In the West, robots are not to be trusted. After all, they might someday become super-intelligent and kill everyone. The Czech writer Karel Capek laid it all out for us in his play “Rossum’s Universal Robots” (1921), the first publication to use the word “robot.” In the play, robots are used for slave labor, but eventually stage a rebellion and destroy humanity. That basic theme has remained in Western sci-fi literature and movies ever since.
Not so in Japan, however. The Japanese are absolutely head-over-heels in love with robots. They are viewed as saviors, not destroyers. The cultural icon, “Astro Boy,” sums up the Japanese attitude well. Astro Boy was a wildly successful comic started after WWII that eventually became an animated series that endured for decades. It tells the adventures of a cute and beneficent android with incredible powers. He is brave, gentle, and wise, protecting humans from danger including alien invaders, robots gone berserk, and even robot-hating humans.
The development of robot technologies in Japan, funded in large part by the government, is focused on human-robot interaction, or social robotics. Big projects include robot receptionists, household servants, nurses and companions. While Americans are content to just switch on their robot vacuum cleaners and leave them be, the Japanese long for ongoing interaction. Paro, for example, is a cuddly model resembling a seal. Its purpose is therapeutic, providing comfort to the elderly and infirm. Only in Japan could such a conspicuously unemotional machine provide real long-term emotional comfort and companionship.
Japan’s robophilia can be partially explained by its demographics. Japan’s population has one of the highest average lifespans, but the country also has one of the lowest fertility rates. Soon, there will simply not be enough young workers to maintain the elderly population. Combine that with a healthy dose of xenophobia, and the most attractive option is to employ robots as the caretakers. The Japanese may be culturally primed for such a solution, because the native Shinto religion often blurs boundaries between the animate and inanimate.
Japan’s obsession with robots has made it the world leader in the field with twice as many industrial robots per worker as any other country. It has also created some of the most impressive demonstrations of advanced artificial intelligence, from Sony’s cute Aibo dog to the anthropomorphic servant, Asimo, built by Honda. There is still a long way to go with those technologies, but in the meantime, the Japanese are content to be surrounded by as many robots as possible. As their population ages, they look forward to having their mechanical friends and caretakers look after them to the very end.
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