A new greeter at the entrance of the Mitsukoshi department store in central Tokyo has caused a stir. The worker, dressed in a kimono and cheerfully welcoming shoppers in honorific Japanese, is a robot made by Toshiba and shows how lifelike these machines can be.
This latest example of Japan’s skill comes just as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is calling for a “robot revolution”. Advances in robotic computing power, the ability to recognise voices and images, and machine learning could help the country overcome the handicap of a fast-ageing populace and a declining workforce.
At the opening of Japan’s Robot Revolution Initiative Council on May 15, Abe urged companies to “spread the use of robotics from large-scale factories to every corner of our economy and society”. Backed by 200 companies and universities, the five-year, government-led push aims to deepen the use of intelligent machines in manufacturing, supply chains, construction, and health care, while expanding robotics sales from 600 billion yen ($6.4 billion) annually to 2.4 trillion yen by 2020.
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