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I'll leave the article as-is. This isn't the first article to grace HN that stated that Japanese companies tend to be slow adopters. What I want to know is why

I'll leave the article as-is. This isn't the first article to grace HN that stated that Japanese companies tend to be slow adopters. What I want to know is why the highlight on human traffic signalers as an indicator of how "backwards" the culture is technologically. It seems to me that if the goal is not just public safety, but to put a human face on law enforcement, a human traffic signal is exactly what is required. True, a robot can do the job, but a robot would be ineffective at the task of humanizing the reasons behind the laws and in providing assistance to people who need it.

digi_owl 11y ago
That "traffic light" seems to actually be a watchman for a building site. Thus he is there to either stop people or trucks are needed. And frankly i would prefer that over automated lights, as the person could compensate for elderly or kids (or other less perfect events). Its not like they have some lone officer sanding in the middle of the most busy intersection of Tokyo, now it is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibuya#Shibuya_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibuya#Shibuya_Crossing Frankly i don't see how an article of this "quality" made it onto BBC.