2020 has been wild in more ways than one. I feel like I’ve said that a million times already, but as the year keeps on chugging along, things keep getting weirder and weirder. That continued today when I found out Japan is testing these seven-foot robots in convenience stores.
These massive “stock boys” are connected to human operators who are able to control these NBA wannabes using virtual reality (as demonstrated in the video above).
The reasoning behind these androids is due to the country’s labor shortage. In a statement made by the bots creator, Telexistence, they say that seven-foot Model-T will give stores the opportunity to, “operate with less number of workers and enable them to recruit employees regardless of the store’s physical location”.
I honestly don’t know what to think about this. I mean, great for Japan helping with the country’s labor shortage, but this feels like the beginning of the end!
Yes, the robots are controlled by man, but at what point do they NOT need that operator to stock shelves? I can’t imagine it will be a very long time between now and then based on how fast technology progresses today. And with the United States on fire and pollution continually rising, Earth may be trying its best to re-create Disney’s Wall-E.
Hopefully the world doesn’t end up in that kind of a state, but you never know. With all the pessimism in the world today it can seem like the world is crumbling anyway.
But at the end of the day, Wall-E is a pretty cool dude. So I guess if we get seven-foot versions of him around the globe things can’t be that bad!
