Capitalism’s dream realized: Tireless Japanese worker robot debuts; Update: Robots to dominate fruit-picking industry
posted at 5:14 pm on June 21, 2007 by Allahpundit
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We’ll pay for it dearly once Skynet becomes self-aware, but in the meantime there’s a demographic crisis to be solved. And if young couples won’t solve it the old fashioned way, young engineers will have to fill the gap.
Just think of the ‘bots as doing the jobs the Japanese won’t aren’t around to do.
Japan is a step closer to having an ideal worker who won’t complain in torrential rain or on slippery floors as a company unveiled a next-generation humanoid Thursday.
Kawada Industries’ HRP-3 Promet Mk-II, a 160-centimetre-tall (five feet, four inches) humanoid, walked on a slippery floor scattered with sand and held out its arms under a shower before media cameras…
The white robot, which wears a visor and has a passing resemblance to a “Star Wars” Imperial Stormtrooper, also used a screwdriver with its right hand while leaning forward on its left arm, balancing itself just like a human would…
Project manager Takakatsu Isozumi said the company wanted to target clients such as construction contractors by 2010, with each robot costing around 15 million yen (120,000 dollars) each.
Estimated cost of amnesty by Robert Rector: $2.6 trillion. Estimated cost of 10 million freaky deaky Japanese proletari-bots: $1.2 trillion. Nuance.
I looked around for video but there’s none to be had — of the current model. Here’s a younger version, the HRP-2, in happier days before it was condemned to an eternity of labor. Their life cycle isn’t all that different from our own, is it, my friends? Ah well.
Update: Looks like that little cost comparison I did was prescient. Money quote:
This all sounds wonderful until you realize that such machines might eliminate the jobs of thousands of migrant workers.
Yeah. That would be terrible.
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Can it pluck chickens?
bdfaith on June 21, 2007 at 5:33 PM
You sound suspiciously like you’re taking the robots’ side, Allah.
Why are we helping the robots?
Alex K on June 21, 2007 at 5:40 PM
If it can transform from bipedal robot to some kind of vacuum cleaner/George Foreman grill, I’m sold.
ScottMcC on June 21, 2007 at 5:44 PM
Oh come on, we all know what the Japanese are up to…trying to create the “perfect woman.”
ScottG on June 21, 2007 at 5:48 PM
Will they do the jobs Americans don’t want to do?
And what about the “happiness factor” of “Europeans work to live and Americans live to work”?
Entelechy on June 21, 2007 at 5:51 PM
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Farmer_Joe on June 21, 2007 at 5:51 PM
Not a stormtrooper… a Gundham.
Mazztek on June 21, 2007 at 5:52 PM
The same average height as females in the US… coincidence ?
elgeneralisimo on June 21, 2007 at 5:53 PM
It kinda looks like a Ingram Patlabor Police model.
allie on June 21, 2007 at 5:53 PM
You just gotta love the Japanese and their robots.
Too bad we don’t share a border with Japan. Can’t you just picture them making their way through the barren wilderness to cross the border, desperately looking for a better life, hanging out in the parking lot at Home Depot, offering to have their robots do the work that Americans won’t do?
Fatal on June 21, 2007 at 5:54 PM
I can hear the cyborg’s mecho-mind saying: “i have no mouth and i must scream” over and over.
Remember the tale of The Mechanical Nightingale.
They always end up promethean vultures.
Because of the morons programming.
profitsbeard on June 21, 2007 at 5:54 PM
Can we program them to be religious? :)
Dusty on June 21, 2007 at 5:59 PM
The HPR-3- Now with freaky deaky technology. Get yours today!
sonnyspats1 on June 21, 2007 at 6:00 PM
I guess its time I signed up and joined the robot movement.
Darnell Clayton on June 21, 2007 at 6:00 PM
geeze thats HRP-3
sonnyspats1 on June 21, 2007 at 6:01 PM
“me love you long time. 3.5 hours on a lithium ion battery”
Guardian on June 21, 2007 at 6:03 PM
DVD player optional…
Zorro on June 21, 2007 at 6:05 PM
Where’s the 18 foot version with lasers for eyes?
Canadian Imperialist Running Dog on June 21, 2007 at 6:06 PM
“Where’s the 18 foot version with lasers for eyes?”
Parked out in front of James Lileks’ Diner–and filled with plutonium!
Ed Driscoll on June 21, 2007 at 6:15 PM
That’s why ya gotta do like I do with the cordless drill. Keep an extra battery and charger around, so you can rotate them.
Farmer_Joe on June 21, 2007 at 6:16 PM
Now I know how some of the posters at HA manage to post almost around the clock and still work and sleep! It also tells me CSDeven must be a heck of a programmer, say Fred and it’s robo time.
Bradky on June 21, 2007 at 6:19 PM
You know, along those lines; you know how much better the “world wide web” got when pornographers discovered they could use it to generate revenue. That same logic could apply. How big a leap would robotics take once people started investing in the technology for this purpose?
Conversely, I’m preparing for “Bladerunner” duty if anything goes wrong.
liquidflorian on June 21, 2007 at 6:25 PM
What happen?
Someone set us up the bomb.
Main screen turn on!
It’s you!
How are you gentlemen?
All your base are belong to us.
What you say?
You have no chance to survive make your time.
