ETHICS ACROSS TIME AND CULTURES

Advances in Robotics in Japan

Japan has long maintained its position as the world's top exporter of robots, selling nearly 50 percent of the global market share in terms of both units and dollar value. At first, Japan's robots were found mainly in factories making automobiles and electronic equipment, performing simple jobs such as assembling parts. Now Japan is poised to take the lead by putting robots in diverse areas including aeronautics, medicine, disaster mitigation, and search and rescue, performing jobs that human either cannot or, for safety reasons (such as defusing a bomb), should not do. Leading universities such as the University of Tokyo offer advanced programs to teach students not only how to create robots but also how to understand the way robot technology is transforming Japanese society. Universities, research institutions, corporations, and government entities are collaborating to implement the country's next generation of advanced artificial intelligence robot technology, because Japan truly sees the rise of robotics as the "Fourth Industrial Revolution."

New uses of robots include hazardous cleanup in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster that destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. After those events, Japan accelerated its development and application of disaster-response robots to go into radioactive areas and handle remediation.

In the laboratory at the University of Tokyo School of Engineering, advances are also being made in technology that mimics the capabilities of the human eye. One application allows scientists a clear field of vision in extreme weather conditions that are otherwise difficult or impossible for humans to study.

Japanese researchers are also developing a surgical robotic system with a three-dimensional endoscope to conduct high-risk surgery in remote mountainous regions with no specialized doctors. This system is in use in operating rooms in the United States as well, but Japan is taking it a step further by using it inteletherapy,where the patient is hundreds of miles away from the doctor actually performing the surgery. In Japan's manufacturing culture, robots are viewed not as threats but as solutions to many of the nation's most critical problems. Indeed, with Japan's below-replacement fertility since the mid-1970s, Japan's work force has been aging quite rapidly; in fact, beginning in the period from 2010 to 2015, the Japanese population started shrinking. Clearly, robots are potentially quite important as a means to offset prospective adverse consequences of a diminishing labor force.

Critical Thinking

• Does using robots cause a loss of jobs, a shifting of jobs, or both? How should society respond?
• How might the use of robots add to the increasing inequality in the U.S. economy?
• Do companies have an ethical responsibility to their workers to training or other support to workers displaced by automation?