Japan’s Prime Minister Calls for ‘Robot Revolution’: Hopes to ‘Spread the Use of Robotics to Every Corner of Society’

The Prime Minister of Japan wants a robot revolution to replace the nation’s ageing workforce, reports The Age:

A new greeter at the entrance of the Mitsukoshi department store in central Tokyo has caused a stir. The worker, dressed in a kimono and cheerfully welcoming shoppers in honorific Japanese, is a robot made by Toshiba and shows how lifelike these machines can be.

This latest example of Japan’s skill comes just as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is calling for a “robot revolution”. Advances in robotic computing power, the ability to recognise voices and images, and machine learning could help the country overcome the handicap of a fast-ageing populace and a declining workforce.

Really? Are robots going to take care of the elderly and pay all their bills when they and their children have no jobs?

This is a country that has a national holiday called Respect For the Aged Day each September. Now they can’t wait to terminate their elders’ income? Maybe they’ll also adopt Britain’s medical policy of asking older patients age 75 and up if they are ready to die while they’re at it? “How about signing this ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order too and would you mind slipping on this toe tag to save us the trouble?”

The Age continued:

At the opening of Japan’s Robot Revolution Initiative Council on May 15, Abe urged companies to “spread the use of robotics from large-scale factories to every corner of our economy and society”. Backed by 200 companies and universities, the five-year, government-led push aims to deepen the use of intelligent machines in manufacturing, supply chains, construction, and health care, while expanding robotics sales from 600 billion yen ($6.4 billion) annually to 2.4 trillion yen by 2020.

Japan’s total fertility rate currently sits well below replacement rate at 1.41 births per woman. The image above is more than just a robot door greeter at a department store in a country with a dwindling population of young people to take care of its elderly.

It’s a death knell for the income of the nation’s already dwindling human population, sung by robots.

And finally:

The [Japanese] government wants machines to provide logistical support, perform surgery, and work in disaster recovery in the quake-prone nation. Other priorities are commercial drones and nurse robots. Panasonic has developed a robot that transforms from a bed to a wheelchair, while a startup, Cyberdyne, has created devices that help the infirm move around. Says Yoshiko Yurugi, a robotics expert at the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation: “We are entering an era when we will definitely have to rely on the help of robots.”

Cyberdyne? Like the self-aware artificial intelligence in the [amazon text=Terminator&asin=B00B5AETMO] movies that attempts to exterminate humanity? They couldn’t think of another name??

Really??

Well apparently it won’t take literal robotic death machines like in the Terminator movies to wipe humanity out… all the robots will have to do is take everyone’s jobs. We’ll upgrade ourselves into oblivion.