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Japanese Robot Guards to Patrol Shops And Offices
Clarinase writes "Robots will be patrolling Japan's streets, offices, shopping malls and other public places for the safety of the people. Guardrobo D1 is equipped with a camera and sensors to detect any signs of trouble. It will then alert the human guards via radio with camera footage of possible troubles. This is one of the technological advancement vital to the aging population of Japan, where 1 in 5 Japanese are over 65 years old."
Because when a society's young population (especially women) get educated and have decent jobs and all sorts of modern shit to play with they no longer want to be burdened with 1 or more children. As such birth rates drop and a larger % of your population is old people. same thing is happening in the US, we just have ass-tons of immigrants (legal and otherwise) who for the most part have little education(less education = less use of birth control.) and little money. They fuck like rabbits and have 12 kids. They cover the difference in this country.
I live in Japan. I shop in Japan. I would not be surprised to hear that half of the people "working" here are actually robots. They bow mechanically and emit a series of programmed sentences which *will* be completed regardless of whether your shirt is on fire or not. They genuinely try to help you to the best of their abilities. But if you confront them with something they are not expecting ("where are the bean sprouts?"--and it turns out the bean sprouts have been moved), they freeze. As the moments stretch out to minutes, you try to discern a human presence behind the impenetrable facade, but all you will get is a hand clasped to the back of the neck, and the famous sound of sucking wind.
That said, however, the other half (remember, I'm only complaining about half of the workers) will make your day better and your troubles go away. You know--like a *good* robot would.
But driving over here--the machines *have* taken over...
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Old Man #1: Tomonaga-san, can you spare 1,000,000,000 yen?
Old man #2: Matsuda-san, you need only ask; I am a loan officer in the developed world's most poorly regulated banking system!
Young people are just the ugly face of New Japan. The real crime here is grey.
Note: I don't hate Japan or Japanese. But there are some things I don't much care for--bovine complacency in the face of incompetence, and the "styles" the young folks are wearing.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
How does this compare with the rest of the world? (Especially reasonably well-off countries.)
If a population had an average life expectency of 81, which probably isn't too far off, and if people's ages were evenly distributed, then 1 in 5 people over 65 doesn't seem too unusual.
Well, people's ages aren't evenly distributed. Especially with the post-war baby boomers growing up, though, I would have thought that a lot of countries would either be in similar positions, perhaps even worse positions, or not far off it.
OK, so how is a robot that travels around with a camera, spots suspicious activity, and calls the police more cost effective than three times as many fixed-point cameras tied to the same back end computer logic that can call the police?
I mean it's cool and all, but wouldn't just hooking the security cameras that we have now (at least in the US) up to the same trouble-spotting algorithm be much easier and cheaper and do the same thing?
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?