Grok Robots

This article by Hiroko Tabuchi is a quick wrap-up of the state of robotics in Japan today, where “humans and intelligent robots routinely live side-by-side and interact socially.”

Along with info on current experiments, statistics (over 370,000 robots worked at factories across Japan in 2005) and history, there touch on the difference in cultural portrayal robots have had in Japan compared to the United States:

Robots have long been portrayed as friendly helpers in Japanese popular culture, a far cry from the often rebellious and violent machines that often inhabit Western science fiction.

While Japan had Astro Boy in 1963, in the US we had homicidal giant robots tearing up movie screens at drive-ins across the country. So you can see why we might not want them poking in our mouths with pointy instruments just yet.