We've mentioned that dangers of Japanese Imperial aggression before. “Reflections on Aibo” plainly states this position. While Aibo is cute now, wait until the more vicious models come out.
The 20 Year Plan of the Japanese government to develop a robot with all the nuances of a human seems to be picking up speed at an exponential rate. Since 1997, they have used a very reasonable argument: Japan and other Western Nations are not meeting the replacement level of their Total Fertility Rate. With every family having less than two children, sometimes only one child, Something Must Be Done(TM).
Something must be done because in order for wealthy Western nations to remain wealthy, they need to find a way around the “import brown people” solution that tends to foster poisonous nationalism among “lazy white people.” For Japan, robots mean that their blood can remain “pure” and they can kick out all non-Japanese, primarily Koreans.
Of course, everything said above is dead f'n wrong because Japanese robotics research is trying to help the disabled and the elderly. This, of course, is entirely true. It is true because now we have robots trained in martial arts on display at Asia's Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies Convention in Tokyo this week.
No robotic assistant for the disabled is complete unless it can do a flying roundhouse kick and demand to fight “in the ancient style” with fists of broken glass, a la Van Damme versus Tong Po in Kickboxer.
No robotic assistant for the elderly is ready to move anything unless it can crane kick a Mack truck across a parking lot.
So, yeah, these ninja robots have nothing but good intentions. The researchers say that if robots are capable of martial arts, they are capable of navigating unpredictable terrain in the same effortless way that humans do.
How about this excuse instead? The first dude to create an army of ninja robots will become an instant uber-daimyo and Shogun of all Japan. Having ninja robots is cool because nobody messes with the dude that owns them. Ninja robots can handle the emotionally difficult task of killing off the “burdens” of society. When ninja robots are developed, everybody wins.
