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<h3 style="margin-top:0;"><a style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 21px;line-height: 30px; margin-top:25px; margin-bottom: 10px;" href="http://u.osu.edu/mclc/2018/07/23/wild-about-tech/" target="_blank">Wild about tech</a></h3>
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<p>Source: NYT (7/21/18)<br />
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/technology/china-future-robot-waiters.html">Wild About Tech, China Even Loves Robot Waiters That Can’t Serve</a><br />
<em>Some in China are building a future that isn’t quite ready. Still, the exuberance may be a good thing, as useful products find their place and bad ones disappear.</em><br />
<a class="css-talm6s" title="Read in Simplified Chinese" href="http://cn.nytimes.com/technology/20180723/china-robot/" data-version="zh-hans">查看本文简体中文版</a> | <a class="css-talm6s" title="Read in Traditional Chinese" href="http://cn.nytimes.com/technology/20180723/china-robot/zh-hant/" data-version="zh-hant">查看本文繁體中文版</a><br />
By Paul Mozur</p>
<p>SHANGHAI — The mind-reading headsets won’t read minds. The fire-detecting machine has been declared a safety hazard. The robot waiter can’t be trusted with the soup.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">China is ready for the future, even if the future hasn’t quite arrived.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">China has become a global technological force in just a few years. It is shaping the future of the internet. Its <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/technology/made-in-china-2025-dongguan.html">technology ambitions</a> helped prompt the Trump administration to <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/politics/trump-trade-war-unclear-outcome.html">start a trade war</a>. Hundreds of millions of people in China now use smartphones to shop online, pay their bills and invest their money, sometimes in ways more advanced than in the United States.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">That has led many people in China to embrace technology full tilt, no matter how questionable. Robots wait on restaurant diners. Artificial intelligence <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2147833/chinas-schools-are-quietly-using-ai-mark-students-essays-do" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">marks up schoolwork</a>. Facial recognition technology helps dole out everything from <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/11/china-beijing-first-smart-restaurant-kfc-facial-recognition" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kentucky Fried Chicken</a> orders to <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/world/asia/china-toilet-paper-theft.html">toilet paper</a>. China is in a competition with itself for the <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/commercial/2018/3/video-watch-more-than-1-300-robots-dance-simultaneously-to-break-a-world-record-518431" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">world record for dancing robots</a>.</p>
<p><iframe class="css-uwwqev" title="YouTube Video" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3otrUaWcLYU" width="600" height="300" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></p>
<p>That embrace of tech for tech’s sake — and the sometimes dubious results it leads to — were on display at the Global Intelligence and World Business Summit, <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://m.iyiou.com/p/74589" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">held last </a><a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://m.iyiou.com/p/74589" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">month</a> in Shanghai, which several luminaries in Chinese tech and academia were supposed to kick off with their minds.</p>
<p>Donning black headbands that looked like implements of electroshock therapy, the seven men and two women onstage were told to envision themselves pressing a button. The headbands would transmit their brain activity to the robotic hand sharing the stage, which would then push a button to officially start the conference.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">A countdown began. A camera put the robotic hand onto a huge screen above the stage. The people onstage seemed to concentrate. And then, nothing happened. The hand remained motionless. The camera panned away.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">A spokesman for Yiou, the tech consultant that hosted the event, declined to comment except for: <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.3/72x72/1f602.png" alt="😂" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.3/72x72/1f602.png" alt="😂" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">All of this embarrasses some people in the Chinese tech scene. They warn that the excess exuberance is one sign of a venture capital bubble, which may be <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/technology/china-startups-technology-economy.html">about to burst</a>. Rather than show China’s newfound tech might, they argue, spectacles like dancing robots and ineffective mind readers cover up the country’s lack of progress in other areas.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Those deficiencies were made clear in April when the United States forbade American companies to sell chips, software and other technology to ZTE, a Chinese telecom company. ZTE was found to have violated American sanctions by selling products to Iran and North Korea. The ban brought the company to a virtual standstill.</p>
<p>Chinese people shouldn’t lose touch with reality, warned Liu Yadong, chief editor of the state-run Science and Technology Daily. In a <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1108235.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recent speech</a>, he said that China still lagged the United States in tech, and that those who argued otherwise ran the risk of “tricking leaders, fooling the public and even fooling themselves.”</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">China isn’t the first country to get ahead of itself in tech. Japan at the height of its economic powers <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/03/business/what-s-new-in-japanese-robotics-tireless-sushi-chef-fearless-lumberjack.html">had robots that prepared sushi</a>. More recently, Silicon Valley has gone gaga over more than a few pointless products, like Yo — the app that <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/18/yo-raises-1-5m-in-funding-at-a-10m-valuation-investors-include-betaworks-and-pete-cashmore/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said only “yo”</a> — and Juicero, <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/technology/juicero-start-up-shuts-down.html">the $700 juicer</a>. Ultimately the exuberance could be a good thing for China, as useful products find their place and bad ones disappear <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/technology/china-startups-technology-economy.html">when the boom matures</a>.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">And China has come a long way. What was an agrarian backwater 40 years ago is home to the world’s single largest group of internet users and some of its most valuable internet companies.