Japanese androids take us closer to 'Blade Runner' future

They look more socially adept than some of the people in my office.

They look livelier than some of the people I see on the train every day.

Rejoice! Cherry 2000 is not far away from us.

Not bad, though I think the one in the black jacket probably needs a little more work.

“Handicapped people need another body. We are going to have more choices.”

Sheldon Cooper's wish come true.

“Suppose you lost your daughter in a traffic accident, and I create her android. You will probably love the android, and accept it as a human.

This premise was explored in the Spielberg movie "AI". The direction the movie took is very plausible for how humans would view human-looking androids.

Possibly more like Westworld (1973) than Blade Runner.

Robots already perform a wide variety of tasks in Japan ... and have been used in the clean-up after the 2011 nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.

Their dead, irradiated bodies lie in the stairwells of the reactor buildings, unable to move, non-responsive to commands, batteries exhausted, and out of reach of their organic-based controllers who cannot survive in the intense radiation. Not so useful...

The 1982 Hollywood cult film "Blade Runner", which is set in 2019

We'd be amazed at how fast computers have come, and pretty impressed by the Internet, but since then we've gained almost no insight into understanding how to replicate consciousness/sentience/self-awareness with machines.

kwattJul. 17, 2014 - 09:15AM JST

I touch her hip, somewhere, she may slap my face? That could be sexual harassment?

it would be robosekuhara

I thought I was the only one to remember that movie

Blade Runner is set on 2019?, it seems we will catch on!

This premise was explored in the Spielberg movie "AI". The direction the movie took is very plausible for how humans would view human-looking androids.

It is also somewhat explored in the ScFi TV series "Caprica" from the Battlestar Galactica universe. The bottom line concept was that your spirt or essence would be able to be programmed into an artifical form (i.e. rise of the cylons).

Seems like scifi is coming true.

Will Japan's employment and population implosion be solved by replicants? How about the SDF full of these fighting replicants? What a world awaits the next generation. With Japanese robotic technology moving at high pace, all sorts of new industries will evolve.

Major Kusanagi Motoko, to the white courtesy phone, please...

I touch her hip, somewhere, she may slap my face? That could be sexual harassment?

Whats with all these natural faces and bodies? If you are going to make robots with such high level of detail, at least make them all pretty looking.

Do they dream of electric sheep?

Is the name of the book that Blade Runner is based on.

Which ones are the androids?

When androids can actually learn by themselves, THEN I'll be impressed. These are no more than glorified toasters dressed up as humans...every word, every movement has to be pre-programmed...Sorry, I'm not impressed.

At the end of the day who really wants to deal with robots, who would you rather be taken cared of, by robots or by humans? I still think this is all a big waste of money.

I wonder, do they dream of "electronic sleep" to borrow a quote from Blade Runner.