Patrick Tucker Thank You Very Much, Mr. Roboto

Japan’s unique research and development environment for robotics telegraphs how robots and humans will co-evolve.
I’m in a strangely lit subterranean room in Kyoto, Japan, and for the sake of the experiment in which I am participating, I’m pretending to be lost. A large “Mall Map” is mounted on a wall in front of me. I move toward it at a leisurely pace, in the manner of a man trying hard not to draw attention to himself. When I reach the map, I stop. A whirring sound of gears moving in a motor...