Land of the Rising Robot
August 5, 2021
Japan, host of the Olympic Games, itself deserves a “Gold Medal” as perhaps the world’s most remarkable, disciplined, and innovative nation. Centuries ago China dubbed the mountainous archipelago as the “land of the rising sun” because the sun rises behind the island-nation in the east. Today, Japan remains ahead and has become the world’s most automated nation and one of its richest, second only to the United States and Canada.
Never colonized, Japan has reinvented itself several times — after 1853 when Americans forced it to open its ports and economy to trade then after 1945 when the Second World War ended. Now it is a monarchy with a parliamentary system and a world-class economy. As host to this year’s Olympics during a devastating pandemic, Japan has displayed its resilience and resolve in meeting and overcoming challenges. The Games have been flawless because the Japanese can rise above setbacks and adversity that would sink most nations.
Japan’s ongoing economic miracle has inspired its Asian neighbors to do the same but is all the more remarkable given that the country is running out of people. And demographics determine destiny. With a population of 127 million, its birthrate is one of the world’s lowest and falling, its workforce shrinks as its population ages, and the Japanese disdain immigration to gain workers. To overcome this, Japan has outsourced manufacturing to other countries but has figured out how to turn its labor shortage into a competitive triumph: Japan leads the world’s revolution in automation and robotics with a dizzying array of machines that are transforming home life, work, and services of all kinds.
The Olympic Games in Tokyo has showcased many of Japan’s inventions: robot-butlers and receptionists proliferate throughout its airports and Games’ facilities. The Japanese even staged a “Robo Cup” competition on the sidelines to demonstrate new technologies, such as Toyota’s basketball bot which scores three-pointers with inhuman accuracy.
Japan is the world’s biggest manufacturer and exporter of robots, and automation expertise, in the world. It has robots that make robots. And Japanese technology giants and start-ups have gone from automating industries to providing machines that provide home care, tourism, hospitality, elder care, medicine, security, hazardous tasks, and a range of other services. These innovations have been helped along because they receive widespread adoption and acceptance by the Japanese population. This is because of the national aim to utilize “automation, not immigration” to fill labor shortages.
Japan is demographically the oldest country in the world — one in four Japanese are now over 65 years of age and one in three will be by 2035. Europe is not far behind, but Japan is showing the way by developing technologies designed to meet this challenge. Gigantic SoftBank Group of Tokyo is at the forefront and runs the world’s biggest tech fund, investing heavily in robotics. It recently rolled out Pepper, the world’s first semi-humanoid robot that can recognize faces then detect and analyze emotions by reading facial expressions and voice tones.
This “social” robot, and others like it, serve as receptionists in health centers, offices, and restaurants, and are also deployed to look after older people in long-term care centers.
For instance, Pepper can be programmed to lead exercise classes for small groups of elderly in nursing homes. It can converse and stimulate those suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s, or various cognitive disorders by responding to their voices and interactions. Other such “social” robots are in use that can detect healthcare changes by recording conversations and actions by patients with dementia to monitor their progress. Their data is sent to healthcare professionals who evaluate then calculate the risk of symptoms worsening.
Nursing for the elderly, or the infirm, is a labor-intensive activity and Japanese roboticists have created “Robear”, a cute-looking bot that can lift and transfer frail patients from a wheelchair to a bed, gurney, or a bath. This protects nurses and caregivers who often suffer from back problems because of long hours spent on their feet as well as from the effects of moving patients and equipment around continuously.
Besides “Robear”, Japanese nursing homes and hospitals supply robotic exoskeletons or wearable machines powered by electric motors and sensors that provide support, based on the user’s motions, and can also increase strength and endurance. These are used by staff and by patients alike.
Technology has also been harnessed to meet the needs of the millions of elderly Japanese who remain in their own homes. Roughly 10,000 dementia or confused patients who live alone go missing every year. Those with declining cognitive capability are issued tiny adhesive tags to put on a fingernail, with embedded identification information, so that if they wander off, police can read the tags and notify relatives or health authorities as to their whereabouts.
For elderly persons living in rural, sparsely populated regions, Japan deploys airborne robots — or drones — to deliver prescriptions. Most wear monitors with sensors that transmit vital signs wirelessly and directly into their doctors’ personal computers so that complications can be addressed promptly.
Japan’s “social” robots act as translators, teach English, and can be programmed to perform housekeeping chores. There are bots that prepare meals, pick up objects, and put them away utilizing scanners. Toyota has also developed a robotized system to enable the elderly or disabled to live independently in a small space which consists of a hanging robot that performs simple tasks like food preparation, vacuuming, washing dishes, and folding clothes, directed by the user or from a remote location.
There are also cuddly and talkative “pet” robots for young and old alike, ones that teach English, translate, read books, and interact with their owners.
Japan is at the forefront of a transition most rich countries face. Their robots are sophisticated and incorporate technologies such as machine vision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to execute a growing number of tasks. Bots were created after the disastrous earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that are capable of working in hazardous conditions or in extreme environments, where humans cannot go, in order to collect information, photograph damage, and install or remove equipment. Such robots are tailor-made for natural disasters as well as space exploration.
Japanese robots are now in use in bank branches around the world and the country exports sophisticated self-driving robotics to vehicle manufacturers globally as well as manufacturing-grade robots. Already, Japan, and South Korea, have the world’s highest per capita proportion of industrial robots in use to compensate for their declining populations.
But Japan has food-services robots such as OctoChef that prepare specialized meals, a robotized dishwasher, a breakfast-cooking robot, and the world’s first robot capable of tidying up a residence or hotel room because it can recognize 300 household items through machine vision in order to select and put them away.
Another area is security. A robot called Ugo is used to safeguard and inspect office buildings, clean toilets and perform other custodial tasks. It can eliminate viruses inside elevators and door handles through ultraviolet light and is sensitive to temperature changes. Similar sterilizing robots are used to disinfect airplanes and hospitals and deliver packages.
Japan's future, of automated everything, will make robots as commonplace as smartphones and will spread to the rest of the aging, developed world.
What’s as remarkable as Japan’s achievements in this field, is that it was borne to address the nation-destroying problem of a shrinking workforce without having to allow mass migration, which is difficult and disruptive. The Japanese have retained their isolationist bent, but have been able to turn this around to their advantage. So today the “Land of the Rising Robots” maintains high living standards and leads the world in technologies that will benefit the rest of the world.
This is why Japan deserves a prime place on the podium.
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Boston Robotics does pretty well at automation. https://www.youtube.com/1b4ac3ef-f27d-451e-9440-76f10f82bf09
Where is the robot that can cut grass, trim the edges , weed and maybe wash my car ?