Fears of deadly robots in South Korea as police say a worker was crushed by a vegetable packing machine after its sensors detected the box he was carrying

A vegetable packing machine crushed a worker in South Korea because its sensors detected the box he was carrying, police said. A case that fueled already growing fears about the dangers of killer robots.

The victim, a robotics company employee in his 40s, was walking toward the robot with a box in hand during his shift on Tuesday when he was thrown onto the conveyor belt by the machine’s robotic arms.

The man died of head and chest injuries after being grabbed and crushed by the robot’s arms at a vegetable distribution center in southern Goseong province, police said.

Police said initial evidence suggested human error was more likely the cause of the man’s death, as the robot’s sensors, designed to identify boxes, detected the box the victim was carrying before crushing him to death has.

But the worker’s death has raised fears about the dangers of industrial robots and the false sense of security they can give to people working nearby, in a country increasingly relying on such machines to automate its industries.

The victim, who succumbed to his injuries in hospital, has not yet been identified, but police said he was an employee of a company that installs industrial robots and that he had been sent to the factory to investigate whether the machine works correctly.

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His death follows a series of accidents involving robots in factories in South Korea in recent years.

In March, a production robot crushed and injured a worker in his 50s who was investigating it at an auto parts factory in Gunsan. Last year, a robot installed near a conveyor belt fatally crushed a worker at a dairy in Pyeongtaek.

The killer robot that crushed the worker on Tuesday was one of two pick-and-place machines used at the factory that packages peppers and other vegetables for export to other Asian countries, police said.

Such machines are common in South Korea’s agricultural communities, which are facing a decline and an aging workforce.

“It was not an advanced robot with artificial intelligence, but a machine that simply picked up boxes and placed them on pallets,” said Kang Jin-gi, head of the investigation department at the Gosong police station.

He said police are working with relevant authorities to determine if the machine has any technical defects or safety issues.

The robot’s sensors are designed to identify boxes, and surveillance video suggested the man approached the robot with a box in his hand, likely triggering the machine’s response, the official said.

“It’s clearly not the case that a robot mistook a human for a box – it wasn’t a very sophisticated machine,” he said.

Meanwhile, an official from the Donggoseong Export Agricultural Complex, which owns the factory, called in a statement for the introduction of an “accurate and safe” system after the incident.

According to reports, the victim appeared for the tests, which were originally scheduled for November 6.

They were delayed for two days due to reported problems with the robot’s sensor.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, South Korea had 1,000 industrial robots per 10,000 workers in 2021, the highest density in the world and more than three times as many as China that year.

Many of South Korea’s industrial robots are used in large factories such as electronics and car manufacturing.