Robot workforce can't hide Japan's inconvenient truths

Also last year, Japan's SoftBank Corporation CEO Masayoshi Son recommended that Japanese manufacturing industry employ all-purpose robots endowed with artificial intelligence as workers to stave off any impending labor shortage in Japan.

His company started to use new "workers" - human-like robots, named "Pepper" - in June. With two large eyes and a white, 120-centimeter body, Pepper is the first robot that can sense human feelings and make its own decision to "act with love", in Son's words. The robots are expected to play babysitters, party promoters, and most importantly, family members.

In Son's arithmetic, one robot is equal to three human workers given that the cost of labor for robots is extraordinarily cheap and they can work nonstop for 24 hours. If one robot that can work for five years is manufactured at a cost of 1 million yen ($ 8,305), its "monthly wage" would be 17,000 yen - far below the average for human workers. Son's calculation makes robots very attractive.

He suggested that Japan produce 30 million all-purpose robots - the equivalent of 90 million human workers - to create a total workforce of almost 100 million strong when combined with the current number of human workers.

Japan wants to increase the use of robots 20-fold in five years, with hopes that the next industrial revolution - after the internet age - will begin in their country.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, Japan already ranks first for robot use. More than 300,000 or 40 percent of the world's robots are at work in the country, mostly in industrial jobs.

Can robots bail out Japan - or in Abe's words, "bring back Japan"?

Critics say robots are merely a politically expedient palliative that allows politicians and corporate leaders to avoid wrenchingly difficult social issues, such as Japan's deep-seated aversion to immigration, its chronic shortage of affordable day care and Japanese women's increasing rejection of motherhood.

Japan's health ministry warned that a decline in birthrates is expected to continue in the country. Should measures to boost its population growth work, Japan would have to brave the new world where robotic Japanese would outnumber human Japanese in the not-too-distant future.

The author is China Daily's Tokyo bureau chief. caihong@chinadaily.com.cn