{"id":381017,"date":"2025-12-30T19:32:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T19:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381017\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T19:32:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T19:32:06","slug":"human-operated-tokyo-robot-venture-allows-housebound-people-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381017\/","title":{"rendered":"Human-operated Tokyo robot venture allows housebound people to work"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a lonely, bedridden child, Ory Yoshifuji wanted nothing more than a second body he could use to attend school and see his friends.<\/p>\n

For three and a half years, sickness forced Ory to stay at home, his bedroom becoming his prison.<\/p>\n

“All I could do was stare at the ceiling day after day. The stress of loneliness at that time became so unbearable,” he says.<\/p>\n

“I wondered, why couldn’t I have a second body?<\/p>\n

“I might have been able to attend school with the other body.”<\/p>\n

Years later \u2014 after studying robotics at university \u2014 he turned his dream into a reality by opening Dawn Avatar Robot Cafe in Tokyo, where cute robot avatars welcome and entertain guests, as well as serve drinks and food.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ory Yoshifuji fulfilled his childhood room of creating a second body for himself through robot technology.\u00a0 (ABC News: James Oaten)<\/p>\n

But unlike the competition, these robots are not powered through artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Instead, they are operated by real people, housebound and disabled, just like Ory was.<\/p>\n

“We’ve managed to create a situation where people, even if they can’t physically move around much, can still participate as members of society and as productive members of the workforce,” Ory says.<\/p>\n

‘A role in society’<\/p>\n

The robot caf\u00e9 has been a hit, growing from about 10 to 100 robot operators, known as pilots.<\/p>\n

Each pilot moves the robot through a specialised program on their home computer, and can see and speak to guests.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\u00a0Customers are served by people-operated robots at Dawn Avatar Robot Cafe.\u00a0 (ABC News: James Oaten)<\/p>\n

The project has now begun a new venture, tapping into Tokyo’s tourism boom.<\/p>\n

Instead of just serving guests at the caf\u00e9, customers can also carry a robot on their back for a personalised tour of the local area.<\/p>\n

Ory says the idea came after many of the robot pilots joked about escaping the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

“[The robots] approach the automatic doors, head outside, and the wi-fi signal would cut out,” he says.<\/p>\n

“They’d often play around like that as a joke.<\/p>\n

“But, of course, they actually wanted to go outside too.”<\/p>\n

One pilot is Machun, who has multiple sclerosis.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Machun started working at the cafe after losing her previous job at a bank.\u00a0 (ABC News: James Oaten\u00a0)<\/p>\n

She lost her job at a banking think tank when her condition worsened after contracting COVID.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t stay awake,” she says.<\/p>\n

“I used to be able to walk, but [then] I couldn’t do that either.”<\/p>\n

For her, working as a robot pilot has given her a second life. Her mental health has flourished, she adds.<\/p>\n

“Someone who could barely sit for an hour can now work six or seven hours a day with breaks,” she says.<\/p>\n

“I now feel like I have a role in society. I really feel that.”<\/p>\n

It is not just the pilots who enjoy the new-found freedom, but the tourists too.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Canadian tourists in Tokyo.\u00a0 (ABC News: James Oaten\u00a0)<\/p>\n

“What I loved about having our tour guide right on our shoulder is I feel like it was really flexible,” Canadian tourist Andrea Wheaton says.<\/p>\n

“Especially with having young kids.”<\/p>\n

Her husband, Dave Schultz, enjoyed the human aspect.<\/p>\n

“You can hear the warmth through their voice and some giggles on their end,” he says.<\/p>\n

‘Working while teleporting’<\/p>\n

The rise of artificial intelligence and robotics has sparked debate about how such technology may destroy jobs and lead to fewer connections between people.<\/p>\n

Ory is proud that his technology is doing the opposite.<\/p>\n

“We are creating a society where we can live without needing to ask anyone for help,” he says.<\/p>\n

“This also means we are creating a society where no-one is needed.”<\/p>\n

He hopes to expand the robot tour guides to cover more areas of Tokyo.<\/p>\n

But one of the biggest challenges is that crowded hotspots can have patchy internet, which would disrupt the robot’s connection to the pilot.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A worker operates a robot that works at Dawn Avatar Robot Cafe in Tokyo.\u00a0 (ABC News: James Oaten\u00a0)<\/p>\n

“I hope we can create this way of working in other locations, or even beyond Japan,” Orly says.<\/p>\n

“It enables working while teleporting.”<\/p>\n

And that, he adds, would help create a “society without loneliness”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a lonely, bedridden child, Ory Yoshifuji wanted nothing more than a second body he could use to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[107909,64,63,99,7110,3146,11804,6771],"class_list":["post-381017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-homebound","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-disability","tag-robot","tag-tokyo","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}