With AI, smart devices will learn how we want to use them. Interview with LG CTO, I.P. Park

**LG's Vision for AI and Robotics**

LG is aggressively moving to develop its robot business, with products such as robot vacuums that can autonomously navigate and learn their environment. These robots are not just limited to cleaning, but can also act like pets or companions, providing a fun and interactive experience for users. The company has already launched its service robots at Incheon Airport in Korea, which can speak four languages, display information on touch screens, scan tickets, and even provide information about local businesses such as Burger King.

The LG robot at the airport is just one example of how the company is exploring the potential of robotics to enhance user experience. With a focus on software development, AI, and security, LG's robots are designed to be safe, efficient, and interactive. The company's vision for robotics is not just limited to consumer products, but also extends to commercial applications such as healthcare, education, and manufacturing.

**Collaboration with Startups**

LG recognizes the importance of collaboration with startups and small companies to bring in innovative ideas and technologies. The company has established a joint R&D program with some of these startups, working together on projects that leverage their unique strengths. LG also invests in startups and acquires companies when it identifies critical technologies that can drive its success.

By fostering a culture of open innovation, LG aims to accelerate the development of new products and services that can compete with established players in the market. This approach has been successful in the past, with some of these collaborations leading to breakthrough innovations that have become an integral part of LG's product portfolio.

**Privacy Concerns**

One of the challenges facing modern technology companies is the issue of privacy. With devices becoming increasingly connected and software capabilities advancing rapidly, there is a growing risk of security breaches and unauthorized data collection. LG takes these concerns very seriously and has established policies to protect user data. The company does not collect user-specific data, but rather observes user behavior to enhance its products.

To mitigate privacy concerns, LG's default settings for all products are set to disable certain features that collect user data. Users must opt-in to enable these features, providing more control over their personal information. This approach demonstrates LG's commitment to balancing innovation with user safety and security.

**Security Features**

Security is another critical aspect of LG's product development strategy. The company has developed advanced security technologies, including secure over-the-air update capabilities, which allow for rapid deployment of patches and fixes to protect against emerging threats. By integrating these security features into its products, LG aims to provide a safe and reliable user experience.

In addition to security measures, LG also prioritizes the development of AI-powered features that can enhance user experience without compromising on safety and security. The company's vision for AI is centered around creating interactive and intuitive interfaces that are accessible to everyone, regardless of age or ability.

**Future Developments**

Looking ahead, LG plans to expand its presence in various regions, including India, where it will focus on software development, testing, and AI research. In other parts of the world, such as Russia and Korea, LG will prioritize security and computer vision technologies. The company's emphasis on innovation and collaboration with startups ensures that it remains at the forefront of technological advancements.

One exciting area of development is the use of gestures to interact with devices. This technology has already been demonstrated in some phone models and has the potential to become a standard feature in appliances, including cars, where safety is paramount. LG believes that multi-modal interfaces, which combine voice, gesture, and other inputs, will become increasingly important as we move towards more autonomous systems.

**Robotics and AI Landscape**

LG sees robotics as an essential component of its future growth strategy. The company is investing heavily in robot development, with a focus on creating products that can learn, adapt, and interact with users in meaningful ways. Robotics has the potential to revolutionize various industries, from healthcare to education, and LG aims to be at the forefront of this transformation.

