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Japanese Find Robots Less Intimidating Than People
bik1979 writes "The Christmas issue of economist has an interesting article on 'why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans'. The article says how people in japan are accepting robots into their daily life, more so than accepting other people. From the article: 'What seems to set Japan apart from other countries is that few Japanese are all that worried about the effects that hordes of robots might have on its citizens. Nobody seems prepared to ask awkward questions about how it might turn out. If this bold social experiment produces lots of isolated people, there will of course be an outlet for their loneliness: they can confide in their robot pets and partners. Only in Japan could this be thought less risky than having a compassionate Filipina drop by for a chat.'"
Cost of developing a thinking robot: Billions, perhaps trillions, of yen.
Cost of opening Japanese borders to foreigners: Zero yen. Oh yeah, and society will have to open up a little too.
As you can see, it's inevitable that the Japanese develop robots. The cost of not doing so is too high for the Japanese populous to bear, or even contemplate. Seriously, the Japanese are nice people and all, but they really insist on dividing the world into "Japan" and "everybody else" in a way that's not healthy at all. I like Japan, but they're going to have make some changes. On their current path, they're either going to end up like Europe, with a bunch of isolated and pissed off foreigners living inside their borders or like techno-Europe, with a bunch of isolated and pissed off robots living inside their borders. Or, heaven forbid, they could follow the US/Canadian model and integrate foreigners into their society, instead of isolating them and maybe the people would think of themselves as Japanese. But they might not have black hair, so scratch that idea.
It's a reference to the first paragraph, about the girl named Marie from the Phillipines who can't get a job in hospitality.