Science fiction frequently explores robots learning to live in human society. The reverse – humans learning to live as robots – is less common, but I had a chance to experience it recently, when a friend in San Francisco invited me to attend his birthday party in absentia as a ‘telepresence robot’. My efforts to control the robot online from Tokyo were predictably chaotic, including shouting loudly during toasts, colliding with people while trying to dance with them, and running down my batteries while trying to roll over a rug.
Japan is a world leader in the development of jinkou chihou (artificial intelligence or AI) and robotics. On a stroll through Tokyo, you can meet humanoid robots like Pepper, touting the latest smartphone deals outside SoftBank shops. But robots promoting corporations and their products are the glossy face of much deeper changes. The Japanese economy, mostly stagnant since the early 1990s, is currently enjoying rapid growth in industrial robot exports. As China automates its manufacturing sector, Japanese robotics companies are benefiting. Robot exports to China grew from over $3 billion in 2012 to nearly $4.5 billion in 2016, and are predicted to reach $6.8 billion by the end of 2017. Advances in the development of AI and humanoid robots, such as those on display at Tokyo’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, promise to extend this technological revolution beyond factory automation, and into our daily lives.