– I’m all for robots, just as long as they don’t make facial expressions when the word “Bush” is uttered.
Nethicus on June 21, 2007 at 6:31 PM
Does those 10 million robots get voting rights, too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FiQ5tgbjGs
Nixon’s back! Take that hippies!
May death come quickly to his enemies.
lorien1973 on June 21, 2007 at 6:35 PM
Heh.
I have always wanted to corner a pro-illegal alien economist and ask him about robots. You have to be exteremely short sided, selfish, or ignorant to ignore the benefits of robots. Once America invests in and creates the market for agricultural robots who stands to benefit the most? Latin America, hello! It will open a whole up a pool of people that can go to school, get advanced degrees, or job skills to grow their economy. Latin America’s common people have wealth but it is locked in things like the houses that they build over generations or the people themselves. Once the labor needs for agriculture have been cut they will be free to expand and will be able to compete in other high tech labor sectors. PC parts, advanced electical components all the while improving their quality control; which has been sorely lacking and an achilles heel for US automakers that buy parts from South of the border.
Anywho, just a thought.
Theworldisnotenough on June 21, 2007 at 6:43 PM
Not enough:
Japan population:
latest figure 2006 : 128 million
projected 2050 : 90 million
Don’t even get that kind of loss in war, even extended war.
2006 had an increase over 2005 of 1,500, but that was the difference between a loss of 50,000 Japanese offset by a 52,000 increase in immigrants.
These numbers do not show how many Japanese are and are projected to be under 15 or over 65, the bookends of any active labor force.
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2411
naliaka on June 21, 2007 at 6:47 PM
Preachin’ to the choir over here. I’m all about the fembots.
Farmer_Joe on June 21, 2007 at 6:49 PM
They already have! They already have!!!!
ScottG on June 21, 2007 at 6:52 PM
I would love to eat food picked by an Imperial Stormtrooper.
Why should we force poor immigrants to do those nasty jobs that Americans won’t do?
Pablo on June 21, 2007 at 6:54 PM
Many countries in Europe are facing similar problems. China has trouble finding enough women for its (one child rule and resulting infantacide of mostly female babies) men to marry.
For both of these countries opening up the doors to immigration to make up some ground for its declining population will mean large changes in the culture. Both are pretty homogenous cultures and since many of the immigrants will be females, the expected role of raising children will fall under their influence.
Neither bad nor good — just an observation on changes that will occur to societies that are thousands of years old. None of us will be around to see the changes – will take four or five generations and will be incremental.
Bradky on June 21, 2007 at 6:55 PM
Can these robots be programmed to do the jobs that Congress won’t authorize Americans to do: patrol the borders and round up illegals?
Mallard T. Drake on June 21, 2007 at 6:56 PM
Wow Allah, that’s 2 references to Ah-nahd action flicks today. What gives?
A little short for a stormtrooper.
omnipotent on June 21, 2007 at 7:15 PM
My thoughts exactly. When will they become advanced enough for us to ask them if they dream of electric sheep?
TexasDan on June 21, 2007 at 7:32 PM
Don’t forget to have Old Glory Insurance
The Ugly American on June 21, 2007 at 7:45 PM
Next thing you know they will demand citizenship
Wade on June 21, 2007 at 8:37 PM
What’s worrisome is the pressure to deal with all the aged – the solution of not enough young people to support the infirm. Abortion and birth control on one end, assisted suicide, whether the person in question wants it or not. Without any tradition of the sanctity of life, maybe it isn’t “Robots” but *gack* “Logan’s Run” for the future. COurse, we don’t know what kind of immigrants are coming in and how that wild card is going to affect demographics.
naliaka on June 21, 2007 at 8:40 PM
Damn that thing is freaking me out, think I need to go to bed!
Seixon on June 21, 2007 at 9:01 PM
Does it hump anything?
Mazztek on June 21, 2007 at 9:16 PM
Yep, First the Robots come to do the jobs that Humans won’t do…
Then the Robots get angry
Next thing you know, the earth is under the cloud of Nuclear winter and radioactive fallout, and Humans are being used for power generation while floating in tanks of nutrient goo all networked together, and only Keanu Reeves can save us.
Way to go Kawada Industries.
Right up there with “The Weyland-Yutani Company”
or Omni Consumer products
Perhaps Cyberdyne systems
or maybe the ever popular Umbrella Corporation (Though they’re really more about bio-science rather than Robots, they did create some evil AIs who liked to dice humans up with lasers.)
Jones Zemkophill on June 21, 2007 at 10:13 PM
I was trying to figure out what the Robot equivalent to MEChA would be, but I’m stumped.
The Monster on June 21, 2007 at 10:46 PM
So, who does Japan expect to oil all those machines?
naliaka on June 21, 2007 at 10:50 PM
Obviously, the robots will have to oil each other, or oil themselves. Either one just sounds… wrong.
The Monster on June 21, 2007 at 11:33 PM
I’d say it would be very similar…MECH-a.
James on June 22, 2007 at 7:52 AM
Is this what you’re looking for AP?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfQ8kCgp__c&eurl=
My company won’t let me drop in the link script so I hope this works.
Catseye on June 22, 2007 at 9:56 AM
Quick! Legalize ‘em!!
Claire on June 22, 2007 at 3:47 PM
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