Nutty for gadgets, the nation of Japan pours billions a year into the goal of creating a race of robot slaves to not only entertain but do the shit work.

They delight in pretty-looking robots programmed to mimic disgust and surprise, play the trumpet, sit in front of a classroom scolding unruly children, and chat with old people losing their godforsaken minds.

What does this mean for actual human people who need actual human help?

Well, if you are old and daft and can't distinguish dirt from food, your relatives just might hire for you a robot to stick the proper frozen thing in the microwave and even carry you around like Tarzan does Jane. Is this nice? Sure, for anyone but you, the decaying sufferer.

Take for example Tetsuya Yamida from Ohbu, Japan, an old man, mind lost, who grew to believe that his live-in robot was his girlfriend.

Mr. Yamida was observed through a window trying to maneuver his engorged genetiles onto the robot from behind. A disturbed neighbor called the police. No charges were filed because Japanese law says nothing about unlawful sex with a robot unless that robot is an unregistered prostitute.

Mr. Yamida's much younger brother, Kazu, confessed that he didn't want to spend the money to hire a full-time human nurse. A robot was cheaper. "Yeah, you could say we tricked him. But that was the whole idea. I don't like being around old people. They give me the willies."

Out of this, Mr. Yamida's sister, Yuki, saw the mother of invention. "Prostitute robots for old people. I hope that by the time I'm old and ugly they've invented a gigolo robot that doesn't give a crap if I'm 22 or 102." She went on to specify that she'd like to put an order in for one "hung like Seabiscuit" because she's vaginally cavernous.

We fielded this idea to a top robotic inventor, Akiro Ito, a designer of girlbot HRP-4C, above, who looks kind of cute but walks stiffly like she's got premature arthritis. "There's no reason why we can't make sex slaves for old folk. It'll take about 30 years and billions of dollars of development but we're in it for the long haul." The long haul? He clarified: "For when we do away with human interaction altogether." 

And what of this future of a humanless race that Japan envisions, one built of wire, fake skin, and fueled by lithium batteries? "We will still need humans around, of course," said Ito, "for when robots go to war with each other. We'll need someone around to pull their plugs."  

Story from our dragon-shaped neighbor across the sea, inventors of walking Coca-Cola machines that roam the sidewalks begging for coins, by Popular Content columnist Robyn Ewing.

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