In Japan, people are just as likely to cooperate with AI agents as they are with humans. But in the United States, the story is strikingly different—people are far more willing to take advantage of machines than they are of each other.
This finding emerged from a study published in Scientific Reports that compared how people in Japan and the U.S. interact with AI agents in two classic social dilemma games. The results point to a deeper, cultural undercurrent shaping the future of human–AI interaction.
A Future of Shared Spaces
For decades, artificial intelligence quietly crunched numbers behind the scenes: powering search engines, translating text, recognizing faces. But the new era is far more intimate. Robots now equipped with AI software aren’t just working for people — they’re beginning to live with them.
And nowhere is this shift more striking than in Japan.
“As self-driving technology becomes a reality, these everyday encounters will define how we share the road with intelligent machines,” Dr. Jurgis Karpus, a philosopher at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, said in a press release.
In a series of behavioral economics games, participants in the U.S. and Japan interacted with either human or AI agents. The Western participants consistently took advantage of helpful AI agents more than helpful humans. “After all, cutting off a robot in traffic doesn’t hurt its feelings,” Karpus says.
But Japanese participants didn’t show the same ruthlessness. Instead, they treated human and robotic agents with comparable fairness. According to Karpus, “If people in Japan treat robots with the same respect as humans, fully autonomous taxis might take off in Tokyo long before they become the norm in Berlin, London, or New York.”
Robots at Work, Robots at Home
While the rest of the world watches self-driving trials and frets about automation’s impact on jobs, Japan is already handing out uniforms to its machines.
Japan is facing a demographic cliff. Nearly 40% of its population will be over 65 by 2065. By 2040, the country could lack 11 million workers, according to the Recruit Works Institute. With immigration limited and birthrates falling, robots are stepping into roles that can no longer be filled by people.
One surprising success story: restaurants.
At Skylark Holdings, Japan’s largest table-service chain, over 3,000 cat-shaped delivery bots now help ferry food between kitchens and tables. They’re fast, friendly, and tireless. Their high-pitched “Meow!” charms diners and lightens workloads. But cuteness is just a bonus. They don’t call in sick. They don’t draw a salary. And they never forget an order.
The same logic is playing out in elder care. With fewer hands to lift patients, monitor vital signs, or offer companionship, robots like AIREC — developed at Waseda University — are becoming indispensable. AIREC can help residents roll over, sit up, and even put on socks — a seemingly small task that can mean the difference between dignity and dependence.
“Given our highly advanced ageing society and declining births, we will be needing robots’ support for medical and elderly care, and in our daily lives,” says Professor Shigeki Sugano, who leads the AIREC project.
At Zenkoukai, an eldercare facility in Tokyo, robots already lead group exercises and monitor patients during sleep. Care worker Takaki Ito sees promise in more advanced machines: “If we have AI-equipped robots that can grasp each care receiver’s living conditions and personal traits, there may be a future for them to directly provide nursing care,” he says. But he adds a note of caution: “I don’t think robots can understand everything about nursing care. Robots and humans working together to improve nursing care is a future I am hoping for.”
“Class, Put Your VR Headsets On, We’re Doing an Experiment!”
The same demographic decline that’s straining hospitals is now touching schools — not through lack of students, but through their absence. Truancy in Japan is rising, fueled by academic pressure, social isolation, and bullying.
To combat this, the city of Kumamoto tried something few have dared: classroom robots as avatars for students who can’t attend in person. These machines roll around on wheels, stream real-time video, and let students speak and interact with classmates — all from the safety of home.
The goal isn’t to isolate these children further but to create a bridge — a gentle path back into social life. The stakes are high: truancy is linked with long-term risks, from unemployment to mental health challenges.
In many Western countries, robots provoke unease — harbingers of job loss or cold automatons replacing human touch. In Japan, they are often seen as companions.
From Astro Boy to real-world humanoids like Pepper, robots occupy a beloved niche in Japanese culture. This familiarity breeds trust, and that trust may be the most important ingredient of all.
Acceptance, more than algorithms, will determine how and where robots flourish. And as Karpus’s research shows, Japan’s cultural wiring may give it an edge in embracing this new future.
