7 ms·

Japan is by far the world leader in one of the most important tech revolutions in the coming decade, the robotics revolution.

mc32 9y ago
They have been at it seriously since the 70s, so it's no surprise they are leaders in this field. That said, they've had some misses too. Poured a lot of money into money pits (their AI efforts of old, "5gen computer" for example).
- xbmcuser 9y ago
  They have been doing it because they saw labour shortages in the future because of declining population they are solving a local problem. So far Japan has been the economic model many people show about what can go wrong. But the way I see it when the robot revolution comes well actually the robot revolution is already here when the ai revolution comes countries with declining and aging population will be a lot more stable than countries with young and growing population with little means to support or earn a living.
hwillis 9y ago
That's not true. Agricultural robotics and automation are certainly more advanced in America and have improving for a long time. Drones with spectral cameras to examine and map plant health and irrigation levels, and to spot-spray pesticides, automated gps tractors and tools, collaborative augmented reality- nothing new in the US or Europe. It's said a lot, but Japanese robotics is somewhat myopic. IMO mostly it's due to the corporate structures in Japan: huge companies like Honda can pour tons of funding into ASIMO for 4 decades, but their goals are too narrow to make up for broad, investigative research. Plus, culture in Japan is a tangible force, and the awareness of societal problems is so high it actually impedes pure research. They are so focused on their aging population and the automation of labor that the large majority of research is geared towards those problems in one way or another. The US has the same problem- we focus on military use over everything else, but we do it just a little less than Japan. You typically hear this sentiment (Japan is the best at robotics) wrt humanoid robotics, especially ASIMO[1]. ASIMO is basically just a really smooth suite of soft skills. Facial recognition, voice, HRI, and consumer-friendly hardware. The hard skills underneath are extremely highly optimized but fundamentally weak and outdated by over 20 years. ASIMO runs on the same hardware and algorithms from the 90s except for batteries, computer speed and sensor accuracy. In the US we have been extremely inventive with hardware design- eg all-plastic mass-manufacture BAXTER, or ATLAS, which is largely hydraulic. The newest generations of ATLAS have hydraulic actuators integrated into the frame. ASIMO and most japanese robots use a variation on ZMP walking methods, which has the characteristic high-knee, ankle-heavy look. It's extremely inefficient and unstable. Russian robots use this too. Other robots in the US, Europe and even in China use much more efficient, flexible methods separated by a couple generations of new algorithms. Take Cassie[2] from OSU's dynamic robotics lab. Pretty clearly far ahead of anything in Japan in stability, speed, power[3] and efficiency, built by grad students from scratch. Compact series elastic actuators with HZD algorithms. Japanese robots are meant to look perfect. Russian robots are meant to look terrifying. American robots are meant to explore new algorithms or technologies. European robots are mostly meant to build cars. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEJeIUTValE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEJeIUTValE [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is4JZqhAy-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is4JZqhAy-M [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWVci9qS7Ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWVci9qS7Ds
- gene-h 9y ago
  >Japanese robots are meant to look perfect. Russian robots are meant to look terrifying. American robots are meant to explore new algorithms or technologies. European robots are mostly meant to build cars. Well that's a somewhat discriminatory way to look at things. A counter-example to some of the stuff you said about Japanese robotics is the work SCHAFT has done[0][1]. SCHAFT was a spin out company of the Tokyo JSK lab that came up with some revolutionary new electrical actuators. They dominated the first DARPA robotics challenge because of this and got bought up by google. There are european robots that explore new algorithms and technologies[2][3]. But if you really want to talk about robots that make cars, Japan leads the world at making them. And this is what matters. Sure, America might have the best biped robot in the world right now, but Japan has the tooling to mass produce it on a large scale. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3JCd7ooILo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3JCd7ooILo [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoFjzLZ5rQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoFjzLZ5rQ [2]: http://roboy.org/ http://roboy.org/ [3]: http://www.rsl.ethz.ch/robots-media/anymal.html http://www.rsl.ethz.ch/robots-media/anymal.html
  - Animats 9y ago
    They dominated the first DARPA robotics challenge because of this and got bought up by Google. Which screwed them up. That still annoys me. Google bought up most of the leading robotics startups in 2013 and ran them into the ground. I wonder what happened to the people. Did they end up in other parts of Google, probably working on making people click on ads?
    - jayjay71 9y ago
      Many of them left. Some are still there working on things related to robotics, such as Verb Surgical. I'm sure a few became more traditional software engineers, although I don't know any personally.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- tovacinni 9y ago

mc32 9y ago

They have been at it seriously since the 70s, so it's no surprise they are leaders in this field. That said, they've had some misses too. Poured a lot of money into money pits (their AI efforts of old, "5gen computer" for example).

