Japan Just Delivered Fully performing Female Robots
Japan is changing: a rapidly ageing society, a record-breaking influx of visitors from
overseas, and more robots than ever.
That's where the country's young people come in.
Gen J and how the nation's next generation is shaping the Japan of tomorrow!
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In this video, we will be looking at Japan delivering fully performing female robots.
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Japan Taking The Lead At a sleek office building in Shinagawa, Tokyo,
workers stroll in and out for lunch.
As they walk through the glass doors, they pass two security guards, each dutifully flanking
the passage in stern silence.
It all seems pretty unremarkable, until you realise one of those security guards is a
robot.
Standing up to five feet tall with wheels and a blue police cap, “his” name is Ugo.
His battery lasts up to half a work day, and every two hours he’ll do a routine patrol
around the building – even summoning lifts by pushing the call button himself.
His digital “face” – which usually displays two big blue cartoony eyes – is replaced
with the Japanese text for “on duty”.
“It’s important for the robot to feel cute, so you’re not intimidated,” says
Ken Matsui, CEO of Mira Robotics, the start-up behind Ugo.
Right now, the police bot – whose built-in camera allows guards downstairs to see things
from the robot’s point of view – is one of only two prototypes in the country.
But Matsui says companies in China and South Korea are interested in his company's work,
which also includes cleaning female robots for use in houses and schools.
A Job-Stealing Robot Revolution?!
In recent years, headlines, pundits and politicians have often warned that we’re in the midst
of a job-stealing robot revolution; but roboticists argue that their creations will complement,
rather than replace, us.
In Japan, the robots are already here – what’s more, many are actively embracing the robot
age, from suburban nursing homes to the highest levels of government, which announced an investment
of 100bn yen ($100m) in robot development a few years ago.
Some entities are even highlighting robotic colleagues as a selling point to young, new
recruits.
As the Tokyo 2020 Olympics approached – it was an arena for companies like Toyota to
show off new humanoid robots that will interact with guests and help athletes on the field
– the world’s attention is turned to Japan.
And for good reason: amid fast global ageing and increased automation, it could be that
Japan’s robot-friendly present is everyone else’s future.
New Technology, Ageing Population In Tokyo’s Silver Wing nursing home, about
two dozen seniors are sitting in the common area as pudding cups are distributed.
In the middle of the room is a staff member and a female humanoid robot named Pepper,
who is leading the room in group games and exercises.
Pepper's hosting a game of "guess the kanji", as a big screen shows super-magnified parts
of Chinese characters that the crowd have to identify aloud.
Many of the residents are dementia patients.
“We ask residents with dementia where they are and who they are in natural conversation
with communication robots and human staff,” says Kimiya Ishikawa, director of Silver Wing.
“It’s hard [for humans compared to robots] to remember each resident’s personal information,
so robots are utilized [to help] in that area.”
But it’s not only in the common room that robotics is being employed.
Upstairs, staff have access to robotic exoskeletons that fit around the waist and lower back:
these apparatuses ease the severe body strain as they help their elderly clients get in
and out of bed.
“Japan is facing major demographic challenges due to the elderly wave, low fertility rates
and a shrinking population.
This leads to a number of issues facing Japanese society which the West can learn from,”
says Roger A Søraa, robotics researcher at Centre for Technology and Society in Norway.
“Elderly care facilities and hospitals see a severe lack of healthcare workers; there
are not enough humans to do the tasks the way they used to be done.”
Increasing Acceptance At the Hyogo nursing home, one of the most
popular additions is Telenoid: a baby-like robot with no legs and tiny arms.
A staff member in a different room talks through the robot, and the voice comes out of its
mouth.
Some publications have criticised Telenoid as being creepy, but Fujimoto and her staff
say it’s beloved by the residents.
One resident, a woman with dementia, holds a Telenoid as 27-year-old staff member Minami
Okabe, down the hall, sings a Japanese folk song into a headset.
The smiling resident holds Telenoid like a baby and says, “Let’s sing a song again”.
The staff say that this particular patient is usually very quiet, but not with the robot.
“It’s fun, seeing them react like that,” says Okabe, who’s worked at the nursing
home for five years.
“They react differently to the robots than they do to us.”
The Rise of Companion Robots Humans are social creatures, but what happens
when their social networks break down?
Depression, cognitive decline, cortisol imbalances, and so on.
None of it beneficial.
Companion robots may be able to provide emotional support increasingly missing from people's
lives.
While such a scenario sounds like a sci-fi pipe dream, 21st century Japan is developing
the technology to make it a reality.
For a good reason, too.
There is a growing demand.
Robots are generally considered to exist to replace people to complete some work.
They may be “workers” on the production line or “waiters” who serve tea and water
for us in life.
However, with the improvement of human requirements for robot service, robots have more and more
capabilities.
People are social animals and need to communicate with others, but some people don’t like
socializing.
In order to meet these needs, companion robots were born.
We have been hearing about them for years now though, but the talks only consisted of
robots with companion and communication functions.
Although they are very close to humans, that still presents many natural restrictions.
But now, Japan has launched a female robot, breaking the conventional design, and even
installing a uterus for the robot, so that the robot can simulate the childbirth process.
With the support of large and small parts and various sensors in the human body, this
female machine can simulate the whole process of human childbirth.
This female robot in Japan is mainly developed for male users.
Its skin is very similar to that of real people.
It adopts the most advanced silica gel technology, and is also equipped with a constant temperature
system with the same body temperature as normal people.
The robot with the “function” of being a wife is a standard beauty with fair skin
and a concave convex figure.
From a practical point of view, it also has the function of doing simple housework and
communication.
However, the most interesting thing here is the function of “having children”.
After all, infertility is also a medical problem for people.
But question rises, isn’t this more difficult for robots to do?
In fact, although this “human wife” robot already has a “uterus” that can give birth
to children, the robot can not really get pregnant.
At present, it can only imitate the human reproductive process.
Maybe one day, when Bioscience Technology and artificial intelligence technology develop
to a certain stage, we can really finally see a robot baby!
Normal, Much Like Smartphones Looking forward, Silver Wing’s Ishikawa
says that major research is going into making social robots that can detect – and predict
– healthcare changes in people.
For example, the robots that record conversations to help human caregivers track a dementia
patient’s progress could soon also monitor vital signs and, using AI, compare that data
to a symptoms database, extract correlations and calculate the risk of a condition worsening.
Hiroshi Ishiguro, the Osaka University roboticist, says “we’ll see other cute, communicative
robots in places like hotel rooms or restaurants (where touch-screen menus are already commonplace
in Japan) to assist guests in other languages.
Meanwhile, government initiatives continue: last year, robots began to be rolled out in
500 classrooms across Japan to help teach English after a 250m yen ($2.3m) investment
from the Education Ministry.
That could, in turn, help Japan’s younger generation grow up at ease with robots in
a variety of environments.
Ishiguro believes that they will integrate into our lives the same way smartphones did
a decade ago.
“Not just Japan will have more robots, but the whole world,” he predicts.
Whitton agrees, though he says the timescale is not yet clear.
“I see all major economies adopting industrial policies related to robotics and other technologies
in line with what China and Japan have been doing for decades,” he says.
With that, we end today’s video.
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