What is the ongoing global significance of the 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima and its impact on Japan’s reputation as a leading robotics nation? In this presentation,

Ryo Morimoto explores the co-evolution of the international nuclear industry and robotics, from the development of gloveboxes and arm manipulators in the 1940s to modern applications of mobile robots—physical AIs—in the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (1F) and other radioactive sites.

In doing so, Morimoto examines how innovations in containment technologies, particularly robotics, have enabled human-nuclear coexistence by creating physical distance between humans and radioactive materials. By situating robotics as the technology of distantiation, Morimoto argues for the importance of decommissioning 1F in our increasingly nuclear-dependent world, amid climate change and geopolitical divisions and tensions. Morimoto proposes approaching Fukushima as a valuable historical and ethnographic site for the technologization of “distance,” where researchers can analyze how the concepts of “risk,” “safety,” “exposure,” and “disaster” are being reconstructed.

This event is organized by the Asian Studies Center and the World History Center, and is made possible by the generous support of the Japan Iron and Steel Federation and the Mitsubishi endowments at the University of Pittsburgh.