Khaldon Azhari

TOKYO: A café in Tokyo is allowing bedridden citizens to work by controlling robot staff. The “Avatar Robot Café” says it is the prototype for the future of business, where people with disabilities, such as ALS, work as a part of the staff.

These staffers, called pilots, remotely control avatar robots, called OriHime or OriHime-D. The aim of the cafe is to create and share opportunities for those who want to work but cannot do so due to their medical or physical conditions.

The café’s website states that its “ultimate goal is to use technology as a means to lower the many obstacles that prevent people from participating evenly in society, creating a more inclusive society where avatar robots are the norm.”

This project – Ory Laboratory – has a permanent café in Nihonbashi in central Tokyo with one of its aims being “the elimination of loneliness from the human race.” It suggests that the experimental project could provide answers to how people can live when confined to homes due to disabilities or issues such as the pandemic.

With a human operator, the robot servers can interact well with customers and take orders for food and drinks.