Robots that take out your garbage? Oh What A Feeling, says Toyota as it opens its very own smart city

Toyota on Tuesday broke ground on "Woven City", a smart city project in Japan that doesn't permit private cars and where your robot might stock your fridge. The master-planned community, named as a reminder of Toyota's origins as a maker of looms, sits on 700,000 square meters of retired manufacturing plant at the base of …

[Jeroen Braamhaar]

I bet the way citizens will greet each other will be ...

"Hello citizen, be well!"

[Chris G]

Re: I bet the way citizens will greet each other will be ...

An alternative greeting would be " Be seeing you!"

As a highly competent curmudgeon, I can assure any robot that tries to remind me something, it will likely require some remedial action shortly after.

[jake]

Re: I bet the way citizens will greet each other will be ...

In the early/mid 1980s my much hacked Heath HERO1 would push the kitchen trash can over to the back door to remind me that it was trash day. After about a month I stopped it. Was cute, but useless ... and once, when the trash was top-heavy, it spread garbage all over the ground floor.

[don't you hate it when you lose your account]

assisted living facilities

Do you have to be elderly or is it ok if your just too lazy to get another beer?

[DJV]

Re: assisted living facilities

Yes

[jake]

Re: assisted living facilities

Thanks to Covid, we have that already. The neighbor of a friend of mine in town seems to live on delivered fast food (3X/day!) and cheap beer. Lots of cheap beer. He hasn't been off his property in almost a year.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: assisted living facilities

Probably can't get through the door!

[jake]

Re: assisted living facilities

People are joking about the Covid 19 being akin to the Freshman 15 ... IMO, and from observation, they shouldn't be joking about it. Folks are getting fat from lack of exercise and easy access to snacks, which is aiding and abetting stress eating.

Yes, the gent in question is ballooning. Apparently his family tried to do an intervention, but he just doesn't seem to care. On the bright side, he doesn't get drunk, run out of beer, and drive off to get more ... he just calls and has it delivered.

This is not the 21st century that I read about as a lad ...

[cawfee]

Tomorrowland

Today!

[Mike 137]

In 'Woven City' ...

"In 'Woven City' human-driven cars aren't allowed, 'personal mobility devices' get their own roads and sensors tell robots when you need help"

I see two problems - both rather obvious:

[1] This only works if everyone acts in lock step, with identical wants, needs and purposes. This of course has been a Japanese cultural tendency for a very long time, hence the proverb "the nail that stands proud will be knocked home. It certainly wouldn't work in a more individualistic society.

[2] E. M. Forster foresaw in 1909 ("The Machine Stops") what happens when such intensively automated systems start breaking down. He also pointed out the corrosive effect of excess automation on culture.

[Chris G]

Re: In 'Woven City' ...

To me these ideas smack of being a cradle to the grave creche, where individuality is frowned upon and corformityis the desired norm.

If you take this kind of automated living too far, it gets to the point where humans are mo longer necessary and in fact, hinder the smooth running of the place.

[jake]

Re: In 'Woven City' ...

It's worse ... the automation in each householdpod will be identical because customizing it for each and every occupant will be incredibly costly. This means no individuality in furniture placement ... or where food is placed in refrigerators. Or the location, quantity, and type of spices in the cupboard. Over the top, or out from under? No longer your choice, prole. Same for every other little touch that makes a house a home.

Moving the humans out would indeed be the logical conclusion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In 'Woven City' ...

How long before the robot overlords decide that the humans are trash and need to be disposed of?

[EricB123]

Re: In 'Woven City' ...

For a brief moment I thought that might be the case already.

[RobLang]

Re: In 'Woven City' ...

[1] I don't think everyone needs to be identical for this to work. If an alternative in society that is low effort, low cost and basically the same service then I think the majority will be happy with it. For example: Amazon. I know people to have given up their cars for Uber and when I lived in London, the tube and bus was enough. It didn't feel the need to stamp my individuality over and above the ease of sitting and reading while I was transported on a commute.

[2] We're already in an intensively automated society. At any level of civilisation advancement you need to maintain the building blocks of your society. From the Romans and their aquafers through to the internet today.

[Blackjack]

Re: In 'Woven City' ...

Do not trust private companies with how your life should go, that ends in tears.

Heck a lot if the time you can't even trust governments with that

[jake]

Re: In 'Woven City' ...

"Heck, you can't even trust governments with that!"

FTFY

[Inventor of the Marmite Laser]

Robots to take out the trash?

Bollocks. I claim Prior Art

The self ermptying bin had been the subject of discussion no less than 50 - that's FIFTY - years ago, by a select group of clientele convened on a table on the far left in the public bar at the Prince's Arms, Boxmoor, Herts (now sadly long gone).

We had pretty much finished the based design which included, if memory serves me right, a pair of suitably stout gateposts and a quantity of tractor inner tubes.

Not only would the trash be 'taken out' but would be, given a suitably aligned front path, deposited in the general vicinity of the council's refuse depot.

The last I heard was that work was progressing on

a) improving accuracy

b) returning the emptied bin to its home address after any repairs had been completed and

c) minimising collateral damage either through better accuracy or suitable reinforcement of windows in the ballistic flight path.

[Chris G]

Re: Robots to take out the trash?

Robots? Who needs them?

Where I live, we have several autonomous choices for trash removal; foxes, feral dogs or wild pigs, as an added bonus, occasionally humans will empty the bins (straight on to the ground) looking for anything useful or sometimes even the bin lorry gets there before any of the scavengers get there.

[MrReynolds2U]

Re: Robots to take out the trash?

Shirley you can just attach the bin to the rubber and it will return like a boomerang?

You might need to replace a few more windows that would be convenient though if the prevailing wind isn't very... prevailing.

[Blackjack]

So I heard you wanna get hacked...

Either the project gets canceled before being finished or ends becoming a theme park instead of a real city.

Either way it will get hacked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So I heard you wanna get hacked...

Well, the "unautomated" version was pretty awful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX7UWjU6P6A

[Claverhouse]

GO

Woven City features three sets of "interwoven" streets to form a repeatable grid of nine blocks, each framing a local park or courtyard.

Sounds like the same city planning that makes it difficult for a drunk to identify his residence.

[jake]

Re: GO

To make it truly sustainable, shouldn't that be a central group of housing, surrounded by 8 fields growing most or all of the village's food?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, just a minute

This is the company who are still having recalls on their 3-cylinder 1.2 litre Puretech engine cam belt many years after it's introduction and known problem.

Would you trust them to put the garbage in the right place. It could end up in the fridge!