In a quiet aisle of a small supermarket in Tokyo, a robot diligently does its job. Approaching it, he grabs yet another bottle of a flavored drink that humans like, lifts it up and places it on the shelf of a refrigerated unit. Then the next. People come and go.
He looks like a well-integrated self-employed mechanical worker, but he's kind of an illusion. This robot has no mind of its own. Several kilometers away, a human worker remotely monitors his every movement and watches through a virtual reality (VR) headset that provides a robot's eye view.
This is the work of the Japanese company Telexistence, whose Model-T robot is designed to allow people to do physical jobs in supermarkets and other places from the comfort of their homes.
In this case, the robot is working in a FamilyMart store in Tokyo. Eventually, it will handle more than just bottles of drinks - rice balls, bento boxes, and sandwiches should all be on hand.
Model-T is a "human avatar," says Yuichiro Hikosaka, board director of Telexistence.
"You can go anywhere without moving," he says. The concept is called telerobotics or teleoperation, and has been dramatized in dystopian science fiction films such as Surrogates and Sleep Dealer.
Remote-controlled bomb disposal robots have been around for decades, but teleoperative devices are now doing more than ever, including delivering food to people's homes in the Covid-19 era.
Mr. Hikosaka points out that Japan, with its aging population, is currently facing a labor shortage, particularly in low-income jobs. He argues that this could be partially solved by deploying thousands of robots to locations where physical work occasionally needs to be performed and by allowing companies to hire remote people to operate the robot when needed.
"It's maybe a ten-minute job," he explains. "First of all, work in Tokyo, but then ten minutes later you can work in Hokkaido."
Workers enter an online marketplace, choose the activities they want to do, and then wear VR headsets to virtually transport themselves to work. The idea could be particularly tempting right now, Hikosaka suggests, because workers don't have to come into physical contact with other people, reducing the risk of contracting or spreading Covid-19.
However, there are obstacles the company still has to overcome. For one thing, the Model-T doesn't move as fast as a human worker in a supermarket. And the VR headset can cause people to feel dizzy or nauseous, especially if they wear it for extended periods. Mr. Hikosaka says he and his colleagues are working to find solutions to these problems.
More technology for business
But, in reality, the main obstacle is getting supermarkets to accept the technology on a large scale, which is necessary to reduce the production costs of each robot. Mr. Hikosaka does not hide the ambitions of his company. He notes that there are tens of thousands of small supermarkets scattered around Japan, most of which are owned by one of the three companies.
A deal with just one of these companies to supply thousands of branches could catapult Telexistence technology into the mainstream.
"If he likes it, boom," says Mr. Hikosaka.
However, the hype may not be shared by everyone. Carl Frey, who heads the Future of Work program at Oxford Martin School, says he struggles to see the benefits of teleoperated robots in most scenarios.
And when it comes to handling and moving items in shops or warehouses, he says robots are a long way from matching human skills.
"The reason is that robotic hands aren't as skilled as human hands," he explains. "We can pick up virtually any object and manipulate it.
"We know what pressure to apply, how not to break objects and so on."
Telexistence robots may be equipped with pressure sensors and suction devices, notes Hikosaka, but time will tell if the three-fingered hands on the Model-T are reliable enough for everyday work in the real world.
The costs of paying humans to operate robots could make them less attractive to most companies in the short term, says Dr.
In the long run, he adds, autonomous robots could make such technology redundant and threaten swaths of jobs currently being performed by humans.
In a much-discussed article from 2013, he and a colleague estimated that 47% of jobs in the United States could be lost due to automation.
At the moment, Mr. Hikosaka states that telexistence wants to land somewhere in between, with Model-T robots gradually becoming partially automated but still highly controlled by humans. Instead of skillfully managing every movement of the robot, for example, a human operator could simply select the next item to pick up and move - the Model-T will then automatically perform those steps.
Robots could be trained to do this, Hikosaka suggests, after spending years collecting data on how humans carefully manipulate robotic hands to get a good grip on specific objects. In a sense, workers would train devices that could partially replace them in the future.
Ultimately, teleoperating devices are likely to lead to higher levels of automation and fewer jobs available for human workers in some low-paying industries, says Dr. Frey.
It is true that the list of jobs that were once manual but are now done by machines with little or no human supervision is getting longer and longer.
"When these robots are good enough, you don't necessarily want them remotely controlled, you want them to be automatic," he says.
"That's when you eliminate the workers."
