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In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants
- TiaMane 7mo agoRobot war will be cinematic, will probably safe lives
- paulryanrogers 7mo agoThat assumes those in power agree that only robots may be harmed.
- iknowSFR 7mo agoThe robot vote is a critical and quickly growing minority group since Wall-E v Sanders determined that all sentient robots were to be treated as citizens. Immediately after, Citizens United was rendered useless and large corporations moved their investments from campaign finance to literal voting machines.
- Simulacra 7mo agoThe article seems to say that it's not jobs nobody wants, but rather a labor shortage from an aging population. Japan just seems to be running out of people for its labor market.
- wnevets 7mo ago> but rather a labor shortage from an aging population. combined with ridiculous cost of living, terrible work/life balance and incredibly xenophobic immigration policies.
- mc3301 7mo agoRidiculous cost of living in Japan? What do you mean by that?
- fercircularbuf 7mo agoJapan has a very low cost of living. Work/life balance, however, is not good. And neither is the increasingly hostile immigration policies.
- functional_dev 7mo ago100% There is genuine demand for physical AI in Japan, there are not enough humans to hire. I bet, EU will start long debates wether to automate or not :) Japan already skipped that part
- maerF0x0 7mo ago"No one wants" usually includes an insufficient wage, sometimes also an issue of insufficient investment in training for skilled folks. eg if you need a doctor in 12 years you have to start more or less today. A quick google suggests ~18% of their working age people do not have jobs, which naturally could be shifted by incentives like money or training. (Edit, because people are confused, I'm not talking about unemployment rate, i'm talking about labor non-participation rate as a measure of people who could be enticed into the workforce with a living wage)
- epolanski 7mo ago18% is one of the.lowest rates on the planet. 4th in fact. This includes early retirees, full time students, home makers and people unable to work for health related reasons.
- maerF0x0 7mo agoIt's still 10s of millions of people who could be given a job (and some hope and purpose too btw) Edit: btw I agree there's more to life than work. But when you're unemployed and hoping for work, competing against robots and LLMs is quite crushing.
- ceejayoz 7mo agoWhy would the retirees want to be put back to work? Why would the students want to have to do two full-time tasks at once? Why would the homemakers want to add another full-time task? Why would the people with cancer want to have to work from their hospital bed? There's more to life than work. Get a hobby! Hope and purpose doesn't have to come from menial labor.
- ryandrake 7mo agoMoney, money, money, and money. We need it to survive. Until people's basic needs are taken care of for them, they need to do what they can to live.
- mamami 7mo agoMeanwhile in the US they're replacing artists, writers, and teachers
- jfengel 7mo agoJobs everyone thinks are easy and nobody likes the people who do it.
- Ancalagon 7mo agoWhy would people not like artists?
- kube-system 7mo agoRampant anti-intellectualism and machismo
- jfengel 7mo agoSome think of art as the ridiculous "fine art" market for snobs and money launderers. Some think of the kind of people who use Macintoshes for a living, and are therefore pretentious latte-sipping slackers who couldn't get a real job. And various other negative stereotypes.
- TurdF3rguson 7mo agoI agree with the teachers one. Having one lady in charge of educational instruction for that many kids will be looked back upon as barbarism.
- gentoo 7mo agoSo the solution is to have less ladies in charge? Who's going to wipe snot off the kids' noses, pull legos out of their mouths, and tell them not to hit each other?
- TurdF3rguson 7mo ago
- eucryphia 7mo agoThe job no one wants? Grunting out 2.6 babies before you’re 35. Who’s paying for your nursing home? Tax the robot’s income? Will your demographic replacements vote for that?
- alephnerd 7mo ago> Who’s paying for your nursing home Japanese financial institutions massive capital positions across Asia, the US, and Europe which tend to be public-private ventures. > Tax the robot’s income Pretty much, in the sense that corporations and the Japanese government have spent decades working together to build a sovereign wealth model comparable to Singapore and the UAE's.