By exploring the intersection of AI, robotics, and user experience, LG is poised to create innovative solutions that will shape the future of technology. With its commitment to open innovation, security, and collaboration with startups, the company is well-positioned to capitalize on emerging trends and technologies that will drive growth and success in the years ahead.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enappliances dishwashers washing machines laundry machines refrigerators one thing holds true spend more money and you get more you get more features but how do you use them all oftentimes our appliances are so confusing we don't get as much out of them as we could to find out how to get more from your appliances we talked to dr. IP Park the chief technology officer for LG who told us how artificial intelligence is transform your appliances ai technology has been around for many many decades we're just seeing the beginning of a sort of flourishing part of this because of the ability availability of computing availability of software technologies and availability of connectivity so what this means for LG is that we're going to unleash our products full potential using AI and other types of modern exponential technologies so that eventually what we try to do is we want try to provide the best lifestyle service system to our customers using AI and our product portfolio unleashing the potential of products is a really interesting way to think about it because as even simple appliances like dishwashers and washing machines get more and more complex I think a lot of consumers don't know how to dig into those features and find some of those so is that the sort of thing that AI can help so exactly currently when you use smartphone you need to be smart to use the phone not the other way around right you need to learn about you know different types of features etc when you're driving a modern luxury car you're probably most people are probably using like 5% of the entire feature set out of the car if you're lucky sure because it's too complex a lot of features that features are there but you have to be extremely smart and diligent to use them in the correct way what AI will hopefully will do is solve this problem of you using complex systems so that the devices become smart and you know really smart devices mean that it'll know exactly what you want so can you talk a little bit about what that looks like on a more specific level we're talking about ovens that can detect what's inside of them and dishwashers that automatically scale to clean the dishes the right way yes so one of our key strategy for our thin queue is that almost one of the important ones is that we want our products to evolve over time by learning about people learning about the environment learning about the world so that the more you use our products better our products will adapt to you not the other way around so that's our ultimate goal it's a products that evolve and get to know you based on how you use them yes so you know currently when you buy a consumer electronics product a value is highest when you before just before you buy it as soon as purchase it maybe the value goes down half right and then the more you use it value goes down very quickly I want our products to increase their value the more use our products you see that a lot with with automobiles these days where we have over the over the top delivery of software Tesla's especially very good at this a new feature gets rolled out and two years down the road your car's gotten smarter and faster is that the world that we might move to at some point where where new features are being rolled out and developed for a product that already exists yes but even more than that not only new features being downloaded over the year and then updated with new features but products and solutions we'll learn about the people so it's not not just the features that are added by the manufacturer but features that you want because your product will be customized based on your behavior and your needs so if that's down the road what are you doing today to get us there currently we have some interesting products that have interesting AI features for example if you look at our the latest OLED TV that has any feature you can talk to it on the remote it's got our own AI platform built in but also it connects to external service providers ai for example Google assistant so when you talk to it you say you can say make this a screen writer or find NBC for me you don't do that using our AI but if you say what's the best restaurant nearby it'll connect Google assistant it will provide answer through that which makes a lot of sense so you're leveraging the capabilities of some of your competitors rather than directly competing against them it's collaboration to serve the consumer exactly the world has become too complex for any single company to insist on using their own proprietary closed solution no matter how big the company is how capable they are in these things are changing too fast and what we want to do is we want to provide the best service that the customer user wants at anytime and the only way to do that is to make sure that provide the best solution from our own technology if it's available but if you don't have it we connect to external service provided by our partners so we have our global R&D not only in the know in North America but also in various other regions such as Russia India China Japan Finland of course Korea and we are building up our AAA capability in all of these regions just take for example North America we already have in Santa Clara what we call Silicon Valley that applicants specific AI technology it's best to be done at Silicon Valley because Silicon Valley is where these things happen we will open a another AI lab in Toronto Canada and they will focus on a fundamental AAA algorithm because Toronto is where all of these fundamental AI algorithm has been invented that's interesting so there's a very clear difference in mission between the different campuses yes exactly and you know other regions also any our russia lab for example they're very capable in technology such as security and computer vision so they'll focus on that our AI function in india they will focus on software development and also testing regarding AI so each will have its own specific mission you mentioned gestures before is a different way of inter acting with things I think we've seen that to some extent with phones but is that going to spread out to other appliances as well appliances also in the in the car as well for example in the car because of safety you need to keep your eyes on the road or hands on the wheel and the best way to interact with a car if the technology is really mature is a multi-modal interface with a car not just voice not just a gesture but the combination of those mix-ins you mentioned fun and I remember at CES there was a great display of robotics at the LG booth which to me is a lot of fun how does robotics play into the whole AI landscape that's a very very good question for us because we are aggressive aggressively moving to robot business we are making robots at home for example if you