For years, Japan has led the world in robotics technology. Japan has even become the birthplace of the humanoid, ever since the country developed its first humanoid robot in the 1970s.
Japanese robotics pioneered the idea that artificial intelligence should be realized. While Western countries are more focused on algorithms in the abstract, technology institutions in Japan believe that AI innovations must be developed alongside artificial physical bodies.
In addition to robots that can treat the sick and befriend the elderly, the Japanese have invented robots that can extinguish fires, carry heavy loads and perform physical therapy on patients. Not to forget, there is also a sex robot. To note, the market for sex robots in Japan is one of the most developed in the world.
Japanese culture is related to robots
Interestingly, the Japanese feel more comfortable embracing robots as part of the family. Why is that? Cultural and religious factors seem to play a role here. Japan is predominantly a Shinto religion, and their traditions and way of life have a lot to do with beliefs of animism, which ascribes spirits and personalities to inanimate matter.
Anthropologist Jennifer Robertson, who studies Japanese culture and its progressive relationship with automation, explains that Shinto teaches indigenous animistic beliefs about life and death, and argues that vital energy, gods, powers, or essences exist in both organic and inorganic matter.
"Energy exists in entities that occur naturally or are deliberately created by humans, be it trees, animals, mountains or robots. This power can be mobilized," he said as quoted from Freethink.
Shinto adherents also believe that there is a true essence to any object or living being and we can find it through the design of an object.
In the realm of this belief, they believe that even robots live like humans and exist as part of nature. The line between artificial and natural is inherently fluid in Japanese tradition. This can be seen at least in Japanese folklore, which is full of stories about objects coming to life.
The Japanese believe that Westerners view robots with disdain, as job killers, or inhumane machines. If in Western pop culture the image of the Terminator robot pervades, then in Japan the image of the robot is instead depicted as a savior.
After the devastation of World War II, the recovery and rebuilding of the country is closely related to modern technology and robotics. In post-war Japan, robots are depicted as human-like, kind, and friendly superheroes.
Rescue robots became embedded in the culture and started with the prototype hero Astro Boy. Astro Boy was created in 1951 when Japan was recovering from the tragedy of nuclear war. Its creator is Osamu Tezuka, a doctor and illustrator. Tezuka said he wanted to create a character that surpassed Pinocchio. Astro Boy is a robot who becomes a real boy.
Furthermore, we all know Doraemon by Fujiko F Fujio, a robot that is part of the Nobita family. The mindset that robots are 'humane' machines still persists today in Japan. A robotics professor in Japan even has a dream of giving robots to babies at their birth.
The robots are given the task of growing up and walking with the babies throughout their lives, acting as caregivers, friends, bodyguards and historians. The robot will record and remember everything that person has experienced and will continue to care for them from cradle to grave, they will become friends for life.