- robotnikman 7mo agoThis is something that really needs to be done in the states imo. IIRC we don't have a sovereign wealth fund, but we should in order to provide a social safety net for our citizens, especially with all the uncertainties regarding the future right now.
- tmpz22 7mo agoNo no no. We’re a Christian nation. Fuck them kids (literally, on an island). Get rich, fuck young models. Just like the President.
- areoform 7mo ago> Grunting out 2.6 babies before you’re 35. * destroying your body, stripping your bones, getting diabetes and temporarily (or permanently) disabling yourself with issues no healthcare provider will take seriously for decades to come for 2.6 babies in your youth. ––– Someone called this a "belief." There's a 10% to 4% probability that the average teenage girl will die from childbirth, given the cumulative risk of pregnancies in nations without modern medicine. That's the default state of the human condition. Maternal mortality is frequent and 1 in 25 to 1 in 10 for women without modern medical interventions. see: The probability that a 15 year old girl eventually dies from a pregnancy-related cause, assuming constant levels of maternal mortality and number of births per woman. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lifetime-risk-of-maternal-death https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lifetime-risk-of-maternal... There's a reason why the more women become aware of the risks and downsides of pregnancy – the less likely they are to go through with it. Even when indoctrinated from the start. The only sane solution in an otherwise insane world is technological, external gestation / exowombs.
- Apreche 7mo agoIt’s amazing to use technology to save humans from toil. The question is, who owns the robot? Who benefits from the labor it produces? The techno utopia we imagine is a world where nobody has to work. All our needs are taken care of and we live a life of leisure. But as long as there is ownership of the automated systems, those owners will hoard all the wealth generated by that automation. Labor expenditures and taxes are the only times the wealthy have to share their wealth with the rest of us. If they succeed in disintermediating labor, and governments fail to tax them, the oligarchs will live a life of unlimited luxury while the rest of us die in poverty.
- genxy 7mo agoI believe that is the plan.
- Ancalagon 7mo agoViva La revolution
- nradov 7mo agoYikes, that's not the utopia I imagine at all. A world where nobody has to work sounds horrific.
- perching_aix 7mo ago> A world where nobody has to work sounds horrific. Why?
- latentsea 7mo agoBecause then the only way to obtain power and status is to wage war.
- charcircuit 7mo ago>All our needs are taken care of >while the rest of us die in poverty. These can't be simultaneously true. If all of our needs are taken care of, that is the same thing as unlimited luxury. Someone hoarding wealth is not that important when everyone has everything they want. Society is already being helped by all of the needs they are fulfilling. We don't need to also take their wealth too.
- 7373737373 7mo agoIf Universal Basic Income was a thing, this would probably happen much faster globally
- alephnerd 7mo agoJapan doesn't have UBI, but it's welfare system is extremely expansive as Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees a minimum standard of living through livelihood, housing, education, and medical assistance. Additonally, Japan has spent decades thinking about this eventuality (at least since the 1970s), which is why Japan worked on the "Flying Geese" paradigm where Japanese public-private ventures would end up become major capital stake holders across Asia, the US, and Europe.
- gkanai 7mo ago> "Flying Geese" paradigm Can you name any one of these that are successful or prominent? I am not aware of this paradigm.
- alephnerd 7mo agoTaiwan (1960s onwards), South Korea (1970s onwards), and China (1980s onwards), and investments by what are now Master Trust Bank, Trust & Custody Services Bank, JTSB, and SoftBank.
- jazz9k 7mo ago[flagged]
- 7373737373 7mo agoWhy would you have to work harder when employers of jobs no one wants to do (for a given wage) have to either increase wages or embrace automation research and development (thereby likely speeding up its systemic adoption and reducing the necessity for manual work even more)? Where developing countries have vendors on the streets, industrialized nations have vending machines instead, by pure economic and demographic necessity. The existence of an automation tool doesn't imply a human having to work harder somewhere else. And why do you assume people would sit around doing nothing? I don't think that's a natural thing for most people to do. How financial and social systems are set up seems to be very much a societal choice, unless it goes against some physical, basic economic or global trade limitation. Interesting note on the native tribes though!
