No escaping rise of a robot workforce

Across the desk, our eyes met and my heart leaped. Then, she blinked and broke the spell, leaving in its place a vague worry about the ongoing drive to hike Alberta’s minimum wage.

Now, down the years, I’ve set foot in some weird and wonderful places, but never one quite as strange — literally and figuratively — as the Henn na Hotel in the upscale Ginza district of Tokyo.

Loosely translated, the name means “strange,” and for once, there’s truth in advertising. You see, the hotel is virtually run by robots, including the couple of striking young ladies that help you check in at reception.

Many visitors are initially caught unawares, until the robot, with celluloid skin and blinking eyes, bursts into life, addressing the weary traveller in one of four languages — Japanese, English, Chinese or Korean — depending on the details contained in their just-scanned passport.

The 98-room hotel would normally expect to have a staff of 30, but this one exists with only seven living, breathing humans covering an entire 24-hour day. It means, apart from a visiting bed-changing crew, there are never more than three people on duty at one time.

But there are robots everywhere — not just checking in guests, but cleaning floors and windows, carrying luggage, cutting grass and suggesting where to dine for the evening. And soon, you won’t need a room key — facial recognition will open the door.

Manager Takahiro Nakamura says guests are often taken aback, but soon come to love and appreciate the robots. They also love the cheaper rates such automation allows the hotel to charge. “In order to improve productivity, we’d like to use more robots,” he says. That’s because

Increasingly ... robots are becoming less of a rarity in the West.

robots are never sick, don’t whine about nonexistent pay and never need a toilet break.

Japan has reason for the rapid development and use of robots across society. In fact, they’re becoming ubiquitous — the Henn na group has just opened its first robot-only cafe in Tokyo, while nursing homes are being populated by such machines doing the heavy lifting humans can’t or won’t do. Meanwhile, self-driving buses are being introduced to help old folk get around in the remote countryside. Attend the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and expect a robot to show you to your seat.

Yet, this doesn’t cause the employment anxiety similar automation is generating in North America. That’s because Japan’s running out of people, and with a society avidly adverse to mass immigration, the only other solution to an aging, declining population is a robotic one.

Increasingly, however, robots are becoming less of a rarity in the West. Fast food chains such as McDonald’s and Wendy’s are rapidly introducing more automation, while Amazon is experimenting with supermarkets employing the bare minimum of humans.

It’s a trend showing no sign of abating. Which is why the provincial government’s move to jack up the minimum wage to $15 an hour by October isn’t the simple solution to low pay it first appears. The higher the cost of us humans, the more incentive for businesses to go the Henn na Hotel route to profitability.

But it isn’t just the hospitality industry in the robotic firing line. The day I stepped across the threshold of this strange hotel, thousands of miles away, Suncor was announcing plans to replace hundreds of well-paid drivers working at its massive oilsands facilities with self-driving trucks. Meanwhile, a Senate committee on future transportation trends recently predicted the development of autonomous vehicles threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs in the transport, parking and trucking industries.

Back here in Japan, the drive to design and develop ever more complicated machines to both work and entertain continues at a blistering pace. Surely, some jobs must be safe from this tsunami of automation? Well, consider that currently, the most popular pet in this wonderful country isn’t actually an animal at all; it’s a cuddly robotic dog.

And you thought being a vet would provide guaranteed lifetime employment? Think again.