Japan's Proposed 30-Year Robot Program

Gallamine writes "A group of Japanese researchers have proposed a Government plan to spend 50 billion yen per year (that's over 400 million $US) for 30 years on developing a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old. Japan's current economy may prevent the plan from happening, but the interesting point is the parallels to the U.S. Apollo space program, America's attempt to put a man on the moon. While expensive, the benefits to the American population from that program are probably unmeasurable. Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?"

Comments

Re:Japan's stratergy

[Anonymous Coward]

while I agree that huge government initiated efforts have been a success in Japan, there have also been notable "failures" like the fifth generation computing initiative (I think that is what it was called), based on prolog, to advance AI. I don't think anything substantial came out of it.

But I admire them for trying, without looking at the short-term "how can i make a profit?" perspective.