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Robots are getting insane and
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they promise to transform industries
and even entire economies.
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And thanks to AI,
they're accelerating faster than ever.
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But this one can't even walk.
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But these guys keep making them
because it's actually tackling a problem
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that none of these other machines
really solved,
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and it's actually changing people's lives
without AI.
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I spent the last couple of weeks in Tokyo
to try to understand
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how they're actually doing this.
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So I want to tell you the story
behind this and the story of the founder,
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because I really think it can change
the way that we look at robots
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and how we experience
this strange new world...
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So my personal curiosity with robots
first started a couple of years ago,
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when a humanoid robot
accurately guessed my age,
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and there was something kind of creepy
about this experience.
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I know it's not a human, but it could see.
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It could reason based on what it saw,
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and it kind of moves
and looks like a human.
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And maybe you've just watched
too much sci fi, but this could come
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from a real rational fear
of being replaced.
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According to the study from the World
Economic Forum that literally came out
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last week, AI and robotics will create
170 million new roles by 2030,
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but it will also displace 92 million jobs.
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And transitioning all these people
to these new types of jobs.
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It's not really going to be that easy
because they require completely different
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skill sets.
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So what happens when we start
to get more of these robots
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that can not only do the manual labor,
but also see
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and reason and talk to you like a person.
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Hello. Hi.
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Can I ask you some questions?
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Oh, okay. Okay.
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Are you a social person?
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very shy.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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This is Chifuyu
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And she is not an AI.
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She was a stage sound operator
for 15 years until, at the age of 35,
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she was suddenly diagnosed with a disease
called chronic fatigue syndrome.
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It makes me exhausted.
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When I walked about ten meters.
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So instead, she uses these avatar robots
to work at this cafe in Tokyo
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where instead of replacing humans,
it creates jobs
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for a group of people
who are typically left behind.
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I have a camera on my forehead
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so I can see you very well.
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I'm operating this robot
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using a laptop PC at home.
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Yeah.
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And I can move my head and hands
with a single click.
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One last question.
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Can you tell me
one of the weirdest people you met?
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It's a very difficult question.
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In Japanese,
these robots are called bunshin
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which translates into dividing the body.
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The ninja art of bunshin
no jutsu means clone technique,
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where you divide the body
into multiple copies and control them.
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And here at Dawn cafe,
there's three different types
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of bunshin piloted by people
who've lost function of their bodies.
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As paid employees at this cafe.
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This is Naoki.
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He has severe heart failure,
and he's waiting for a heart transplant.
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And it's a condition
that doesn't allow him to work.
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Normal job.
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There were some awkward moments
during this interaction.
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Okay?
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What did you do before?
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OriHime operator?
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Where are you from?
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but bunshin also means alter ego.
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Last time you said you were
the, Japanese Tom cruise.
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I will come back to the prompt.
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Okay?
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Two, three.
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Oh, yeah.
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APPLAUSE!
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Oh. Oh.
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Thank you.
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PLEASE GIVE ME MORE APPLAUSE COME ON!
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the kettle is warm...
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Smells very good.
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arigatogozaimas
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It's very good.
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And that's how a pilot makes coffee.
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This barista robot is from Kawada Robotics.
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This is Kawada San, and his company
actually specializes in industrial robots.
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But somehow they got involved in the cafe.
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I believe we met in 2019
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at, this event called Lives Tokyo.
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Then Ory-San said that there's this one lady
who used to be a barista.
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One day when she was training,
her arms didn't work.
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Then she was diagnosed with ALS.
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So she lost the job,
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and she's staying home in Nagoya,
which is 300 km away from here.
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Ory-San wanted her to be a barista again.
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Engineers are here, and she's over there.
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They never, ever met.
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But she would tell how to move the hot
water.
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How slowly press it down.
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What would be nice movement for the robot
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to be serving the coffee
and without meeting at all.
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They created the tele barista.
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Since coming here to
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Japan, I've decided to completely change
the direction of the video
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because I found this
to be a much more interesting story.
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And this seamless collaboration
with my team would not have been possible
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without Milanote,
who was also the sponsor of today's video.
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We use Milanote to organize
all of our research
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from the early brainstorming phase
all the way to the scene breakdowns.
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Just having a visual board
clarifies everything,
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and we can start to make connections
that we didn't see before.
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When we're working remotely,
being able to share and edit boards in
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real time during our meetings
makes our collaboration very seamless.
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It's kind of replaced PDF for us.
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It's completely free with no time limit,
so you can sign up using
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the link in the description
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What I found interesting
is that this robot was using human tools,
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and that's because the Kawada robots
are actually designed specifically
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for an economy like Japan,
which is full of small companies
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who's not quite big enough to buy assembly
robots to perform one specific task
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because they need someone
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who can do a variety of things
like painting or packaging.
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So humans are naturally the best
for this kind of job
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because we have
these amazing things called hands.
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But Japan also has
a shrinking labor force.
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So these robots are designed to work side
by side with humans.
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It can change hands and it can
reconfigure itself for a variety of tasks.
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But despite being human size, Kawada-San
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had a very strong opinion
on what the robots should look like.
