Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration • Hacker News Board

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#31

Post by hiram112 » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:29 AM UTC

surfmike wrote: post #28

mc32 wrote: post #12

Japan is at the forefront of a post-industrial society. Much of the rest of the west would be in a similar position, if not for imported labor or outsourcing labor. China will be in a similar spot soon. Eventually all of the world will be where they are. The things and lessons they learn and discover will be useful to other mature economies soon enough. The headway will make them leaders in innovating in this area of…

There seem to be two contradictory narratives: one, that rich Western societies are aging and need to make up for a big shortage of workers; and two, that automation has killed and will kill millions of jobs. Probably both trends are true, but each one pulls in the opposite direction for the demand for labor. Maybe things aren't as bad as people fear on either side.

It's more like two opposing narrators:

1. Employers: we need more immigration, not enough workers (willing to work for the shitty wages I want to pay).

2. Workers: automation is kill all the jobs (that pay well, but require few skills).

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#32

Post by nkrisc » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:33 AM UTC

nopinsight wrote: post #3

An idea: Some blue-collar workers displaced by factory automation could be retrained to maintain and repair robots used in healthcare and home assistance. As developed nations age, there will be increasing needs for healthcare workers including those for home assistance. Since the supply of people wanting the jobs might be limited and many blue-collar workers tend to balk at taking pink-collar jobs, robots could be t…

The notion of retaining workers to maintain the robots that replaced them reminds me of a quip from the sci-fi book series The Expanse. One of the characters, a space vessel's engineer, remarks that hundreds of years ago on Earth (today) he'd be a nuclear physicist, but in his time he's just a mechanic.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#33

Post by comstock » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:33 AM UTC

neptunespear wrote: post #10

Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standards (looking at you, FeliCa) China may surpass Japan in the automation/AI sphere. Lots of young, English-speaking, western-educated workers, plus the PRC has already innovated so much in manufacturing, shipbuilding, etc., and an ec…

"The only Japanese companies I know that are geared for automation for the new economy are companies like Mujin, LeapMind and Preferred Networks."

I've worked closely with one of these companies... Perhaps they were just not suited to the project we were working on, but I found them quite dis-organized, lacking in focus and mostly buzzwords and fakery. Kind of sad.

I really can't see, at least the company I worked with, as "the future of automation"... a lot of it just seems to be neat but impractical toys.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#34

Post by neptunespear » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:34 AM UTC

icanhackit wrote: post #27

neptunespear wrote: post #10

Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standards (looking at you, FeliCa) China may surpass Japan in the automation/AI sphere. Lots of young, English-speaking, western-educated workers, plus the PRC has already innovated so much in manufacturing, shipbuilding, etc., and an ec…

> Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standard s(looking at you, FeliCa) Like before, won't software and open collaboration merely be an aspect of automation? Who's open-sourced their driverless car tech - anyone with wheels on the ground and a car you can buy? Some advanc…

> Who's open-sourced their driverless car tech - anyone with wheels on the ground and a car you can buy? Some advanced mechatronics will be required to fill a lot of voids in the manual labour space. Whose battery tech and engineering prowess will we be using in these vehicles and machines?

Ah, but that's on the hardware side. Japan is excellent at hardware, its education system spits out lots of factory workers. But I have a hunch that AI and automation, in the future, will emphasizing hardware a bit less (since China/Taiwan/Korea has gotten so good at efficient manufacturing), and refocus towards software--that may be where the growth will be. Since you mentioned Tesla Motors, I will note that they hire a lot of software engineers, and it's not a 100% proprietary locked-down atmosphere on the software side; open source collaboration is encouraged. Tesla even open sourced some of their patents, though I will admit I think Elon Musk's attitude towards open source software can be a bit duplicitous.

> That should be praise, no? I mean, aspects of sexism and odd views about social hierarchy can go in the trash, but their productivity is still very good.

Haha...accidentally several words there. I've fixed it.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#35

Post by neptunespear » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:35 AM UTC

comstock wrote: post #33

neptunespear wrote: post #10

Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standards (looking at you, FeliCa) China may surpass Japan in the automation/AI sphere. Lots of young, English-speaking, western-educated workers, plus the PRC has already innovated so much in manufacturing, shipbuilding, etc., and an ec…

"The only Japanese companies I know that are geared for automation for the new economy are companies like Mujin, LeapMind and Preferred Networks." I've worked closely with one of these companies... Perhaps they were just not suited to the project we were working on, but I found them quite dis-organized, lacking in focus and mostly buzzwords and fakery. Kind of sad. I really can't see, at least the company I worked wi…

> I've worked closely with one of these companies... Perhaps they were just not suited to the project we were working on, but I found them quite dis-organized, lacking in focus and mostly buzzwords and fakery. Kind of sad.

