In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants
by rbanffy on 4/5/2026, 10:31:16 PM
Comments
by: weslleyskah
I wonder how the hikikomori problem in Japan will be aggravated by this. The situation was already dire in the 2000s. [0] The parents of the early generations of neets are aging and dying, not to mention that they must be growing quite old. Now robots will come. Perhaps this will serve as a warning for a new welfare system in Japan.<p>[0] Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation (2007)
4/6/2026, 12:41:01 AM
by: maerF0x0
"No one wants" usually includes an insufficient wage, sometimes also an issue of insufficient investment in training for skilled folks. eg if you need a doctor in 12 years you have to start more or less today.<p>A quick google suggests ~18% of their working age people do not have jobs, which naturally could be shifted by incentives like money or training.<p>(Edit, because people are confused, I'm not talking about unemployment rate, i'm talking about labor non-participation rate as a measure of people who could be enticed into the workforce with a living wage)
4/5/2026, 11:22:19 PM
by: canpan
I went to a chain Family Restaurant recently here in Japan. The food is brought by a robot for a while now. Recently you get your seat selected at a touchscreen. You can pay at your table's tablet using PayPay. There is still some waiter staff, but it being reduced to the past. The only part that did not change much yet is the kitchen.<p>I said to myself to stop going, if there is no human staff left. On the other hand, small shops with good atmosphere are thriving.
4/5/2026, 11:56:43 PM
by: eucryphia
The job no one wants?<p>Grunting out 2.6 babies before you’re 35.<p>Who’s paying for your nursing home? Tax the robot’s income? Will your demographic replacements vote for that?
4/5/2026, 11:44:15 PM
by: 01100011
Japan is in a demographic decline. They need all the robots they can get.
4/6/2026, 12:35:14 AM
by: mamami
Meanwhile in the US they're replacing artists, writers, and teachers
4/5/2026, 11:31:17 PM
by: fhn
just like nobody in the US is qualified to work in tech so companies have to outsource jobs?
4/6/2026, 12:36:14 AM
by: 7373737373
If Universal Basic Income was a thing, this would probably happen much faster globally
4/5/2026, 11:47:07 PM
by: Apreche
It’s amazing to use technology to save humans from toil. The question is, who owns the robot? Who benefits from the labor it produces?<p>The techno utopia we imagine is a world where nobody has to work. All our needs are taken care of and we live a life of leisure. But as long as there is ownership of the automated systems, those owners will hoard all the wealth generated by that automation.<p>Labor expenditures and taxes are the only times the wealthy have to share their wealth with the rest of us. If they succeed in disintermediating labor, and governments fail to tax them, the oligarchs will live a life of unlimited luxury while the rest of us die in poverty.
4/5/2026, 11:46:56 PM
by: Simulacra
The article seems to say that it's not jobs nobody wants, but rather a labor shortage from an aging population. Japan just seems to be running out of people for its labor market.
4/5/2026, 11:19:46 PM
by: msla
They're coming for the jobs immigrants would be taking if the Japanese government weren't so xenophobic.
4/5/2026, 11:54:12 PM
by: TiaMane
Robot war will be cinematic, will probably safe lives
4/5/2026, 10:54:32 PM
by: slimebot80
[flagged]
4/5/2026, 11:58:11 PM