The Olympic and Paralympic Games as a technology showcase (original) (raw)
Application of Technology in the Tokyo Olympics
TECHIES/Malaysia Board of Technologists (MBOT), 2022
Japan and its robotics technology have a long history of technological advancement, whereas it progressed to unprecedented levels of expertise in robot creation and deployment since debuted in 1928. According to the International Federation of Robotics, Japan is now the world’s leading robotics producer. Japanese history shows that they have successfully created a friendly-looking humanoid name “Gakutensoku”, which was also the first Japanese robot, which was considered a big success at the time (Frumer 2020). The advancement has created “CUE5” robot, which is a basketball thrower that was introduced in the Tokyo Olympic (Golliver, 2021). This motivated the government to use its cutting-edge technology to address the unprecedented challenges of Covid-19, especially for the 2020 Olympic Games.
DIJ Workshop, 2021
Technical artefacts, technologies and infrastructures are shaping our everyday life in manifold ways. At the same time, their development, promotion and/or rejection is influenced by cultural patterns, ethical principles, social values as well as power relations. Thus, their study can be perceived as a promising starting-point for transdisciplinary and intercultural queries for research on intersections between Science, Technology and Society. In this workshop, we bring together scholars who share an interest in the analysis of co-construction processes of technology and society in Japan and beyond. What kind of visions exist in relation to autonomous driving in Japan? How can visions of technology-assisted care be co-created in Germany? What differences can be found in intercultural comparisons of AI ethics between the UK and Japan? What are success factors for co-creation approaches to transform social systems in Japanese municipalities? Moreover, which models or ideas of "participation" in development exist? Our research initiative aims at fostering a network of scholars of Japanese Studies and those from other disciplines with interest in methodologies and comparative research across different countries on topics such as medical technologies and care robotics, digital transformation and AI, mobility and autonomous driving, to mention a few. Furthermore, it strives to broaden linkages between the Japanese and the European research community of Science, Technology and Society and beyond.
2023
According to History of Information (2003-2004), the first industrial robot was built by Unimation, the world’s first robot manufacturing company, founded in 1956 by Devol and Joseph Engelberger in Danbury, Connecticut (U.S. Patent N°. 2,988,237). Later on in 1966, while deciding to accelerate the internationalization of Unimation Inc., in Asia, Engelberger built a partnership with Kawasaki Aircraft in order to introduce the industrial robot in Japan. Since then, Kawasaki Heavy Industries (the predecessor of Kawasaki Aircraft) accelerated the intensive use of robot in the Japanese industries and help the country simultaneous become the Industrial power and the World Leading Robot Power of the 20th century. In fact, since the end of 50s, Japan did experience an economic miracle known as ‘ Japanese miracle’. Accordingly, De Chalmers Johnson (1982) found that over the whole postwar era, 1946 to 1976, the Japanese economy increased 55-fold. By the end of the 70s, Japan accounted for about 10 percent of the world’s economic activity though occupying only 0.3 per cent of the world’s population. Furthermore, according to Yungao et al. (2019), background Japan's manufacturing industry developed rapidly after World War II. In the 1970s, industrial modernization was basically achieved. In the 1980s, it surpassed Europe, the United States and other industrial powers in the fields of automobiles and semiconductors, and became the world's second largest manufacturing country. This above performance and the intensive use of robot in industries resulted from Japanese specificities and special context that took place in the country since the 50s. In fact, during the miracle, the manufacturing sector that did account for 30 % of the GNP at that time was facing serious labor shortage. Furthermore, the Japanese car manufacturers, which increased their production capacity in order to catch up full-scale motorization during the period of rapid economic growth, were struggling with securing workers for welding, one of Japan's " 3K" (Kitsui, or " hard"; Kitanai, or " dirty"; and kiken, or " dangerous") jobs. As a result, the above context and circumstances accelerated the intensive use of industrial robot first in the automotive industry but later on in the whole industry. Since then, while the industrial robot was introduced by US in Japan, they’ve known how to effectively use the Robot-driven Economy