How should we view the ‘robot abuse controversy’ of the Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung? Some media reported that candidate Lee Jae-myung pushed a robot at the ‘2021 Robo World’ event on the 28th of last month, and reported it with ‘unexpected sudden behavior’ and ‘robot abuse’.
However, considering the remarks of the Lee Jae-myung camp and field officials, such an opinion is excessive. The media at the scene did not even publish an article pointing out this on the day, so it is necessary to look at the context in which the controversy arose later.
Robot maker proposes ‘pushing’
An official from Rainbow Robotics, a robot company who was in charge of the demonstration next to Candidate Jae-myung Lee at the site, said in a telephone interview with MediaToday, “To be precise, the demonstration itself was a scenario in which the robot did not fall, even if it fell, it could rise again.” Some media reported that candidate Lee Jae-myung acted unexpectedly without consulting with the company, but this is not true.
An official from this company said, “I said, ‘It’s okay to push’, and I pushed. Afterwards, it was restored without falling (the robot) even when pushed. So I guess I said, ‘You can miss it a bit more’. After that, I pushed harder and fell down.” The official said, “Then people around me said, ‘Oh,’ so I said, ‘It’s okay. It can happen,’ and it was a demonstration of restoration.”
Candidate Jae-myung Lee also met with reporters on the 1st and said, “I did a robot test as requested, and only the front part was cut off and the robot was ‘assaulted’ and ‘abused’. said
How to view the robot abuse controversy
Some people think that ‘abuse’ does not constitute a robot that cannot feel emotions, but it is not a simple matter to look at. There has been a controversy over ‘robot abuse’ in foreign countries, and it has been introduced several times through the media in Korea. CNN reported on a case in which a video of an American robot company kicking a robot was controversial online, saying, “Many people felt uncomfortable watching the video. reported that
However, the discussion of ‘robot abuse’ is paying attention to the fact that, rather than the robot itself, abuse of robots from an early age affects human social behavior, such as negatively socially affected. Kate Darling of the MIT Media Lab said in an interview with Wired that “the risk of robot abuse lies not in the harm it causes, but in the risk of its impact on human behavior.”
Can candidate Lee Jae-myung’s actions be viewed as ‘robot abuse’? It seems difficult to interpret at the same level as it is not an explicit violent act such as kicking a robot or punching a robot like the video that CNN dealt with in the controversy.
In this regard, a Rainbow Robotics official said, “If you push and knock down a passing robot for no reason, it can be abuse. However, the situation itself was a demonstration that showed that the robot can get up even if it trips over a stone beak, so I don’t think pushing it can be considered abuse.”
The day the robot was turned over, the media did not point it out
Twitter criticism → Press citations → Spread the social media community
It is also necessary to review the relevant media reports. At this point, it is a ‘hot controversy’, but the media reports on that day were ‘grave’. On the 28th of last month, major media outlets wrote articles such as “Lee Jae-myung attended the robot exhibition” (Yonhap News), “Lee Jae-myung ‘The quadruped robot is amazing’” (News 1) “Lee Jae-myung looking at the quadrupedal robot” (Newsis). Some media even took pictures of candidate Lee Jae-myung holding the robot with both arms and trying to turn it over, but no place treated it as a ‘controversy’.
If the ‘controversy’ had arisen due to excessive sudden action at the scene, it is highly likely that the media on the day covered it. If you look at the video that was broadcast live at the time on the Sound of Seoul YouTube channel, after visiting the exhibition hall, Candidate Jae-myung Lee and reporters asked and answered questions, but no related comments or questions came up.
In fact, on the 29th, the day after the event, when Lee Jae-myung’s actions were reported as controversial through the media, full-scale reporting began on the 30th.
If you search for ‘robot abuse’ with Fact Checknet’s online monitor service that analyzes the flow of online social media issues, the word ‘robot abuse’ spread as a related article was posted on Twitter on the day Lee Jae-myung visited the event and was retweeted in large numbers. For example, the article “I know that So-Pae is abusing animals, but he also abuses robots” was retweeted 476 times as of 2pm on November 1. The next day, a tweet that raised a similar issue was retweeted more than 900 times based on the same criteria.
Those who retweeted the post included in their profiles those who supported former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, who was a candidate for Lee Jae-myung’s primary, such as ‘Unfair Primary’, ‘Geunjo Song Young-gil Democratic Party’, and ‘Moon Jae-in and then President Lee Nak-yeon’.
Since then, the first article focusing only on flipping robots based on the portal Naver was published on the 29th by the Chosun Ilbo, “Lee Jae-myung, Rolling the Robot, ‘Woodang Tang Tang’ Online Noisy… It is also a summons to the past.” The article reported, “Amid the reactions of ‘topic’ and ‘extreme treatment’, there are even videos circulating that compare President Moon Jae-in’s careful handling of robots in similar situations.”
The second daily newspaper to report on the matter said, “Lee Jae-myung, robot abuse controversy?… President Moon, who was ‘treating a baby’ again,” used the term ‘robot abuse’ for the first time in the article, and reported it as if he had acted accidentally without the consent of the company. On the same day, the Korea Economic Daily, JoongAng Ilbo, Money Today, Wikitree, and Insight published articles about this action and online disputes, raising controversy.
Then, from the 30th to the 31st, many articles citing media reports appeared in the online community, and the controversy grew. On October 31, when Candidate Jae-myung Lee issued a rebuttal position and former professor Jin Joong-kwon criticized Candidate Jae-myung Lee, the media poured out articles again conveying the position, and on October 31, the number of related keywords peaked.
If you look at the aspect of the media that spread this controversy, there were many cases of media citing the Internet community as it is without confirmation, or of major media companies, ‘online team’ writing portal-responsive online articles such as SNS dictation rather than coverage of entrances and exits.
The JoongAng Ilbo reporter who wrote the related article belonged to the EYE24 team, an online issue response team, the Chosun Ilbo reporter belonged to the Chosun NS, which mainly writes articles that increase news traffic for the Chosun Ilbo, and the Korea Economic Reporter belonged to the Hankyung.com, which writes articles exclusively for online. These reporters wrote 99, 85, and 134 articles, respectively, in the past month.
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