In Japan, the average birthrate is 1.3 children per woman. This is not enough to maintain their population. Why is this important? With fewer children to become workers in the future, Japan is looking at having a huge number of retirees and a huge void in their workforce. So how, in a country that sees 40 percent of its population being over 65 in 2055, do you replenish the workforce without increasing baby output or brining in literally millions of immigrant workers?
Oh yeah, you know where we're going - Robots!
Takao Kobayashi, one of the researchers working on the "what do we do about our shrinking workforce" problem, talks about other, non-robotic means of combatting the problem, such as building more daycare centers so that more women can work as opposed to being stay-at-home moms and that some seniors are pushing retirement back until they're 65 (Pushing back to 65? I totally live in the wrong country), but he doesn't see that as being enough to solve the problem.
So yes, they're looking to robots to fill the void, doing everything from bathing the elderly to monitoring their health. From vaccuuming the carpet to watching their kids. As cool as robots are, I don't know how I'd feel about having one watch my kid. Maybe I'm just a dumb American, but I find something more than a little creepy about leaving my child with C-3PO.
And while it would be easy for me to say "Keep the robots out of here!" and throw to an Old Glory commercial, there's a legitimate reason for the U.S. not to embrace robotic workers - unemployment is up and the concensus is that America is in the middle of a recession. Do we really need to be replacing human employees?
And when the metal ones come for you (and they will come for you), make sure your loved ones will be taken care of.
Details at Reuters.
