Any young man floating through London's west end will eventually be accosted by a manky-looking individual touting for business at the foot of a Soho staircase, leading up to some kind of sex club. In Japan, however, these doughty staffers are not in evidence. Instead, there are robots. The aptly-named Pink Tentacle has seen them:
The why of it is brilliant: in Japan, unlike London, they're enforcing new anti-touting laws. The laws, however, only apply to humans. Robots are not the only solution the touts have found the end-run the legislation, but they are certainly the best. There is even hacking involved: the robots are repurposed traffic control droids. This, if nothing else, explains why he/she/it looks so unconfortable in that spiky green wig.
As robots get better at stuff, so much will have to be dealt with in the legal system to deal with the humans behind them, acting by proxy through what is obviously more than a mere transmission medium.
News Story [Asahi Shimbun via Pink Tentacle]
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