Vanguard | July 13, 2009 | 13 comments

Vanguard on Japan's Robot Labor

afitzgerald

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As Japan's population slowly shrinks, the island nation has come to rely more and more on its mechanized labor force. Sounds like a movie, but it's totally true.

This weekend a report came out showing that Japan's economy has been shrinking as well, to the point that it was necessary to start laying off *robot* laborers.

Vanguard's Adam Yamaguchi produced an episode of Vanguard called "Robot Nation" exploring Japan, it's population decline and its reliance on a robotic labor force. This is a segment from that show in which Adam spends some time with two different robots: Asimo and TwendyOne.
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13 comments // Vanguard on Japan's Robot Labor // Video

  • Daimyo
    • 0
      Daimyo  

    • I can sit here and say: "How lazy can we get?". But then I look at the future and understand that the average human has to multi-task so much that this may be the answer to an overwhelming life-style. The hardest thing will be teaching the fundamentals of hard work to a growing child when a ton of work in the future will be handled by children. Robots though will be corrupted like everything else when hackers decide to rob banks with robots or the government begins manufacturing robot soldiers (that actually walk around without control). That will be the day the world falls.

    • 2 years ago
  • cheakywillie
    • 0
      cheakywillie  

    • isaac asimnov...i roboot..deals with the entire aspects of robot living among humans....i personally welcome robots as we look forward to the future and seeding the rest of the solar system...but i dont want it to get too philp k dick on us like in do androids dream of electric sheep....

      what is strange is that i have have robots my entire life not these super ones like in these pods. but as in toys like TOBOR and TX99, or even Teddy Ruxpin, and later with the Nintendo robot....i have a vacuum cleaner that runs by itself so how far off is the future really

    • 2 years ago
  • cheakywillie
    • 0
      cheakywillie  

    • isaac asimnov...i roboot..deals with the entire aspects of robot living among humans....i personally welcome robots as we look forward to the future and seeding the rest of the solar system...but i dont want it to get too philp k dick on us like in do androids dream of electric sheep....

      what is strange is that i have have robots my entire life not these super ones like in these pods. but as in toys like TOBOR and TX99, or even Teddy Ruxpin, and later with the Nintendo robot....i have a vacuum cleaner that runs by itself so how far off is the future really

    • 2 years ago
  • naty_forty
  • TentativeChaos
  • 96thdayofrage
  • sushikillakid
  • Valence
    • 0
      Valence  
    • sushikillakid:

      lol yea.

      I read somewhere that AI/Artificial Intelligence will become smarter than humans around 2010 or later(i might be wrong on the year),i do not want to be murdered by robots :/.

    • 2 years ago
  • gingin_san
  • Valence
  • afitzgerald
  • Samiammi
  • afitzgerald
    • 0
      afitzgerald  
    • Image

    • From the NY Times: "In Recession, Japanese Lay Off Robots"

      "KITAKYUSHU, Japan — They may be the most efficient workers in the world. But in the global downturn, they are having a tough time finding jobs.

      Japan’s legions of robots, the world’s largest fleet of mechanized workers, are being idled as the country suffers its deepest recession in more than a generation as consumers worldwide cut spending on cars and gadgets."

    • 2 years ago

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