Honda pushes robots as butlers idea with wordlwide film campaign

Honda took the unusual step of featuring some of its advertising faux-documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival.  The living with robots flick featured below is super slick and slippery. Luminary after luminary and robot researcher after robot researcher is prompted to say that robots are nothing like the images we get from the media, namely two legged clumsies, prone to sudden glitches and logical paradoxes. Yet, the movie is full of images of two legged creatures that occasionaly stumble or appear to be slightly impaired by a few shots too many of digital whatever-they-feed-them. So, what is the real message of the film? Fear not, robots will save the day, after we fix them? Or what?

Honda, it is known, pushes hard for a new generation of robots to be used as aids in homes. Japanese society is one of the most rapidly decaying in the industrialized world. By 2050 Japan would’ve lost 1/5th of its population, or over 20 million or its 127 million inhabitants, due to steep decline in fertility. Furthermore, Japanese elderly, who will demand massive home care, will reach about 40% of the population. The decline of the labor force and the demographic downward spiraling is expected to be solved by massive robotification of society.

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