Last week Tokyo was teeming with fund managers from around the world eager to establish how Japan will fare as its biggest trading partners square up for a new cold war. The Daiwa Investment Conference provided the venue and the bento lunch boxes; robots, via their human advocates, provided the most convincing part of the answer. Geopolitics, runs an argument that particularly favours a cohort of Japanese companies, is increasingly colliding with labour shortages. If we really are entering a phase where the manufacturing arrangements of companies in the US, China, Japan and elsewhere (South Korea and Taiwan in particular) are impelled to relocate by a new set of deglobalised carrots and sticks, then automation will be everyone’s best bet when it comes to deglobalised donkey-work.
上周，来自世界各地的基金经理齐聚东京，他们急于知道，在两个最大的贸易伙伴国准备打一场新冷战的情况下，日本未来会怎样？大和投资会议(Daiwa Investment Conference)提供了基金经理们聚首的场地，也提供了午餐盒饭。而从力荐机器人的人类倡导者口中听来，机器人就是最令人信服的答案。