Japanese Find Robots Less Intimidating Than People 278
bik1979 writes "The Christmas issue of economist has an interesting article on 'why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans'. The article says how people in japan are accepting robots into their daily life, more so than accepting other people. From the article: 'What seems to set Japan apart from other countries is that few Japanese are all that worried about the effects that hordes of robots might have on its citizens. Nobody seems prepared to ask awkward questions about how it might turn out. If this bold social experiment produces lots of isolated people, there will of course be an outlet for their loneliness: they can confide in their robot pets and partners. Only in Japan could this be thought less risky than having a compassionate Filipina drop by for a chat.'"
Remember the Scene... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well EVERY SINGLE DAY we have the equivalent of this happening, only with credit card transactions, paypal, stock exchanges, etc.
If this analogy is off topic: What I mean to say is that the robots that we're capable of producing now are simply code in motion. Sure, very complex code, but still, they're programmed. They're not to a level of intelligence and mass production where we worry about having to welcome our new robot overlords, and I doubt they'll even need anything as complex as Asimov's 'Three Laws' for a VERY long time.
We depend on code in our computers every day to carry out tasks, just as I'm depending on it now to get this comment up on slashdot - the robot equivalent would be a very quick messenger robot. Again, code in motion. The Japanese are wise to accept robots as just this, instead of cross-applying way too many bad science-fiction movies that couldn't be realizable today even if a malevolent force WAS trying to get robots to take over the world.
~Ruff_ilb
(P.S. It's all a lie! THEY made me type it!)
Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
WE NEED ARTICLE MODERATION! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Japanese like robots more than people. Right. Please this is insulting to the Japanese and to slashdotters.
WE NEED ARTICLE MODERATION so that we can stop this spate of crap articles.
I'm posting anonymous because every time I point out the obvious, that slashdot has become super lame, I'm modded "troll".
But damn it, I can remember when slashdot wasn't a pit of stupidity. WE NEED ARTICLE MODERATION!
Re:MP3 players, portable DVD players, now robots. (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course, these words are heard over what?
The TV.
The Radio.
Online News Sites.
All three are 'electronic gadgets' (TV's, Radios, Computers), perhaps the biggest and most widespread of them all. And their main purpose is to do what?
Allow people to communicate.
If it becomes: Radio, TV, Internet, Robots, Chronologically speaking, then robots are sure to be accepted into our lives. Robots are quite different from the above three, but I'm just showing that the people who assume new gadgets are "going to isolate us from every other human being on the planet" are short-sighted at best. Also, who knows what robot tech will expand to eventually. Who knows, they might become a prime force in communications, or anything else for that matter.
~Ruff_ilb
P.S. - Parent poster, I know you don't take the above stance "going to isolate us from every other human being on the planet", so I'm not trying to troll! =)
Population Density (Score:3, Insightful)
That said though, for anyone familiar with Japan or having lived there before, those that live in the city have a very, very different way of life than in places like the United States. The pace of life is faster, the population density is higher and there is a generally an absurd amount of strangers that you pass by on a daily basis. The fast, brisk level of interaction required to perform your daily tasks with others is just an automated response after awhile. It's no surprise to me that Japan is the leader in automation, simply due to this constant barrage of hit-and-run interaction.
I would venture that the Japanese have simply become accustom to automated systems and technology, having evolved around the idea of using non-human tools to help them throughout the day. If you asked another person in a fast paced city such as New York or LA versus a slower city like Austin or Memphis on their opinion toward robots, I would imagine you get a correlation between pace of life and comfort level with robots (or automation).
My 0.02 hypothesis at least.
You had me... (Score:5, Insightful)
...and I was with you 100%, right up to the "compassionate Filipina" bit. Where the hell did that come from?
Re:All Hooked Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Japan doesn't allow ready immigration mostly because of long-standing racist policies. Doubt me? There are generations of Koreans (and other Southeast Asians) who were born in Japan, have lived in Japan for their entire lives, and speak, read, and write Japanese fluently, but are denied citizenship because they aren't 'Japanese'. This is changing, which is good, but the speed of this change is glacial.
Most Japanese laugh at their religions (Shinto and Buddhism) and don't take them seriously at all; you go to the shrines on holidays, and for special occasions, but that's about it. Japanese people don't walk around in mystic-eyed wonder at the 'spirits' of the things around them. Why? Because that would be weird as hell; this might surprise you, but Japanese people act in many ways much like Americans, only with a hell of a lot more groupthink.
