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Could robots be your new retirement plan?

Posted at 10:45 AM on January 14, 2008 by Sanden Totten (2 Comments)

Okay, say you're Japan. And say you're faced with a pretty difficult problem: you have a massive number of elderly people about to retire and not enough young folks to support them . . . what do you do?

Build robots of course!

There are actually some serious issues at stake here. For instance, critics argue that giving jobs to robots is a bad idea when plenty of women and immigrants are able and eager to work in Japan. The problem is that Japan's traditionally conservative culture isn't so keen on the idea of shaking things up like that. But in time, they may not have a choice.

But leaving all that aside . . . aren't those robots sweet?! Check out that exo-skeleton! And that violin playing nurse-bot! Mine will be programmed to play thrash music . . . oh, wait, that already exists.

So what do you think? Should robots be "employed" as the new care-givers in society? How do you think Americans would react?

Comments (2)

Am I the only one who saw the movie "I, Robot"?

Posted by Elizabeth | January 21, 2008 7:52 PM

Nope, and I think it's darn scary.

Posted by Nina | January 30, 2008 3:21 PM

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