From history we know for a fact that the Japanese people are among the most skillful, creative and innovative in the world – and they did not disappoint with their most recent endeavor. In the 13th century they invented the most lethal sword in the world called the Japanese or Samurai sword, in WWII they challenged the might of the South East Asian nations and subdued them by force, they even went toe-to-toe with the United States of America and held their own, from the mid 1970s up to now they dominated the animation industry. In fact, the word “anime'” itself was invented to set apart Japan’s unique style of cartoons, they are also the masters of electronics and robotics and lately have started to develop robotic staff for a hotel in Tokyo.
It is the Hen-na Hotel that will host these helper androids and they are very proud in making the announcement. The hotel won’t open until after 3 months time but the management is already thrilled about it when they’ll welcome guests in July. The said hotel is located at Huis Ten Bosch, Nagasaki Theme Park and it is a two-storey building with 72 rooms for accommodation.
This high-tech hotel is named after the word “Hen-na” which means “strange” or “change,” which is a very appropriate name since the hotel is actually trying to bring about change or revolution in human society by introducing the first generation of artificial intelligence! Kokoro Co. Ltd., the manufacturer named them “Actroids,” these human-like robots will be the stuff of science fiction witnessed by people for the very first time in history. Once the hotel opens they will deploy 10 of theses amazing actroids that will entertain you once you check-in, they will also take charge of your luggage, lead you to your room, wash your clothes, make your coffee, clean your room and many other hotel duties that were once done by human staff. The robots is programmed to speak Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese and they also can make eye contact and hand gestures – that’s right! They come as real as they can be.
If you thought the actroid staff was incredible, then you ain’t seen nothing yet, because the hotel also sport a variety of high-tech stuff that are not yet employed in other hotels. Among the advanced technologies that the Hen-na Hotel will use include facial recognition scanners to lock and unlock your hotel room (pretty amazing for a keyless hotel room feature), health monitoring device in case of emergencies and glass tables that helps you communicate with the front desk officer (kinda like in The Avengers movie). The Japanese have yet again outdone us and themselves with this latest innovation – and it’s in a humble place like a hotel mind you! As thrilled as I am with this news, I can’t help but think about the implications of A.I.’s in our society as experts Elon Musk (CEO and CTO of Space X and CEO of Tesla Motors) and Stephen Hawking, who is a world renown physicist, both express concerns about creating extremely advanced robots that might one day rebel against us and might cause human extinction altogether, albeit many other experts do not share their opinion on the matter. That question will have to be debated upon and thought out with perseverance in order to promote the use of robots without endangering any human lives.
Surprisingly though, the hotel rates goes up only to $60 per person per night and the reason for that is cheap electricity from solar power generators. The Hen-na Hotel management is so optimistic about their performance for 2015 that they plan to complete 72 more rooms by 2016 and expand the hotel’s operation. And of course employ more human-like robots at your service. Are you keen about booking a reservation at this hotel and experience robo-style hotel service? I know I am!