Jobs and Automation

Robots and the Japanese mind

In Japan, robots are perceived positively

My youth was filled with Japanese robots such as Ultra Man while my children were occupied with Transformers. We note an interesting article by Gillian Tett in Financial Times on June 12th, 2019. The article touched on the positive acceptance of robots in Japan as compared to other countries, mainly the UK and US.

She wrote that a survey by Pew last year suggested 83 per cent of Japanese people think that automation raises inequality. But they are less concerned that using automation will make it hard for them to find a job, and an unusually high proportion think that a robot-filled economy would be far more efficient.

Meanwhile, the Japanese tend to view robots as a source of pride, not terror, since they highlight the country’s ability to innovate, with 300-plus robots per 10,000 employees, Japan has the highest take-ups of robots in the world.

One reason for that phenomenon is that robotics is an industry where Japanese business is ahead of international competitors, creating a sense of national optimism. Another subtle factor is that popular culture has tended to present robots as being friendly. Think of Astro Boy series, a manga and anime creation  that most adult Japanese watched on TV in their youth: its robotic protagonist presents  an appealing and helpful face that is easy to embrace.

In Britain, however, today’s adults grew up watching TV series such as Doctor Who, which offered a more ambivalent take on robots, with mechanized adversaries such as Daleks and Cybermen that truly terrifying for young viewers. So too in the US, where Hollywood’s robots were at least as likely to harm as to help –to be a relentless Terminator, say, as to be a cute R2 D2.

Then there is a third more tangible-issue that affects Japanese attitudes towards robots: demography. Japan’s birth rate is so low (1.43 births per woman) that its working-age population is shrinking at an alarming rate. Companies in Japan have responded by recruiting more women. Indeed, one little-noticed detail about modern Japan is that the population of women between 15 and 64 years old who now work is about 68.5 per cent, higher than in the US. The country has also started to hire a few more workers from countries such as China, Vietnam and India to fill positions ranging from elderly care to the development of AI.

Miss Tett says that these cannot entirely plug the labour shortage and there is a considerable hostility towards immigration. That makes automation seem less terrifying by default.

Then, there is a fourth issue: the social safety net. Last year’s Pew r survey revealed that 63 per cent of people in Japan think that it is up to the government—not  the individual— to help the population to adopt to automation. Perhaps that is not so surprising: Japan publicly-funded social safety net remains pretty robust, and there is still a high sense of social cohesion, common purpose and sacrifice.

In the US, however, only about 30 per cent of the public expect the government to help with automation, while more than double that number expect the burden to fall on the individual. That may sound more empowering, but Miss Tett suspected it is also a recipe for anxiety.

Miss Tett noted that our views on robots will change in the coming years. It would be interesting to see what happens, for example, in places such as Italy, where birth rate is also falling sharply. It would be more interesting to see whether political protest eventually forces the US government to take measures to strengthen the social safety net in the face of automation.

The key point is this: when it comes to robots, Japan may yet have an edge over other nations, not just in term of its technology but in its attitude too, or, at least, its recognition that robots may yet  enable the county to keep growing even its population shrinks. Call this the unexpected upside of Astro Boy –or maybe a sign that it is time for Hollywood to embrace robots more whole-heatedly.

The Situation in Malaysia

As a nation, Malaysia has a population of about 30 million The Malaysian government has been encouraging its citizens to have more children so as to reach a targeted population of 60 million for sustaining economic growth.

We noted a number of observations in our previous job as Adviser, Tabung Warisan Anak Selangor (TAWAS), a foundation that monitors and records the birth of new-borns in the state of Selangor. First, the number of children among a typical Chinese parent is two. Second, the number of children in a typical Malay family is five. It is projected that the percentage of Chinese in the Malaysian population will significantly decline due to this small number of children in the long run.

The increasing population will mean that the country must find jobs for its young adults. Recently it was revealed that a significant number of graduates are unemployed. This was worrying to the nation’s planners. Robots and automation may not be perceived to be friendly to Malaysians as robots would lead to less job opportunities.