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These robots, they look like robots.
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They they don't look or.
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I don't think they're trying
to resemble anything like a human.
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Is that an intentional design choice,
or is it more like economical
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to design like this ?
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Robot is a tool.
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So to us, to look like a tool, like,
but,
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for industrial robot, it should,
it should say what it cannot do.
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I mean, the robot is not very smart.
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That's
why the head is so small, it has two arms...
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So it's predictable how it moves.
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Yes.
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To answer a question, the,
appearance is very intentional.
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Problem with the humanoid human shaped
robot is people expected to be able
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to do everything, but it really can’t.
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if it's, resembles too much like a human.
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People feel it's creepy.
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He's talking
about the uncanny valley effect,
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which was coined in the 1970s
by the roboticist Masahiro Mori,
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describing the sensation of discomfort
that we feel
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when confronted with human like entity.
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And this graph describes a pretty
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well as an artificial being
gets closer to human likeness.
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There's a certain point,
just at the point of being almost human,
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that makes us feel
extremely uncomfortable.
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In that sense,
the OriHime are really well designed.
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The OriHime can also be controlled
by simply pressing a button
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or moving it around on your iPad.
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This is what the pilot can see,
and with a simple click, the OriHime
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Humans can create gestures
and expressions.
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Some of these people have never had
movement in their necks or hands.
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So for a lot of people,
this is the first time
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that they're able
to express their emotions like this.
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But before getting into the robots,
I want to tell you
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a little bit about the person behind
this...
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This is Ory Yoshifuji,
the roboticist behind the OriHime
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He was ill between elementary
through middle school,
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and he was bedridden for about three
and a half years,
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and during this time
he experienced extreme isolation.
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So he decided to go into robotics with
the core goal of eliminating loneliness.
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You're limiting
certain things from the design.
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Was that a part of the design process
when you were designing the robot?
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Noh Masks are neutral by design,
and they rely entirely on the performer
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to bring them to life.
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These three
completely different expressions.
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Yeah, they're all from the same mask.
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Just view from different angles.
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So a slight
tilt of the head, or a change in posture,
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or the way the light hits
the mask can completely transform
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the expression
the OriHime work in a very similar way.
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Instead of showing
preprogrammed emotions on a face screen,
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they depend on the pilot's ability to
project their feelings through movement.
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It's not just about pushing buttons.
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The pilot actually has to align their
intent with every who's that they choose.
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But before even getting into these robots,
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Ori actually tried
a couple different experiments.
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The first thing he designed
was a wheelchair.
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Ory just told me that he realized
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even high tech wheelchairs
couldn't help people in society.
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Seems pretty obvious,
but I had to move my Airbnb
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and I realized there's no elevators.
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The built environment in Japan is
just not designed for accessibility, and
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I really think that even the most high
tech wheelchair is not going to help. Hi.
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So as you can see, these robots
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take up quite a lot of space
and they move along this black line.
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And, you know, if I was a business,
I would want to try
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to cluster the space as much as possible
and pack in as many tables.
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But by creating space for the OriHime
to move around,
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the space actually becomes accessible.
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In architecture,
we actually have a name for this.
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See, curb cuts were originally
put in place for wheelchair users,
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but actually it ended up
helping other groups of people
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like people pushing strollers or cyclists.
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So we call this the curb cut effect.
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Features designed
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for specific groups
often end up helping a broader population.
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But it wasn't until he met this online
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stranger that he started actively
developing these robots.
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He's talking about Banda,
who was in an accident
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when he was four years old,
and he was paralyzed from the neck down.
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So he hired Banda to be his first pilot
to test out the first iteration of the OriHime
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And how did you feel when you saw him
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first time using the OriHime?
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Aizuchi is this thing that Japanese people do
that's like it.
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It's a way of communicating to the
other person that you're paying attention.
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But a lot of it is kind of relying
on body language as well.
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And according to Ori this helped Banda
to join the circle of people.
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So using the OriHime Banda,
could finally communicate
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and go different places.
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But there was a key piece
that was missing.
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He didn't have a reason
to be at a certain place,
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and without this purpose,
he never felt like he belonged anywhere.
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And that's where the café comes in.
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At the cafe.
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They work, they serve people, and
they have a routine and they have a role.
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The architecture in this case
is the glue that ties everything together.
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So in the end it's about choice.
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Having a choice
is what puts everyone on an equal plane.
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There was one thing that I noticed
while I was there.
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This was when the cafe was about to close.
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The OriHime were chatting amongst themselves,
but like almost all of us,
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there are things in the physical space
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that the planned world
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of the virtual space doesn't provide.
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You can make little chitchat
and you can make conversation.
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And it's these in-between moments that
actually create this human connection.
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In fact,
that's how I came across this cafe.
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And that's also how Ori
and Kawada met each other,
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because their booth just happened to be
next to each other in this conference.
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the world is not perfect.
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You know, life is messy.
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And I think these robotic inventions,
rather than helping us be more perfect
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or more efficient,
it highlights the beauty and the spaces
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in between.
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Lovely to meet you.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you.