in order to improve their ‘ Price-based and Quality-based Competitive Advantage ’ . However, beside the role of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Automotive Industries, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) that replaced the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the Monozukuri played an important role into the prosperity of Japan and adoption and spread of Robot-driven Economy of Japan. In fact, the major mission of METI was about wealth creation rather than wealth redistribution. Since then, METI focused on an Export-oriented Agenda that brought an international perspective to the task of growing Japan’s presence on the world stage and opening doors to a prosperous future. Furthermore, thanks to METI, there has been the high-speed growth that began in 1955 and the adoption of the keynesianism that did play an important role into the Japanese miracle of the 1946 to 1976. Moreover, there has been an adoption of the ‘ Anything-but-politics ’ approach in order to transcend political boundaries. In addition, since the end of the 20th century, METI did help spread the concept of ‘ monozukuri’ that continued to accelerate the intensive use of robot into the Japanese economy. Therefore, like the adoption of the Market-oriented State-centric capitalism that transformed the West from the 18th century to the mid-20th century (James Michael Walker, 2022), there has been a Japanese Market-oriented and State-centric capitalism embedded in the actions of METI driven by the ‘ Plan-oriented Market Economy System’ since the 1974. As a result, thanks to METI, the strong Japanese Export-oriented economy did help the country become ‘ Second Largest Economy’ of the World behind US from the 70s to the 2010s on the one hand and the pillar of the Easternization of the Globalization on the second hand. By doing so, Japanese miracle and Easternization of the Globalization has started to be viewed as imitation of the western’s economic transformation. In fact, beside the introduction of industrial robot and the adoption of the Market-oriented State-centric capitalism, James Michael Walker (2021), while focusing on the Capitalisation Effects of Urbanization, also showed how the positive correlation within Transportation infrastructure spending, agglomeration economies, innovation, trade and prosperity became the driving factors of the economic upgrading of Europe and US on the one hand and of the Europeanization and Americanization respectively from the 18th and 19th centuries for Europe and 20th century to now for the US on the second hand. Furthermore, he did show the strategic role played by the State-centric capitalism and the MNCs and Multinationalization process into this transformation. Nevertheless, and fortunately, Japan has also known how to capture the maximum opportunities offered by the acceleration of the Maturity stage of IT with its associated technologies such as Blockchains, Cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Automation on the one hand and the increasing the demand of and use of Robots in factories at the global level mainly in Asia and in most advanced nations of the North such as US and Germany on the second hand to expect becoming the World Leading Robot Power of the 21st century. In fact, the new World Robotics 2020 Industrial Robots by the IFR (2022) report shows a record of 2.7 million industrial robots operating in factories around the world-an increase of 12 %. Sales of new robots remain on a high level with 373, 000 units shipped globally in 2019. Furthermore, according to Milton Guerry, president of the IFR, the stock of industrial robots operating in factories around the world today marks the highest level in history. However, at the sectorial and spatial levels, the use of robots and new installations has remained concentrated. Furthermore, they found that there’s a hyperdependence to Japan regarded to the supply of Robots. Since then, in context of race to global leadership within US and China, Easternization of the Globalization, reconfiguration of the GVCs and reinforcement of the position of Asia as Top Destination of Outsourcing not only for the Intangible-light Tasks but for the Intangible-intensive Activities, US as a pioner of the Robot and Digital Revolutions has decided to become the New World Leading Robot Power of the 21st century in order to accelerate its reindustrialization and strengthen its global competitiveness and leadership. Key Words : Labor shortage ; Industrial Robot ; Industrial Power ; World Leading Robot Power of 20th Century ; Japanese Miracle ; Robot-driven Economy ; Price-based and Quality-based Competitive Advantage ; Easternization of the Globalization ; Market-oriented State-centric Capitalism ; Plan-oriented Market Economy System ; Japanese Export-oriented Economy ; Monozukuri ; Maturity stage of IT ; World Leading Robot Power of the 21st century.