buy the latest our latest robot vacuum cleaner I Scott it comes with many different sensors cameras it navigates on autonomously and it learns the environment while it cleans so it becomes more and more efficient you can talk to it and you know it can do hopefully we'll add more fun features to this robot so that it's not just a cleaning robot also almost acts like acts as a pet or a companion and then we have commercial robots if you come to Korea next time you're running - most like you run into our service robots at the Incheon Airport after about a year of trial services including Airport we are officially launching this as well for your of your service in couple weeks mid-august our robots can speak four languages comes with big display you can interact with it you can you can talk to it talks back to you you can interact with it with touch screen you can scan your ticket you can ask it for Burger King menu or even you ask it where the Burger King is and it will escort you to that location and we talked a little bit about how you collaborate with some of the bigger brands that exist Google for example or Amazon but to what extent do you guys work in collaboration with some of the smaller startups we see a whole host of companies and people with great ideas these days do you foster that and nurture that how do you how do you interact with that community I think it is extremely important to work with our small startup companies because they bring in very unique innovations that we currently don't have I like to think of these startups from Silicon Valley or Israel or in Korea or other other regions in the world to be an extension of our R&D so sometimes we work with them together in a joint project sometimes we invest in them sometimes we acquire them if you think that certain technology is critical for our success it's a learning process for LG because we are is quite new in doing open innovation but I think one is one of our key components for success in the future I think one of the challenges that modern technology companies lickers face is the issue of privacy how much information do I share with a company like LG how much does LG share outside what do you guys know about me and especially as you're talking about ordinary appliances that learn to adapt and work with people they get to know not just Who I am but what I'm like when I'm home what am i doing at my house how do you mitigate privacy concerns with with a need to develop a product like yes with devices being connected we can prove and also with software capability we can provide a lot more features with our products and solutions than we could before and also AI is one of them downside of that is there's a big risk in security and privacy and we take those two very seriously for security we we are always trying to develop and developing the latest security technologies to be built into our products so that we are always secure with the latest technologies including over the year secure over-the-air update if something goes wrong we need to update the product ASAP privacy is also very very important our policies that we do not collect user specific data we collect we observe a user specific behavior so that we can enhance our products but also we try to go one step further by making sure that our default setting in all our products all of these data collection type of features are disabled so people need to opt in so for example if you use our LG OLED TV that comes with webOS everything is default off you need to opt in not the other way around I think there are too many features that are being provided to people and automatically they don't do anything when they purchase product so if you purchase a product that has everything automatically opted in and you need to opt-out specifically I think that's a mistakeappliances dishwashers washing machines laundry machines refrigerators one thing holds true spend more money and you get more you get more features but how do you use them all oftentimes our appliances are so confusing we don't get as much out of them as we could to find out how to get more from your appliances we talked to dr. IP Park the chief technology officer for LG who told us how artificial intelligence is transform your appliances ai technology has been around for many many decades we're just seeing the beginning of a sort of flourishing part of this because of the ability availability of computing availability of software technologies and availability of connectivity so what this means for LG is that we're going to unleash our products full potential using AI and other types of modern exponential technologies so that eventually what we try to do is we want try to provide the best lifestyle service system to our customers using AI and our product portfolio unleashing the potential of products is a really interesting way to think about it because as even simple appliances like dishwashers and washing machines get more and more complex I think a lot of consumers don't know how to dig into those features and find some of those so is that the sort of thing that AI can help so exactly currently when you use smartphone you need to be smart to use the phone not the other way around right you need to learn about you know different types of features etc when you're driving a modern luxury car you're probably most people are probably using like 5% of the entire feature set out of the car if you're lucky sure because it's too complex a lot of features that features are there but you have to be extremely smart and diligent to use them in the correct way what AI will hopefully will do is solve this problem of you using complex systems so that the devices become smart and you know really smart devices mean that it'll know exactly what you want so can you talk a little bit about what that looks like on a more specific level we're talking about ovens that can detect what's inside of them and dishwashers that automatically scale to clean the dishes the right way yes so one of our key strategy for our thin queue is that almost one of the important ones is that we want our products to evolve over time by learning about people learning about the environment learning about the world so that the more you use our products better our products will adapt to you not the other way around so that's our ultimate goal it's a products that evolve and get to know you based on how you use them yes so you know currently when you buy a consumer electronics product a value is highest when you before just before you buy it as soon as purchase it maybe the value goes down half right and then the more you use it value goes down very quickly I want our products to increase their value the more use our products you see that a lot with with automobiles these days where we have over the over the top delivery of software Tesla's especially very good at this a new feature gets rolled out and two years down the road your car's gotten smarter and faster is that the world that we might move to at some point where where new features are being rolled out and developed for a product that already exists yes but even more than that not only new features being downloaded over the year and then updated