Re:Japanese lack social skills (Score:3, Insightful)
I find that rather hard to believe. It's more likely that their social norms and rules work differently than ours. It might appear inept to us but it's quite normal for them. In fact, a lot of what you just described also applies to the Chinese, which is my heritage.
There are cultures other than us who tend to be non-confrontational and indirect. There are advantages and disadvantages to that. Being indirect means problems are harder and takes longer to solve, especially when it's an issue of miscommunication. On ther other hand, both parties always have the options of backing down without losing too much face and suffering embarassment. Just observe a politician at work during an interview to see how this works. Also, escalation tend to be slower when you're indirect. Going back to your example, not speaking to someone is less likely to lead to physical violence than calling him names. I don't know the specifics of your experience but what might appear to insignificant to you might mean a lot to other people. For example, not taking off your shoes in a Chinese household goes beyond cleanliness and soiling their carpet. It implies that you think their house is not clean enough for you to walk on--the same reason you won't walk barefeet out on the streets.
If you look at things from the Chinese or Japanese perspective, the typical American appears rude, bullying, and uncompromising (at least that's what my parents accuse me of when I argue with them).
Re:You had me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:MP3 players, portable DVD players, now robots. (Score:3, Insightful)
And alternatively, Japanese people are scared of minorities and foreigners, to the extent that police will arrest and check for the papers of people just for looking foreign, or speaking in a foreign language. Literally any crime is blamed on foreigners. The real story is, why is Japan more willing to spend billions of dollars for absurd pie-in-the-sky visions of robots becoming your friend, and unwilling to grant citizenship to other ethnicities, to increase the labor force and make up for a shrinking population?
Anyway everybody loves R2D2 & wanted the cool "Rocky 3" robot, I think Slashdot posters exaggerate the fear.
Reason for Philippines comment (Score:4, Insightful)
Fear of non-Japanese (Score:5, Insightful)
The closest thing I can imagine to Japan's racial attitudes in the US is something like a totally white community in the midwest, in the '50s. It's not that they actively hate other races, it's just that they grow up in an environment where everyone's the same race, and there are entrenched cultural expectations of what being a 'proper' citizen is. This results in a culture where there's lots of apprehention about foreigners, because they're an 'unknown element' that could disrupt social norms.
This, combined with the techno-phillia that's been in Japan since the '50s, is what makes robots more acceptable.
Another might be that robots can be programmed, foreigners cannot. This might be an important distinction in a society where education is seen as an important social stabilizer. The fact is, it might be easier to program robots to be 'Japanese' than naturalize foreigners, who will not be accepted as 'Japanese', anyway. There are still thousands of ethnic Koreans who were born there and aren't citizens because they have Korean names, and Japan's national identity is based heavily on race. A robot doesn't really have a racial identity aside from what it is programmed to be, I would guess.
Anyways, what I am trying to say is that the reason Japan prefers robots to immigrants is that they can be a very cosmopolitan, modern and advanced place as far as technology and consumer culture goes, but they can also be like a rural backwater as far as outsiders go.
Re:MP3 players, portable DVD players, now robots. (Score:2, Insightful)
Japan is schizophenic about foreigners.
A lot of Japanese women seek out gaijin (at least Caucasian) boyfriends, and most of the Japanese people I've met in my brief stays were very friendly. On the other hand, some merchants will pretend not to even hear requests from foreign customers (even if such customers are attempting to use their phrasebook Nihongo), drunk old guys will yell at you, and you're definitely not treated equally by the police. I think being a white guy in Japan may be in some small way like being a black guy in the U.S. - to some degee you're automatically "cool" in a fashion sense, while at the same time you're likely to encounter discrimination. (Before any PC cops bash me, let me point out that an African-American friend of mine suggested the comparison.)
Many of the stories on robots in Japan I've seen have talked about them caring for the elderly - the age group most likely to harbot racist and xenopobic thoughts. (Though again, I met some wonderful, friendly elderly Japanese; but when I did encounter hostility, it was almost always from someone at least I would guess in their late 50s.)
But on top of that, even with a shrinking population population Japan is tremendously crowded. A lower population with Mr. Roboto [seeklyrics.com]s, who only take up a closet, instead of some gaijin workers who takes up whole apartments, could be very appealing.
Re:MP3 players, portable DVD players, now robots. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ethnocentrism [reference.com]?
