Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: Japanese Convenience Stores Are Hiring Robots Run By Workers in the
Philippines

Link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/21/...

Filipino workers in Manila are remotely operating robots that restock
convenience store shelves across Tokyo. The partnership represents a new
economic model where physical labor can be offshored through telepresence.
Around 60 workers at Astro Robotics monitor the machines and intervene when
problems occur about 4% of the time. They earn between $250 and $315 per
month. Japan faces severe labor shortages but has resisted expanding
immigration. Offshoring the work through robots solves this while
dramatically reducing costs. Filipino workers are also training the AI
systems designed to eliminate the need for human operators entirely. Tokyo-
based Telexistence has collected extensive data from its workers and is
providing it to a San Francisco startup building fully autonomous robots. The
combination of automation and offshoring creates what one University of
Michigan professor called a "double whammy" for workers in developed nations.
It also exploits workers in developing countries who build the tools meant to
replace them. The market for AI agents is expected to grow eightfold to $43
billion by 2030. Human-only work is forecast to drop 27% over the next five
years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528