country number one worldwide. With its globally recognized electronics industry and a distinct automotive sector, the Korean economy profits from two large customer industries for industrial robots."

Another graphic provided by the IFR shows the overwhelming importance of the ICT and Automotive sectors in Korea's industrial robot installations.  For those interested, the full World Robotics 2022 report provides similar data for other countries, allowing comparative analysis.

Human writer or AI? A detection model being developed at Stanford

 

The Human Centered Artificial Intelligence program at Stanford University reports that scholars there have built a detection program that "...can determine with up to 95% accuracy whether a large language model wrote that essay or social media post."  For more information on their efforts, use this link to the news release.

After a somewhat long hiatus in posting to my blog, I'm planning to follow developments relating to the public release of chatGPT and competing programs soon to be released by Microsoft, Facebook (Meta) and others.  This Spring semester I'm teaching both an undergraduate course on digital networks and innovation and a graduate seminar on networked communication technologies, so the development and spread of generative natural language programs is highly relevant in both classes.

More on the decline of Internet Cafes (aka PC Bangs)

 The Chosun Ilbo English edition caught my eye with the headline "Internet Cafes Vanish."  In fact, they have not vanished, but their use has declined dramatically during the Covid and post-Covid era.  For further background and detail on the Internet Cafe (AKA PC Bang) phenomenon in South Korea, search this blog ( a search on "PC Bang" yeilds this result).