This is a problem that it literally takes several generations to overcome. You can see progress; This isn't an area where it's easy to "catch-up" to the ideals of another group. The younger generation, while they welcome foreigners, still seem very aware of, and interested in, everyone's ethnicity. If you are naturalized in Japan, you have to take a Japanese name. And even if you do, you often will be ostracized if you try to write it with ideographs.
I had a friend at University whose mother is Japanese and her father is from the US. Her name is Japanese and she was born in Japan, but she was literally disciplined in school if she wrote her name in anything but Katakana (the angular phonetic alphabet used for foreign words).
It still happens in the US, too, but it's on the decline. I know a guy whose grandfather used to beat him if he used anything except for racial epithets when referring to African-Americans. And this was only 10 years ago.
Jasin NataelRe:MP3 players, portable DVD players, now robots. (Score:3, Insightful)
So is everybody else, but no-one wants to admit it because it would be "racist". Bah, humbug!
Re:You had me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well I know I got a good chuckle out of you. Grow some balls, sign in, and take your karma like a man. I dare you.
I'm electing myself unofficial ambassador from the USA on this one. Sorry 'bout this guy. In my newly elected position, I'd like to say the United States officially apologizes for him and people like him.
You see, we're at a really strange point in our history.
We've fought a dozen or so major wars and done pretty well. Up until recently, war was something that you go and do, not something that happens to you. When we went to war, we would ship out. War never happened here.
But a few years ago, it did.
Enemies of my country wiped out a few blocks in NYC. We fought Hitler, the Kaiser, and the Imperial Japanese Navy and never once had so much as a single inch of continental US soil touched. Then...NYC.
And we've kind of reacted the way the largest kid on the playground would if the smallest kid bloodies his nose. Surprise, then shock, then anger. All fueled by fear. (If the smallest kid can do this...I need to take precautions! Assert myself!) And we do. Loudly and ignorantly. It's ok to be dumb, just so long as you're fierce, don't you know!
And that's where we're at. The loudest Americans you see are the ones most afraid. You'll see them chanting "USA number one!" loudly, in the desperate hopes that it's true. They're currently signing away things our founding fathers fought and died for so that they may feel "safe". And if you point that out, then you're a goddamn liberal hippie who wants the terrorists to win.
We're at an ugly time in our history. Please bear with us, and hope as I do that we'll get over it sometime soon.
Re:Robots can only be good for humanity (Score:3, Insightful)
D. Technologists promise the moon, fail to deliver, and disappoint the general public.
Think about it: we're already on the edge of falling off Moore's law. It's probably possible to make a computer a hundred times faster than it is today, but a million? Not likely using known physics. I think this will end up like the space race. Rockets kept getting more and more powerful in the 50s and 60s, so everyone assumed the process would continue indefinitely until we had moon bases and warp drive. Only, it turned out that the rocket fuel to mass requirements for things are a bitch, and unless we can magically make rocket fuel 100 times more efficient, space travel will never be that cheap.
It's fun to think about what if, but my guess is, after a certain level of complexity comes into technology, we just end up spending the rest of time asymptotically approaching a physical limit.
Re:You had me... (Score:1, Insightful)
The U.S. has no problem with Muslims. Not even the Brotherhood, except when its members want to use violence within the country to create social change. The U.S. accepts many immigrants, and although large parts of the rural U.S. are mostly Caucasian, the urban centers of the country are very diverse. People from the U.S. like to travel abroad, and enjoy tourism from foreign countries. They consume foreign culture (food, music, cinema, etc) and foreign technology (automobiles, consumer electronics, etc) in massive quantities.
People in the U.S. are not generally xenophobic (at least not of cultures that they can identify and understand), they're just incredibly insular. They don't want to have to think about foreign countries or their peoples outside of what is necessary for entertainment. They want to go to Tahita, swim in the clear waters, become intoxicated, stick their faces in some foreign titties, and have sex in bungalows before coming back to the U.S. and not thinking about Tahita again until their next vacation.
The biggest problem people in the U.S. have with the outside world is employment. Namely they don't want to have their jobs exported to foreign countries they're busy not thinking about. This isn't xenophobia, it's essentially a matter of survival. No one wants their world turned upside down on them. People in the U.S. are bizarrely in debt on average, and cannot afford to survive and have their jobs shipped elsewhere. They would be pissed off if their job moved entirely from their community to another one in the U.S., too. It's just worse when it moves somewhere there's really no chance of you moving to, and you need to take a massive decrease in the quality of life in order to just keep your house.