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Now it’s pushing ahead into emerging tech. In 2017, Chinese start-ups <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.cbinsights.com/reports/CB-Insights_State-of-Artificial-Intelligence-2018.pdf?utm_campaign=state-of-ai_2018-02&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_VehK_BJMmhCFmp908VtDnGNv4eiykV0uyyD1x24GY5yrfwlb-GGdHlolK1waEKN_dUcpXz-AI9WI5QFFB-z6lv0NVoA&_hsmi=60665752&utm_content=60665752&utm_source=hs_automation&hsCtaTracking=be5990ad-0aed-432b-a2e3-c76dfdc898e8%7C57a6f99e-da54-4bac-8857-8e3ad466c8ba" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">took up nearly half</a> the dollars raised globally for artificial intelligence, according to CB Insights, a research firm that follows venture capital. By 2020, China is expected to account for <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP42444817" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more than 30 percent</a> of worldwide spending on robotics, according to technology research firm IDC.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0"><span class="ResponsiveMedia-captionText--2WFdF css-fyuj2v emkp2hg0">The robots also break down. Three times during an hour lunch, a waiter had to lean a robot on its side and take a blowtorch to the undercarriage to burn out food and trash caught in its axles. When asked whether he was worried that the robots would take his job, the waiter laughed.</span><span class="css-cch8ym"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Published On</span><span class="ResponsiveMedia-credit--3F-q_ css-ymj87 emkp2hg1"><time class="css-u8sqr eqgapgq0" datetime="2018-07-21">July 21, 2018</time></span><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Credit</span><span class="ResponsiveMedia-credit--3F-q_ css-1io1gfx emkp2hg1">Image by Yuyang Liu for The New York Times</span></span></p>
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<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Many in China see the country’s supremacy over the United States in tech as inevitable, and they are eager to get to that day.</p>
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<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">“Chinese are much more willing to try something new just because it looks cool,” said Andy Tian, chief executive of Beijing-based Asia Innovations Group, which runs mobile apps. “It sounds superficial. It is superficial. But that’s the driver of progress in a lot of cases.”</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">The <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="http://news.zynews.cn/pic/2017-02/17/content_10930989_4.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">E-Patrol Robotic Sheriff</a> could fill that bill. It is among several security robots that have shown up at train stations and airports around China in recent months. The E-Patrol Robotic Sheriff — which looks like the camera lens from the HAL 9000 computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey” mounted on a white trash tub — patrols the high-speed rail station in the central Chinese city Zhengzhou, tasked with using facial recognition to find and follow suspicious characters, as well as to measure air quality and detect fires.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">During a winter visit to the station, the robot was nowhere to be found. First, it had missed a fire, officials said. It also had a tendency to collect so many selfie-seeking fans that it became a safety hazard. A spokesman for the train station said it was getting an upgrade and would eventually return.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Robots in particular have captured the Chinese imagination. A Beijing television station this year made a <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://item.btime.com/55fa37ll2s09vhr3v6l24b211t7" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">robot-dominated</a> version of the country’s annual Lunar New Year television special. Robots and humans performed tai chi and comedy routines, and sang and danced.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Companies and local officials often have good reason to show off their splashiest and silliest wares. China frequently takes a top-down approach to technology, with local governments rushing to follow plans that come down from on high. Gizmos with a bit of futuristic verve are often the best symbols of progress.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Dancing robots, for example, became something of a fixture of company and government presentations last year. “They were everywhere,” said David Li, a co-founder of Shenzhen Open Innovation Lab, a government-supported platform that supports small hardware start-ups in Shenzhen. He estimated that he had seen 10 dancing robot shows in a single week.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Alibaba, the Chinese online shopping giant, has also gotten into the act, though in a more sophisticated way. At one of its new Hema grocery stores in Shanghai, rolling robots take cooked food out onto a sort of runway that connects the kitchen to seating. A team of waiters standing nearby said a human hand was required for soup and steamed dishes, lest the robots inadvertently splash someone with hot liquid.</p>
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<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">An Alibaba spokeswoman said in an email that the store was a prototype that sought to combine digitization with a unique consumer experience. “The system has driven significant traffic to the Hema store,” she added.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Robot restaurants have been popping up across China. One in Shanghai’s Xujiahui district, Robot Magic Restaurant, cultivates a space-age, mini-golf ambience. Diners enter through a door on which animated fairies flap their wings. Inside, a robot with hearts for eyes charged its batteries in an ersatz cave rimmed by silver stalagmites tipped with glowing white lights. On the ceiling, fake stars twinkled.</p>
<p>Waiters said their automated counterparts caused more work than they saved. The robots take trays of food out to customers, but are unable to lower them to the table. Real waiters stand back so photos and videos can be taken before shuffling in and serving food the old-fashioned way.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">The robots also break down. Three times during an hour lunch, a waiter had to lean a robot on its side and take a blowtorch to the undercarriage to burn out food and trash caught in its axles. When asked whether he was worried that the robots would take his job, the waiter laughed.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">Still, patrons were impressed.</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">“I’ve just been to America, and I didn’t see many new things at all,” said Xie Aijuan, a retiree in her 50s. “I don’t think they have anything like robotic restaurants there.”</p>
<p class="css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0">“China is surpassing America,” agreed her dining companion, Zhuang Jiazheng. “Robots are coming. Tech is advancing. It’s all a matter of time.”</p>
<p><em>Paul Mozur is a Hong Kong-based technology reporter. He writes about Asia's biggest tech companies, as well as cybersecurity, emerging internet cultures, censorship and the intersection of geopolitics and technology in Asia. He previously worked for The Wall Street Journal. <span class="css-4w91ra"><a class="css-1rj8to8" href="https://twitter.com/paulmozur" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span class="css-0">@</span>paulmozur</a></span></em></p>
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by <a href="mailto:denton.2@osu.edu">denton.2@osu.edu</a> on July 23, 2018 </div>
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