[visarga]

I beg to differ. We already have walking and object handling robots and their agility is rapidly increasing. In the future we will have to deal with the aging population. As the quality of life increases and more people get university education, the rate of birth declines. Then who will take care of all those old men and women? We need household robots and they will be invented in Japan if not in some other place. They will be a good expensive item to mass produce and sell.

[seanmcdirmid]

Japanese are incredibly xenophobic, it makes more financial sense just to import housekeepers from the Philippines or Indonesia, but many don't like the idea of that so they'll develop household robots instead (lucky for us!). Also, the rise of China set manufacturing robots back by about 10 or 15 years; we are just now beginning to recover.

[byoung2]

Japanese are incredibly xenophobic, it makes more financial sense just to import housekeepers from the Philippines or Indonesia, but many don't like the idea of that so they'll develop household robots instead

With the housing so limited in places like Tokyo, wouldn't it make more financial sense to get a robot you can store in a closet than hire a live-in housekeeper?

[rmc]

Sure, people like coming up with reasons why they aren't racist and xenophobic, and how it's perfectly logical, see?!

[seanmcdirmid]

Hong Kong is much more dense than Tokyo, and they have imported an army of Philippine and Indonesian house keepers.

[wildgift]

I think the real trend with aging is that more adults will be living with their parents.

The solution to the healthcare and aging issue is already happening: immigration.