World's First Robot-Staffed Hotel to Open in Japan

[nationalize the fed]

The world's first robot hotel is being planned for a theme park in Japan
Adrian Bridge | Telegraph.co.uk | 03 Feb 2015


Would you like some Java?

Guests checking into a new hotel close to the Japanese city of Nagasaki this summer may find themselves complaining that the service is just a little .... robotic.

With due cause. In a paradigm-shifting development, the hotel in question, the Henn-na Hotel, will be partially staffed by what are termed “actroid" androids – remarkably human-like robots who will be able to greet, carry luggage to rooms, make cups of coffee – and even smile.


The new staff of Japan's Henn-na Hotel may look like this Geminoid F android, developed by Osaka University and ATR. Credit: Osaka University

The development, in a theme park, does not come as a surprise in a country which has long been at the forefront of technological innovation and which some years ago introduced Asimo, the planet’s most advanced humanoid robot capable of running, walking, waving and kicking a football.


Three of the uniformed actroids will serve as reception staff at the Henn-na Hotel

Actroid androids have been developed by Osaka University and manufactured by Kokoro, a branch of the company that licenses Hello Kitty. First unveiled in 2003, the model has been steadily refined with the current generation consisting mainly of robots that have been given the features (and mannerisms) of a young Japanese woman who, in addition to speaking (in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English), will be able to make hand gestures, reciprocate eye movements (and no doubt gauge moods)...

...And if the experiment is successful, expect more where that came from.

Complete article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/japan/11387330/Robots-to-serve-guests-in-Japanese-hotel.html

From the comments:

trp48 3 days ago

By the end of your stay you will be serving the robots! dun dun duuuun!

****************

Meet Chihiro Aico

"The mass replacement of workers by droids is coming like an autonomous freight train and there is little to no discussion of what to do about it.

A receptionist that doesn't take breaks or need health insurance. And that's just the start.

There are 330 million people that will all of a sudden not be needed for anything but to pay taxes they can't pay because they have no work at all."- link

Washington DC is too busy with drones and invasions to bother with planning for what will happen to the Citizens of the US in a radical new future. For shame.

[olddots]

1. wicked pissa

Hope they have a honeymoon sweet for robots to self replicate in .

[nationalize the fed]

2. ^

The faint sound in the distance is the droids beginning to march.

Think it's hard to get a job now? Watch what happens.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. LOL-- the "Henn-na" Hotel

"Henn-na" (henna) = "weird" or "strange" in Japanese. Spelling it "henn-na" is emphasizing the weirdness

[yuiyoshida]

9. Totemo Henn na desu ne

I think so too

[RiverLover]

4. kick

Did you see this article NTF?

Robert Reich: The ‘Sharing Economy’? More Like the ‘Share the Crumbs’ Economy

How would you like to live in an economy where robots do everything that can be predictably programmed in advance, and almost all profits go to the robots’ owners?

Meanwhile, human beings do the work that’s unpredictable—odd jobs, on-call projects, fetching and fixing, driving and delivering, tiny tasks needed at any and all hours—and patch together barely enough to live on.

Brace yourself. This is the economy we’re now barreling toward.

They’re Uber drivers, Instacart shoppers, and Airbnb hosts. They include Taskrabbit jobbers, Upcounsel’s on-demand attorneys, and Healthtap’s on-line doctors.

They’re Mechanical Turks.

The euphemism is the “share” economy. A more accurate term would be the “share-the-scraps” economy.

New software technologies are allowing almost any job to be divided up into discrete tasks that can be parceled out to workers when they’re needed, with pay determined by demand for that particular job at that particular moment.

Customers and workers are matched online. Workers are rated on quality and reliability.

The big money goes to the corporations that own the software. The scraps go to the on-demand workers.

Consider Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk.” Amazon calls it “a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence.”

In reality, it’s an Internet job board offering minimal pay for mindlessly-boring bite-sized chores. Computers can’t do them because they require some minimal judgment, so human beings do them for peanuts—say, writing a product description, for $3; or choosing the best of several photographs, for 30 cents; or deciphering handwriting, for 50 cents.

Amazon takes a healthy cut of every transaction....