You can't just drop an anecdote like that without naming and shaming.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#36

Post by neptunespear » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:36 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #18

neptunespear wrote: post #10

Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standards (looking at you, FeliCa) China may surpass Japan in the automation/AI sphere. Lots of young, English-speaking, western-educated workers, plus the PRC has already innovated so much in manufacturing, shipbuilding, etc., and an ec…

>As a side note, the fact that Japan has managed zero-growth despite a rapidly shrinking, aging population... I think they have done an admirable job to be the no. 3 economy in the world despite neo-liberal economics --as they say, even Fukuyama is no longer a Fukuyama-ist and I think they are working hard at making a soft landing for their post neo-liberal economy, whatever shape that takes. We all know consumerism…

That was a big typo since I meant to finish that sentence. I've fixed it now.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#37

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:39 AM UTC

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #16

Japan has never been one to shy away from high-tech industries, and as the article notes, aesthetic sensibilities towards kawaii robots make this a natural progression for a high-tech, ethnically homogeneous, aging nation. Although Japan was once an imperial power, its reconciliation with its past has not included a transition to a multicultural post-colonial state promoted by intellectuals and practiced by widesprea…

Germany comes to mind as a counterexample: a homogenous nation until the late 1950s, with no colonies to speak of, and jus sanguinis. Yet it transition to a functioning, diverse society today.

And Japan is arguably paying a steep price for keeping their blood oh-so-pure: it's a society frozen in tradition and fear, with an economy in what is essentially a 20-year recession.

Making robots care for the elderly will just be another step in the dehumanisation of that society, indeed. It's the coup the grace for a generation that replaced social life with "being in the office" and love life with blow-up dolls and pornography.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#38

Post by neptunespear » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:40 AM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #11

neptunespear wrote: post #10

Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standards (looking at you, FeliCa) China may surpass Japan in the automation/AI sphere. Lots of young, English-speaking, western-educated workers, plus the PRC has already innovated so much in manufacturing, shipbuilding, etc., and an ec…

Why is total GDP the correct metric, if per capita GDP is on the rise?

The provincial government in my home province of British Columbia, Canada, is developing a genuine progress indicator (GPI) to replace the GDP metric, which was the idea of the BC Green Party. The point made here is that GDP is a very imperfect solution. Christy Clark may have boasted about BC's booming economy by pointing to GDP numbers, but do they explain the whole story?

I know that's neither here nor there, however.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#39

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:42 AM UTC

oculusthrift wrote: post #2

I think this is a brilliant solution for them because of the way their country is setup. (Strong culture with extremely homogeneous population and low birth rate) I really do think a lot of what makes japan special would go away with too much immigration. That being said, America is the opposite and automation would hurt us and so would restricting immigration.

What makes Japan special is a 20-year stagflation of a society rapidly ageing, with absolutely no attempts to empower the few young people remaining.

Re: Aging Japan Wants Automation, Not Immigration

#40

Post by icanhackit » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 3:43 AM UTC

neptunespear wrote: post #34

icanhackit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standard s(looking at you, FeliCa) Like before, won't software and open collaboration merely be an aspect of automation? Who's open-sourced their driverless car tech - anyone with wheels on the ground and a car you can buy? Some advanc…

> Who's open-sourced their driverless car tech - anyone with wheels on the ground and a car you can buy? Some advanced mechatronics will be required to fill a lot of voids in the manual labour space. Whose battery tech and engineering prowess will we be using in these vehicles and machines? Ah, but that's on the hardware side. Japan is excellent at hardware, its education system spits out lots of factory workers. But…

> Ah, but that's on the hardware side. Japan is excellent at hardware [...] I have a hunch that AI and automation, in the future, will emphasizing hardware a bit less [...] it's not a 100% proprietary locked-down atmosphere on the software side; open source collaboration is encouraged

What you're saying doesn't make economic sense to me: won't open-sourcing the AI and software components commoditize those things, leaving the hardware components like robotics, vehicles and associated hardware like sensors to be the bit that makes the money? Similar to how operating systems are now given away for free with computers and phones?

In which case doesn't Japan win?