Home Japan

What's all this about robots?

Heard this one yet?

"While Westerners harbor cultural fears toward robots, Japanese culture fosters a special relationship with robots, welcoming them into society as equal partners."

Oy vey. It's time to send this idiotic myth to the scrapyard, once and for all.

I've got a whole laundry list of culturology (that's "culture-ology") myths to slap down. Among those, you'd think that a myth as trivial as "special cultural view of robots" would have to wait a while to reach its turn in the list, but I'm moving it to the front of the line – both because it pops up so frequently, and because it's so blatantly dumb.

Here's the general form of this particular wackiness:

• Japan has a "love affair" with robots going back to 18th century wind-up dolls.
• Japan's Shinto religion fosters acceptance of "spirits" in objects, including robots; "Western" religion discourages or even prohibits viewing of objects as animate.
• Japanese popular culture has long portrayed robots as friendly helpers; "Western" popular culture portrays them as rebellious or violent machines.
• In Japan, people welcome robots; in the "West", people feel threatened by them and even fear robots "taking over".
• Proof of Japan's love of robots is the popular Tetsuwan Atom (a.k.a. Astro Boy), a friendly robotic hero. Proof of the "West's" fear of robots is Hollywood movies with robot villains, like The Terminator.

(I'm not joking about that last one; it's almost always the centerpiece of panegyrics over the "special relationship"!)

Here's the latest in a long, long, long line of offenders, which sparked me to finally sit down and write. Take a read if you're not up on the topic:

Japanese robots enter daily life (USA Today)

First, let's be clear on some facts. Yes, Japan boasts the world's highest use of industrial robots. Yes, there's a lot of cutting-edge research in Japan on humanoid robots. Yes, there are some fascinating projects in Japan involving use of robots in roles interfacing with humans. Yes, there are some cool robotic toys coming out of Japan. Those are all easily observable facts. No argument there.

Rather, it's the bullet-point list above – the psycho-socio-quasi-religious claptrap, i.e., the culturology – that's flat-out, idiotically wrong.

If odes to "Japan's special relationship with robots" all seem to be fairly consistent, there's a reason: they parrot and re-parrot the same tropes, never adding a whit of evidence, critical examination, or a glance at possible counter-arguments.

I don't recall how many years ago I first saw the myth pop up; I brushed it off as yet another culturology dropping, and didn't expect to see it again. Yet this one's got more lives than a Hollywood slasher maniac; it keeps jumping back up. (Though unlike the slasher, it never changes through the sequels.)

(Readers, if you know where and when the trope first appeared, please send me a line. I'd like to know whom to blame. : )

Time to shatter a myth in its infancy. Let's pull out the clubs, shall we?

Reality checking

Where to begin?

History time.

Robots and AI came out of "the West". Westinghouse's Elektro walked and talked in 1939. Autonomous (if not humanoid) robots appeared in 1940s England. Looking at more current research, there's Festo AG's dancing TRON-X android, University of Texas's cutting-edge work on robot facial expressions, Cornell University's research into self-aware robots, MIT's contextual clue-recognizing robot Jerry and its gesturing, learning robot Leonardo (aptly named after the Renaissance inventor who was designing windup men as far back as 1495)...

Stop. I won't even try to go on; I couldn't begin to do justice to a review of the state of modern robotics (especially when it's developing so quickly). Hit the Googles yourself, and you'll find tons of "Western" research, inventions, and advances (all without the "Christian hangups" that culturologists – honest! – say is hindering robot development in "the West").

To keep things only slightly over-long, let me pick on just a few key myth-conceptions:

"Japan's robots go back to the karakuri dolls of the 18th century."

Yes, some folks in Japan did start making clever windup dolls over 200 years ago. Welcome to the party, Japan. What took you so long?

Karakuri is a mundane word for "mechanical", in the sense of "clockwork" or "wind-up". An artfully-made wind-up doll that moves forward with a tray of tea, stops, and then turns around and goes back when the tea is lifted from the tray, is indeed a nifty party gadget for the well-heeled. But it had a long, long line of predecessors on this planet.

Human-shaped automatons go back to Greek mythology, which gives us Hepaehestus's automated helpers and Daedalus's talking statues. The poet Pindar wrote in 464 BC that moving, talking statues lined the streets of Rhodes. Whether or not the ancient Greeks actually built such automatons, those "Westerners" certainly showed fascination with the possibilities.

A 3rd-century BC text from China describes a life-sized automaton that walked, sang, danced, and interacted with people. Whether that was real or not, something amazing did take place in the 13th century: Arab genius Al-Jazari created mechanical entertainers (similar to the much-later karakuri dolls) whose movements could be programmed. And no one should be surprised to find that Leonardo da Vinci, rather than fearing automations as "Westerners" are supposed to, went and designed a moving humanoid robot – which, when built in modern times, worked. (That's Leo for you.)

