Daniel Kahneman has argued that the robot revolution, if it comes, will arrive just in time to save China. Realizing such a transition, however, is tougher than promising it, as Foxconn has learned. Perhaps even more urgently requiring robotics in Asia is Japan, which has a graying, homogenous population. Who will do the work and care for the elderly in a country that isn’t based on immigration?

From Mike Ramsey, Miho Inada and Yoko Kubota in the WSJ:

SUZU, Japan—It has been a decade since the train stopped running in a sleepy town at the tip of Japan’s Noto Peninsula, and bus routes have dwindled. The trend limits mobility options for the city’s dwindling rural population of 15,000, nearly half older than 65.

However, Suzu city officials and researchers may have a solution: vehicles that drive themselves.

For months, a white, self-driving Toyota Prius has been zipping along the city’s winding seaside roads. The test car attracts plenty of attention from the community. A bulky spinning sensor mounted to the roof helps the vehicle make critical decisions instead of relying on a researcher from Kanazawa University who is sitting in the driver’s seat.

The societal challenges that come with Suzu’s graying population are common throughout Japan, which leads the world in aging, with one in four people older than 65, compared with 15% in the U.S. and 8% world-wide. The trend is particularly prominent in the countryside, where the young often flee to big cities.

Japan’s car companies,long an engine of the national economy, are looking to tackle the problem of older drivers.•