The Boston Consulting Group says robots will cut labor costs 25 percent in Japan. This could make it possible for Japanese companies to raise their human employees' salaries, as Abe has urged them to do.

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry worked out a national technology road map in 2007, calling for 1 million industrial robots to be built in 2015. If so, the million-strong robot army of workers could replace 10 million human workers. That would be about 15 percent of the current workforce.

Japan has enjoyed the leading edge in the manufacture of factory robots, especially for the car industry, for decades. Now the Republic of Korea, China and the United States are catching up with or even on the verge of surpassing Japan in many aspects of robotic technology. Chinese robot companies' market share on the mainland grew from 4 percent in 2012 to 13 percent in 2014.

Moreover, Abe has planned to stage a "Robot Olympics" alongside the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. He wants to have robots from across the world "compete in technical skills". Japan's big automakers, known for their fondness for automation, announced at the Tokyo Motor Show in October that they would start selling self-driving cars by 2020 in order to showcase the resurgence of Japanese technology.

It is still hard to anticipate the consequences of the major societal shift toward intelligent machines. But for Japan, it is a bonus.

The author is China Daily's Tokyo bureau chief.

caihong@chinadaily.com.cn