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17598/robert_reich_the_sharing_economy_more_like_the_share_the_crumbs_economy

[nationalize the fed]

29. Thanks! Excellent! Reich nails it.

I had not seen that. Ideally, the nation's citizens would be having a national discussion of what to do about this. But Washington DC is busy- with drones, creating enemies and figuring out how to steal what the middle and lower classes still have left.

The big money goes to the corporations

By law. Or, Buy law.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

5. Soon the super rich can retire into their enclaves

guarded by robots and let the rest of us fend for ourselves and die on the outside.

[Revanchist]

6. Oh goody a hotel full of robots, this will never go wrong

[hunter]

7. Android hookers just might save this world.

The oligarchs might never have reason to leave their homes or answer their phones.

Fully lubricated sucking and fucking, and serving up tasty dinners and lines of blow on their bellies too.

Heh.

[yuiyoshida]

8. omg.. that android's accent and voice

sounds like my mom .. I will have to show her this.

[Art_from_Ark]

11. They actually use the Kanji character for "weird" in the name

変なホテル.And the way it's romanized-- "Henn-na Hotel" (with a drawn-out "n" sound)-- makes it sound *really* weird.

[yuiyoshida]

13. Its wierd, that they would even use that...

All Japanese know that word... and its a weird selling point ...

If you went to Las Vegas would you check into the BATES MOTEL? Would most people want to check into a WIERD HOTEL or go to the HORROR CAFE?

I think most people would avoid it ...and take their money else where

[Art_from_Ark]

14. It does seem like a weird selling point

My guess is that the name is geared toward college students and twenty-somethings who would relish the thought of staying at a "weird" hotel.

[yuiyoshida]

15. But Art I have heard that

most Japanese are superstitious and Shinto is full of superstitious things, like water spirits that will drag you under water and eat you..and all kinds of gestures that are done for Superstitions. Maybe that's why Japanese horror flicks are so terrifying... they don't hold back on anything psychological and creepy. Wouldn't something like that hotel tend to keep most people away.. ?

[Art_from_Ark]

16. I think older guests might be turned off by the name

But then you've got the anime-otaku types who might love this type of place. And compared to the prices of the other 2 hotels in the park, it's cheap (about 1/3 of the price), so that would be a drawing point for college students who don't have a lot of money.

[yuiyoshida]

17. This all reminds me of that Restaruant in Taiwan ...

Modern Toilet Restaurant











http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Toilet_Restaurant

Its the kind of place I would avoid.... totally.

[Art_from_Ark]

18. I'm surprised the Japanese didn't think of that first

[yuiyoshida]

19. LOL!

right? But hey, this place may end up having branches go to Japan, if it ever becomes a chain.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. I can see it catching on in some trendy places like Roppongi, Harajuku and Shibuya

Where I live, though? Never. My city gives new meaning to the world "dull".

[yuiyoshida]

21. oh for sure in

Shibuya and Harajuku. Isn't Roppongi more for shopping by the more affluent? Would it be popular with the rich jet setters?

[Art_from_Ark]

23. Roppongi is popular with clubbers and foreigners

There are some ritzy places there, but there are also a lot of dive bars and other establishments of questionable repute there. You might be thinking of Ginza, which for the most part is geared toward people who think nothing of plunking down $1000 for a designer handbag.

[yuiyoshida]

26. Ah okay...

I remember studying about Tokyo in my language classes, and Tokyo has so many districts.. all of which I would love to visit one day!

[Art_from_Ark]

27. Tokyo does have lots of districts

Some of them can be pretty much "anything goes" places, while others, like the district where I work, are "prim and proper" and don't "cotton" much to the weird stuff.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about Shinjuku. That can be one weeeeeird place

[ND-Dem]

10. i don't want to go to a hotel staffed by robots. one of the interesting things about travel is

interaction with other people.

[Jesus Malverde]

12. organizing low skilled labor is a quixotic quest.

Unions will go the way of the buggy whip makers, the teamsters and a million other professional drivers will be replaced.

Robots are coming and will be here soon. The question will be what will we do with all those they replace.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. And now, you can have one!

[pinboy3niner]

24. What could go wrong?

[First Speaker]

25. Asimov's Fourth Law of Robotics...

...a robot shall never accept a tip from a human being, or--thru inaction--permit any other robot to accept one...

[Alkene]

28. "All your luggage are belong to us" n/t