- msla 7mo agoThey're coming for the jobs immigrants would be taking if the Japanese government weren't so xenophobic.
- totetsu 7mo agoThis is explicitly part of the discourse, but I think it means robotics companies continuing to receive government grants while not actually delivering any labor saving technology, and immigration policy being held back. The industries needing labor will not get a suitable solution, the economy will continue to suffer, but the psychology of those around the world who believe in racial order, and correct positions of alleles on geography, will remain soothed.
- jazz9k 7mo agoWhy does Japan need immigrants? Japan is one of the safest countries in the world because of its immigration policies.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- perching_aix 7mo ago> japan is going to shit because of all the immigrants > japan is better than pussy thanks to it being strict on immigrants pick whichever convenient
- iamankur 7mo agoThis should be the top comment :)
- beeflet 7mo agoWhat is the point of letting in immigrants if they won't have jobs.
- Johanx64 7mo ago[flagged]
- slimebot80 7mo ago[flagged]
- moostee 7mo agoSarcasm right? It's difficult to tell these days. I'll pretend it's not sarcasm despite assuming it is. Immigration changes the cultural profile of a region and increases cost of living, particular cost of housing.
- slimebot80 7mo agoYeah. I'm more concerned about the welfare needed to support millions of low-skill people in high living cost areas, in the age of AI. Those people are being sold dead dreams for the benefit of a handful of billionaires.
- canpan 7mo agoI went to a chain Family Restaurant recently here in Japan. The food is brought by a robot for a while now. Recently you get your seat selected at a touchscreen. You can pay at your table's tablet using PayPay. There is still some waiter staff, but it being reduced to the past. The only part that did not change much yet is the kitchen. I said to myself to stop going, if there is no human staff left. On the other hand, small shops with good atmosphere are thriving.
- ashleywr 7mo agoGiven waiters are not tipped here, I actually quite enjoy the quietness/quickness/streamlined atmosphere of a Jonathan's or Gust that has all that automation. I would not want the kitchen staff to be replaced by robots though, food prep should probably always been overseen by humans. But in general, I like not having to interact with people sometimes.
- bryanhogan 7mo agoYou are probably talking about Cafe Restaurant Gusto (ガスト). A robot bringing me the food improves my experience as I don't have to wait as long, and I can leave whenever I want, just get up and pay, it's more efficient and provides a better experience.
- encody 7mo agoGusto, Saizeriya, Jonathan's... Lots of them are at least partly robot-staffed these days. It is a bit inconvenient for me to have to remove the plates from the robot, which usually stops at an awkward location relative to my seat, but that's really nitpicking on my part. Also, they play music and talk, which can get annoyingly loud at times.
- spike021 7mo agoa lot of the yakiniku chains i've been to are also staffed at least in part by robots bringing the next set of plates.
- bigbadfeline 7mo ago
- 01100011 7mo agoJapan is in a demographic decline. They need all the robots they can get.
- muyuu 7mo agocurrently most industrialised countries are in a demographic decline, sometimes patched by immigration that will burden their economies long term much more than they will help them China is a deeper decline than Japan too, which will make their geopolitics volatile
- alex43578 7mo agoAll developed countries are in demographic decline (ex immigration), and need automation/robotics. There's only so many immigrants you can import before you lose your country's identity.
- array_key_first 7mo ago> There's only so many immigrants you can import before you lose your country's identity. Is this true? The US has been doing this for over 100 years and it's been fine, I think. I mean, our countries identity has basically become "we're all immigrants" but that's not a new phenomena.
- acuozzo 7mo ago> our countries identity has basically become "we're all immigrants" but that's not a new phenomena This is a very "New World" perspective which won't cut it for the "Old World" until their countries hit their own crisis points.
- felipeerias 7mo agoThe US implemented severe immigration restrictions in the 1920s that were lifted gradually over the 1950s–1960s.