Europeans in the Renaissance Age went nuts with automatons. Most of us are familiar with examples of clever European clocks parading out mechanical musicians, woodcutters, saints, etc., to mark the hours with intricate performances; those are as much robots as are karakuri dolls. Nobles in Europe were entertained by the likes of a life-like flute player (built by Jacques de Vaucanson, said to be the father of the first true robots), an automaton boy that could write messages, and even an automaton that could draw pictures. Louis XIV played with automated people and horses in a miniature coach.

(One famous 18th-century example, the Turk, was actually a hoax. A humanoid automaton that amazed audiences with its apparent skill at chess, it actually concealed a human operator within. The point: "Westerners" were fascinated, not frightened, by the machine, which toured Europe and the US.)

And on and on. While wonderful devices, Japan's karakuri dolls were but a drop in the ocean of worldwide fascination with automatons (and a late drop, at that). Why do the culturologists tell us otherwise?

"The Japanese love of robots goes back to Tetsuwan Atom."

Yes, there was a cartoon hero in Japan named Tetsuwan Atom, a construct with human emotions. And... so what?

Atom was another latecomer. Pinocchio had the same schtick – boy construct with human emotions – years earlier: Disney movie, 1940; original book, 1883. Think back to the movie: Besides the very "human" Jiminy Cricket and other animals, there's a home filled with delightful clockwork automatons, where a kindly man wishes life into a wooden puppet, who in turn wants nothing more than to become a real boy. Have you seen any movie more welcoming of love for an animated mechanism? Have you ever seen a "Westerner" turn from Pinocchio in fear or disgust?

(Trivia note: Atom is even related to Pinocchio, as his justly-renowned creator, Osamu Tezuka, readily acknowledged Pinocchio and other Disney works as inspirations for his cartoons.)

The film Pinocchio alone could dispel any and all rubbish about "Western" antipathy toward "spirits" in non-human objects, but it's not even the tip of the tip of the iceberg's tip. Pinocchio himself was beaten to the screen a year earlier, by The Wizard of Oz's Tin Man, a construct who like Pinocchio wanted to be more like us. Again, quiz time: Did "Westerners" love or fear that clanky, lovable non-human? (Hint: I just said "lovable".)

And later on? Let's see: Every American kid in the 60s wanted to be pals with the robot B-9 from Lost in Space. Then came two of the most popular robots ever, in the 70s: 'Droids C-3PO and R2-D2. One's humanoid, one's not; "Western" audiences don't care, they love 'em both, even now.

Next, we have the cute robot hero from the Short Circuit movie (okay, not so memorable, but that's the movie's fault, not the 'bot's), the Jetsons' sassy metallic maid Rosie, Knight Rider's talking car KITT, Star Trek's gentle Lt. Data, DC Comics' heroes Red Tornado and Metal Men, and Superman's army of secret identity-protecting robot doubles. Recent films like AI and Centennial Man sympathetically depict humanoid robots and their interactions with humans. It goes on and on. If you want loveable, friendly robots, often in deep, two-way emotional relationships with humans, "Western" pop culture will bury you with examples. (It's strange, though; the "Japan and robots" culturology pieces never, never mention any of this.)

"But don't forget The Terminator! Robots are scary monsters in Hollywood movies!"

Yes – because everything gets to guest star as a scary monster in Hollywood movies. There are Hollywood movies about killer cars. Killer tomatoes. Giant man-eating rabbits. (Night of the Lepus. I am not joking.) There are movies featuring serial murders in the guise of Santa Claus. Now, how many of you are willing to believe that "Westerners" have some innate cultural fear of bunnies, Saint Nick, automobiles and tomatoes? (Fear of autos and tomatoes? The entire nation of Italy would be a basket case. Er... never mind that.)

Sure, there are movies with bad-guy robots, too. So what? Where's the deep psychic resonance? Funny, when the culturologists watch Godzilla destroy Tokyo, they fail to read into it some primal Japanese discomfort with bipedal lizards. Why the one-way street, culturologists?

Why ignore the legion of friendly Hollywood robots? Or the fun robots populating the rest of the entertainment world, like amusement parks? Disney has been working with its Audio-Animatronics robot creations for almost 50 years. Its parks have the Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World, The Country Bears, any and every attraction in which mechanical characters jump and move... heck, Disney theme parks could just be renamed Robotland, and the name would fit.

("Westerners", were you scared by the talking Lincoln in Disneyland's Hall of Presidents? Bored, yes, but were you scared? I thought not.)

We can even look outside of amusement parks. Robotic Santas, large and small, are everywhere in stores at year-end. (These are the friendly Santas, not the killer ones.) Then there's the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain and its entertainer robots... okay, not a very proud example, but there it is. Let's move on.

(Oh, one more thing to consider: cybernetics, the merging of actual humans with robotic parts. That should scare the "Westerners" silly, right? Surely they wouldn't cheer such hybrid abominations as... uh, RoboCop... or Luke Skywalker and his robot hand... or the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman... which were huge hits, spawning toys galore, and... Oh, never mind.)

Technorati Tags: article culture debunking Japan myths robots