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In Japan robots are friendly helpers not Terminators.
So when they join the workforce, as they do often in factories, they are sometimes welcomed on their first day with Shinto religious ceremonies.
But whether the sick and elderly will be as welcoming to robot-like tech in their homes is a question that now vexes a Japanese care industry that is struggling with a massive manpower shortage.
Automated help in the home and hospitals, believe some, could be the answer. A rapidly ageing first world is also paying close attention to Japan's dalliance with automated care.
It wants to know whether it can construct the nursing-care and medical-care needed in a future with fewer younger people to take care of the elderly. Japan could show us how.
[...]
The country's biggest robot maker Tmsuk created a life-like one-metre tall robot six years ago, but has struggled to find interested clients.
Costing a cool $100,000 (£62,000) a piece, a rental programme was scrapped recently because of "failing to meet demands of consumers" and putting off patients at hospitals.
"We want humans caring for us, not machines," was one response.
So when they join the workforce, as they do often in factories, they are sometimes welcomed on their first day with Shinto religious ceremonies.
But whether the sick and elderly will be as welcoming to robot-like tech in their homes is a question that now vexes a Japanese care industry that is struggling with a massive manpower shortage.
Automated help in the home and hospitals, believe some, could be the answer. A rapidly ageing first world is also paying close attention to Japan's dalliance with automated care.
It wants to know whether it can construct the nursing-care and medical-care needed in a future with fewer younger people to take care of the elderly. Japan could show us how.
[...]
The country's biggest robot maker Tmsuk created a life-like one-metre tall robot six years ago, but has struggled to find interested clients.
Costing a cool $100,000 (£62,000) a piece, a rental programme was scrapped recently because of "failing to meet demands of consumers" and putting off patients at hospitals.
"We want humans caring for us, not machines," was one response.
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