On a stroll through Tokyo, you can meet humanoid robots like Pepper, touting the latest smartphone deals outside SoftBank shops. But robots promoting corporations and their products are the glossy face of much deeper changes. The Japanese economy, mostly stagnant since the early 1990s, is currently enjoying rapid growth in industrial robot exports. As China automates its manufacturing sector, Japanese robotics companies are benefiting. Robot exports to China grew from over $3 billion in 2012 to nearly $4.5 billion in 2016, and are predicted to reach $6.8 billion by the end of 2017. Advances in the development of AI and humanoid robots, such as those on display at Tokyo’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, promise to extend this technological revolution beyond factory automation, and into our
daily lives.