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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?"
If we eliminate the need for manual labor I sure hope we also make birth control manditory. Cuz you know what all those dumb people are going to do when they aren't working 12 hours a day flipping burgers?
Yup, they'll be makin babies.
I'm not trying to troll here, but I feel like assertion of the Apollo missions' value is at least somewhat questionable. Yes, I'm aware of the benefit to the scientific community, but I feel like it's possible to make a decent argument to the effect that the money could have been better spent on some domestic and/or international concern (world famine, disease, peacekeeping, etc), though I realize this argument won't curry any favor with the slashdot crowd ;-)...
What further complicates the matter, at least in my mind, is that the primary motivation for the Apollo missions was grounded largely in Cold War politics, and hence in many respects the basis for funding these exorbitantly espensive ventures is an easy target for the armchair politician.