One resident, a woman with dementia, holds a Telenoid as year-old staff member Minami Okabe, down the hall, sings a Japanese folk song into a headset. The staff say that this particular patient is usually very quiet, but not with the robot. Working in nursing homes, she says, has not traditionally been seen as an attractive job. Her hope is that talented young people will see how she is using new technology — from big, recognisable tech companies — and be enticed into this line of work.
That was the case for Okabe, who read about how the home was using Telenoid in a leaflet. Hiroshi Ishiguro, famous for creating a robot doppelganger of himself, is one of many that say the robotic solutions in Japan will soon apply everywhere Credit: Bryan Lufkin.
He also points out that China and the US, for example, are quickly catching up to Japan in areas like homecare robotics. In fact, in one report released by the International Federation of Robotics last year, South Korea, not Japan, had the most industrial robots — manufacturing robots that assemble electronics and vehicles, for example — already in the workforce , with Germany not far behind. Plus, South Korea, like Japan, is also rapidly ageing , meaning local robotics companies are gearing products towards the demographic changes.
In the West, pop culture and media often frame robots as job-stealing Terminators itching to start a revolution. Another factor is ingrained resistance to immigration, despite the recent moves to allow more foreign workers in. Pepper, a robot created by tech giant Softbank first released in , leads a game in a nursing home. Such robots still aren't commonplace, however Credit: Bryan Lufkin. One area that needs workers is housekeeping services. With more pensioners and fewer workers, demand for in-house caregivers and cleaners is on the rise.
Many of these robots — Ugo, Telenoid and others — can be used or monitored by humans from a remote location. In a world where most people are afraid of automation taking their jobs away, Japan is a country that needs them for industry to survive. Robot Love in Japan. But their shape is for practicality rather than human relationships — they fit into workstations designed for humans.
But humanity is also going to need to come to terms with human-robot relationships. Artificial intelligence AI is already advanced enough to be able to stimulate our brains with casual conversation. Sex shops are already a booming business.
The manager of one store I visited, Risa Yasojima, tells me non-robotic blow-up dolls are the subjects of real affection for many of her customers. One can only hope that Harmony 2.
But the people I met in Japan are living evidence that robots will change the way we imagine human relationships. For a population that is literally dying out, a little company — even if it is artificial — is better than none. Some forms of Islam are especially averse to idolatry and prohibit creating even any images of humans or animals. According to the traditional Western view, a machine that acts like a person is violating natural boundaries, dangerously conflating the sacred and profane.
This ethical warning shows up prominently in modern myths about technology, such as Frankenstein, which derives much of its moral message from the Bible, says Christopher Simons, a professor of comparative culture at the International Christian University in Tokyo.
In the years after World War Two, Japan turned to new technologies to rebuild not only its economy but its national self-image. So artisans focused on more innocuous creations, such as mechanical dolls that performed in puppet theaters or served real tea in real teacups.
When Japan finally opened up to foreign contact over two centuries later, those skilled toy developers led the way in adapting Western technology for more practical uses. These factors helped instill a generally positive view of robots in post-war Japan.
Industrial automation had provided a major economic boon, and humanoid robots were an innocuous curiosity. The West, meanwhile, tended to take a less sanguine view.
The US, preoccupied with the Cold War, poured funding into robotics for military uses, which cast a threatening aura over the field. These divergent views of technology were revealed in the pop culture of the latter half of the 20th Century. One of the most influential Japanese characters of this time was Astro Boy, who was introduced in manga comics in and went on to appear in books, TV shows, movies, and a wide range of merchandise like action figures and trading cards. The message left a powerful mark on a generation of Japanese, particularly those who would go on to make their own androids.
Since high school, they dreamed of Astro Boy and became roboticists because of him.
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