- array_key_first 7mo ago
- fhn 7mo agojust like nobody in the US is qualified to work in tech so companies have to outsource jobs?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- aaron695 7mo ago[dead]
- xvxvx 7mo agoThe idea that automation, AI, offshoring, and low-paid migrant workers are filling jobs no one wants is pure evil bullshit. The main goal of business is to generate the most income with the least expense, labor being the most cost for the most part. We're downstream from indentured servitude and literal slavery, and probably one bad event away from going back.
- 9rx 7mo ago> The main goal of business is to generate the most income with the least expense That's the goal of small business. It is the only way to stay afloat and try to grow while allowing the stakeholders enough to survive. Large business starts to generate so much income that it could never possibly spend it all anyway, so minimizing expenses doesn't really matter. What does matter, to the people running the show, is ensuring that they gain social status. And for that you need visibility and connections. The way you get connections and visibility is to build impressive offices and fill them with notable people. The work might be technically pointless, but it generates a network of friends in high places and that is what provides social status. A trillion dollar business that is one guy in his parents' basement might sound appealing to the average software developer, but not to those who actually run these large companies.
- sharadov 7mo agoRather than encouraging immigration they come up with this.
- stephc_int13 7mo agoI think that many signs are indicating that Japan will re-emerge as a major technology powerhouse in the coming decades. And being confronted early to demographic transformation will end-up being an advantage. On the opposite side I think that immigration is a temporary band-aid that doesn’t solve any of the structural issues.
- canpan 7mo agoCan you share some other signs you think may indicate it rising as a powerhouse? Living in Japan, I am interested what others see. Regarding immigration, Japan is actually making it a lot stricter now. Not sure how that will play out.
- stephc_int13 7mo agoMiti is basically a second government with real power, finance and expertise, and they appear to bet on the correct things, it should have happened earlier but from what I have seen they are moving faster than EU on the semiconductor and robotics fronts.
- caminante 7mo agoYou mean "METI"? METI is your key driver? You're really overselling their capabilities. See the "lost decades" or most recently, the hundreds of billions deployed for the failed hydrogen initiatives.
- alex43578 7mo ago[flagged]
- shiroiuma 7mo agoThe problem is that if you make the place feel very unwelcoming to newcomers because you don't want the people who bring problems, the people who bring value don't come either unless you're offering extremely high pay, which Japan does not.
- tamimio 7mo agoCobotics (robots doing trivial stuff that helps human and assist them rather than “replacing” them) has been a thing for decades, that’s not the issue here, the issue is corporate greed that are using robots or AI as a scapegoat to blame your low wages and/or fire you. If the job market is more regulated, you will those excuses vanishing quickly.
- tazsat0512 7mo ago[dead]
- edinetdb 7mo ago[flagged]
- eqvinox 7mo ago"Physical AI"? I must've missed the last terminology update patch… (I can see what it's trying to say, but… my brain just refuses this one. AI is a concept, which… just, no.)
- YasuoTanaka 7mo ago[dead]
- bryanrasmussen 7mo agothe jobs nobody wants is the beta test, production rollout includes jobs that poor people and teenagers want, next major version upgrade jobs that adults with limited educational opportunities want, and so on and so forth.
- sph 7mo ago> filling the one [job] nobody wants. Time to share the meme again, sorry to my followers for reusing this joke: ‘I wanted a machine to do the dishes for me so I could concentrate on my art, and what I got was a machine to do the art so now I’m the one doing the dishes’ I’d be much happier with this AI revolution if I got a personal robot chef and house-keeper, while I could keep writing beautiful software. Now I’m looking to pivot into more blue-collar jobs to escape the existential dread, and making software a personal hobby rather than a career.
- DonsDiscountGas 7mo agoMechanical dishwashers have existed for awhile. I guess they only do half the job and but we've had them for decades
- sph 7mo agoYou are not supposed to take ‘doing the dishes’ literally. The other time I posted this, I got the same superficial response. Read between the lines, man.
- MiloSainsbury 7mo ago[dead]