Robot shop assistants trialled in Japan
{
Date Posted:
November-19-2009 10:46
17
}
A department store in Tokyo trialled a speech-recognising robot as a shop assistant in an attempt to deal with the city’s hordes of shoppers.
The robot, named Saya, was developed at the Tokyo University of Science in 2004. Her initial job was as a substitute teacher at a Tokyo primary school, where she was able to catch students passing notes and copying homework.
Department store Takashimaya tested Saya at its information desk for a week in October. She was able to give more than 700 responses to shoppers’ queries and complaints, even making small talk and telling people about her “history”.
Even though Saya is clearly a robot and makes some scary facial expressions, such as her angry face pictured here, many Japanese shoppers still bowed to her after getting their directions, proving their sense of politeness to be unwavering.
Saya has now returned to her desk job at Tokyo University. There is no word as to whether the department store plans on offering her a job in the future.
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