xbmcuser 9y ago
They have been doing it because they saw labour shortages in the future because of declining population they are solving a local problem. So far Japan has been the economic model many people show about what can go wrong. But the way I see it when the robot revolution comes well actually the robot revolution is already here when the ai revolution comes countries with declining and aging population will be a lot more stable than countries with young and growing population with little means to support or earn a living.

hwillis 9y ago

That's not true. Agricultural robotics and automation are certainly more advanced in America and have improving for a long time. Drones with spectral cameras to examine and map plant health and irrigation levels, and to spot-spray pesticides, automated gps tractors and tools, collaborative augmented reality- nothing new in the US or Europe. It's said a lot, but Japanese robotics is somewhat myopic. IMO mostly it's due to the corporate structures in Japan: huge companies like Honda can pour tons of funding into ASIMO for 4 decades, but their goals are too narrow to make up for broad, investigative research. Plus, culture in Japan is a tangible force, and the awareness of societal problems is so high it actually impedes pure research. They are so focused on their aging population and the automation of labor that the large majority of research is geared towards those problems in one way or another. The US has the same problem- we focus on military use over everything else, but we do it just a little less than Japan. You typically hear this sentiment (Japan is the best at robotics) wrt humanoid robotics, especially ASIMO[1]. ASIMO is basically just a really smooth suite of soft skills. Facial recognition, voice, HRI, and consumer-friendly hardware. The hard skills underneath are extremely highly optimized but fundamentally weak and outdated by over 20 years. ASIMO runs on the same hardware and algorithms from the 90s except for batteries, computer speed and sensor accuracy. In the US we have been extremely inventive with hardware design- eg all-plastic mass-manufacture BAXTER, or ATLAS, which is largely hydraulic. The newest generations of ATLAS have hydraulic actuators integrated into the frame. ASIMO and most japanese robots use a variation on ZMP walking methods, which has the characteristic high-knee, ankle-heavy look. It's extremely inefficient and unstable. Russian robots use this too. Other robots in the US, Europe and even in China use much more efficient, flexible methods separated by a couple generations of new algorithms. Take Cassie[2] from OSU's dynamic robotics lab. Pretty clearly far ahead of anything in Japan in stability, speed, power[3] and efficiency, built by grad students from scratch. Compact series elastic actuators with HZD algorithms. Japanese robots are meant to look perfect. Russian robots are meant to look terrifying. American robots are meant to explore new algorithms or technologies. European robots are mostly meant to build cars. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEJeIUTValE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEJeIUTValE [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is4JZqhAy-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is4JZqhAy-M [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWVci9qS7Ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWVci9qS7Ds

gene-h 9y ago
>Japanese robots are meant to look perfect. Russian robots are meant to look terrifying. American robots are meant to explore new algorithms or technologies. European robots are mostly meant to build cars. Well that's a somewhat discriminatory way to look at things. A counter-example to some of the stuff you said about Japanese robotics is the work SCHAFT has done[0][1]. SCHAFT was a spin out company of the Tokyo JSK lab that came up with some revolutionary new electrical actuators. They dominated the first DARPA robotics challenge because of this and got bought up by google. There are european robots that explore new algorithms and technologies[2][3]. But if you really want to talk about robots that make cars, Japan leads the world at making them. And this is what matters. Sure, America might have the best biped robot in the world right now, but Japan has the tooling to mass produce it on a large scale. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3JCd7ooILo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3JCd7ooILo [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoFjzLZ5rQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoFjzLZ5rQ [2]: http://roboy.org/ http://roboy.org/ [3]: http://www.rsl.ethz.ch/robots-media/anymal.html http://www.rsl.ethz.ch/robots-media/anymal.html
- Animats 9y ago
  They dominated the first DARPA robotics challenge because of this and got bought up by Google. Which screwed them up. That still annoys me. Google bought up most of the leading robotics startups in 2013 and ran them into the ground. I wonder what happened to the people. Did they end up in other parts of Google, probably working on making people click on ads?
  - jayjay71 9y ago
    Many of them left. Some are still there working on things related to robotics, such as Verb Surgical. I'm sure a few became more traditional software engineers, although I don't know any personally.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
tovacinni 9y ago