with new features but products and solutions we'll learn about the people so it's not not just the features that are added by the manufacturer but features that you want because your product will be customized based on your behavior and your needs so if that's down the road what are you doing today to get us there currently we have some interesting products that have interesting AI features for example if you look at our the latest OLED TV that has any feature you can talk to it on the remote it's got our own AI platform built in but also it connects to external service providers ai for example Google assistant so when you talk to it you say you can say make this a screen writer or find NBC for me you don't do that using our AI but if you say what's the best restaurant nearby it'll connect Google assistant it will provide answer through that which makes a lot of sense so you're leveraging the capabilities of some of your competitors rather than directly competing against them it's collaboration to serve the consumer exactly the world has become too complex for any single company to insist on using their own proprietary closed solution no matter how big the company is how capable they are in these things are changing too fast and what we want to do is we want to provide the best service that the customer user wants at anytime and the only way to do that is to make sure that provide the best solution from our own technology if it's available but if you don't have it we connect to external service provided by our partners so we have our global R&D not only in the know in North America but also in various other regions such as Russia India China Japan Finland of course Korea and we are building up our AAA capability in all of these regions just take for example North America we already have in Santa Clara what we call Silicon Valley that applicants specific AI technology it's best to be done at Silicon Valley because Silicon Valley is where these things happen we will open a another AI lab in Toronto Canada and they will focus on a fundamental AAA algorithm because Toronto is where all of these fundamental AI algorithm has been invented that's interesting so there's a very clear difference in mission between the different campuses yes exactly and you know other regions also any our russia lab for example they're very capable in technology such as security and computer vision so they'll focus on that our AI function in india they will focus on software development and also testing regarding AI so each will have its own specific mission you mentioned gestures before is a different way of inter acting with things I think we've seen that to some extent with phones but is that going to spread out to other appliances as well appliances also in the in the car as well for example in the car because of safety you need to keep your eyes on the road or hands on the wheel and the best way to interact with a car if the technology is really mature is a multi-modal interface with a car not just voice not just a gesture but the combination of those mix-ins you mentioned fun and I remember at CES there was a great display of robotics at the LG booth which to me is a lot of fun how does robotics play into the whole AI landscape that's a very very good question for us because we are aggressive aggressively moving to robot business we are making robots at home for example if you buy the latest our latest robot vacuum cleaner I Scott it comes with many different sensors cameras it navigates on autonomously and it learns the environment while it cleans so it becomes more and more efficient you can talk to it and you know it can do hopefully we'll add more fun features to this robot so that it's not just a cleaning robot also almost acts like acts as a pet or a companion and then we have commercial robots if you come to Korea next time you're running - most like you run into our service robots at the Incheon Airport after about a year of trial services including Airport we are officially launching this as well for your of your service in couple weeks mid-august our robots can speak four languages comes with big display you can interact with it you can you can talk to it talks back to you you can interact with it with touch screen you can scan your ticket you can ask it for Burger King menu or even you ask it where the Burger King is and it will escort you to that location and we talked a little bit about how you collaborate with some of the bigger brands that exist Google for example or Amazon but to what extent do you guys work in collaboration with some of the smaller startups we see a whole host of companies and people with great ideas these days do you foster that and nurture that how do you how do you interact with that community I think it is extremely important to work with our small startup companies because they bring in very unique innovations that we currently don't have I like to think of these startups from Silicon Valley or Israel or in Korea or other other regions in the world to be an extension of our R&D so sometimes we work with them together in a joint project sometimes we invest in them sometimes we acquire them if you think that certain technology is critical for our success it's a learning process for LG because we are is quite new in doing open innovation but I think one is one of our key components for success in the future I think one of the challenges that modern technology companies lickers face is the issue of privacy how much information do I share with a company like LG how much does LG share outside what do you guys know about me and especially as you're talking about ordinary appliances that learn to adapt and work with people they get to know not just Who I am but what I'm like when I'm home what am i doing at my house how do you mitigate privacy concerns with with a need to develop a product like yes with devices being connected we can prove and also with software capability we can provide a lot more features with our products and solutions than we could before and also AI is one of them downside of that is there's a big risk in security and privacy and we take those two very seriously for security we we are always trying to develop and developing the latest security technologies to be built into our products so that we are always secure with the latest technologies including over the year secure over-the-air update if something goes wrong we need to update the product ASAP privacy is also very very important our policies that we do not collect user specific data we collect we observe a user specific behavior so that we can enhance our products but also we try to go one step further by making sure that our default setting in all our products all of these data collection type of features are disabled so people need to opt in so for example if you use our LG OLED TV that comes with webOS everything is default off you need to opt in not the other way around I think there are too many features that are being provided to people and automatically they don't do anything when they purchase product so if you purchase a product that has everything automatically opted in and you need to opt-out specifically I think that's a mistake\n"