Japanese quite open to home robots, Roomba and friends most popular

@nifty recently surveyed its members to find out their opinions on robots.

I don’t know what ASIMO, Honda’s walking robot, is doing in the list of household robots; as far as I am aware it is nothing more than a technology promotion, with no plans to commercialise. I’m also surprised to see Panasonic’s Mr Evolta, which again I understand to be just a vehicle for promoting their recharable batteries. Regardless, it’s interesting to so how well-known these names are.

This is my favourite robot statue that pre-dates the more famous life-size Gundam, a life-size Testujin 28-go.

Research results

Q1: Which of the following household robot names do you know? (Sample size=2,674, multiple answer)

	Male	Female
Roomba	77%	88%
AIBO	72%	81%
ASIMO	68%	70%
Pepper	60%	70%
Mr Evolta	26%	28%
Robi	17%	26%
Rulo	14%	19%
RoBoHoN	14%	16%
Torneo Robo	10%	15%
COCOROBO	6%	7%
minimaru	5%	10%
NAO	2%	1%
Hello Zoomer	2%	1%
OHaNAS	2%	1%
Don’t know any in particular	10%	4%

Q2: Would you like to have a robot around the house? (Sample size=2,674)

Very much so	13.9%
Perhaps so	33.4%
Can’t say either way	34.1%
Not really	9.0%
Not at all	9.5%

Q3: What kind of household robot might you want? (Sample size=2,674, multiple answer)

	Male	Female
Cleaning, tidying up	61.6%	70.3%
Home guard, anti-crime	48.6%	54.3%
Heavy lifting	41.0%	61.5%
Hanging out, folding washing	36.8%	29.9%
Nursing	29.5%	32.3%
Cooking	28.9%	34.7%
Driving	27.7%	35.7%
Throwing out rubbish	29.1%	30.1%
Massage	27.9%	31.9%
Question search and reply	16.9%	17.2%
Healing, conversation partner	12.1%	17.0%
Schedule management	12.0%	11.0%
Shopping	11.9%	9.4%
Child care, play partner	3.6%	3.2%
Other	1.5%	2.0%
Nothing in particular	15.6%	5.4%

Q4: Up to how much would you pay if you were to buy a robot? (Sample size=2,674)

Under 10,000 yen	9%
10,000 to 49,999 yen	23%
50,000 to 99,999 yen	20%
100,000 to 199,999 yen	7%
200,000 to 299,999 yen	4%
300,000 to 499,999 yen	2%
500,000 to 999,999 yen	3%
1,000,000 yen or more	1%
Cannot set a price	17%
Don’t want to buy	14%

Q5: What worries do you have about robots? (Sample size=2,674, multiple answer)

	Male	Female
Whether there will be an accident if they break down	53%	62%
Who would be responsible if it breaks, if there’s an accident	35%	37%
Whether I’d be able to stop it if it runs out of control	34%	37%
How much it will cost to buy, running costs	32%	44%
Hacking issues (remote operation, intrusion of privacy)	30%	37%
Whether they’ll be used for evil	28%	35%
Whether I’ll be able to keep using it (might break, etc)	28%	31%
Whether people will get sufficient exercise	26%	27%
Whether they will be used in war	23%	28%
Whether people will get dumber	23%	26%
Whether they will be more intelligent than humans	22%	22%
Whether they will take our jobs	16%	17%
Whether people will lose their ability to socialise	9%	12%
Whether people will get too attached to them	5%	9%
Other	1%	1%
Nothing in particular	16%	7%

Q6: What robot movies come to mind? (Sample size=2,674, multiple answer)

Rank		Percentage
1	Star Wars	65%
2	Terminator	59%
3	Robocop	52%
4	Transformers	32%
5	AI	22%
6	I, Robot	17%
7	Iron Man	16%
8	Baymax	15%
9	Bladerunner	9%
10	Wall-E	8%
11	Short Circuit	7%
12	Pacific Rim	5%
13	Andrew NDR114	3%
14	Iron Giant	2%
15	Other	1%
16	None in particular	8%

Q7: What robot animations have you seen? (Sample size=2,674, multiple answer)

Rank		Percentage
1	Tetsuwan Atom	86%
2	Doraemon	80%
3	Tetsujin 28	74%
4	Dr Slump Arare-chan	64%
5	Machine Gun Z	61%
6	Time Bokan series	54%
7	Gundam series	51%
8	Kiteretsu Daihyakka	39%
9	Getter Robo	36%
10	Evangelion	32%
11	Macross series	28%
12	Patlabor	24%
13	Ghost in the Shell	23%
14	Sousei no Aquarion	12%
15	Other	2%
16	None in particular	5%

Demographics

Between the 24th and 30th of March 2017 2,674 members of the @nifty monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. No further demographics were given.