The Asian country's population has plummeted as the number of babies being born has fallen, and fears are growing that the Japanese are becoming an "endangered species". In 2018, 921,000 babies were born in Japan, down 25,000 from 2017.
This is the lowest level since records began in 1899, according to Japanese authorities. That means about 1.3 million people died that year, a population drop of almost half a million. dr Kate Doblin, Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King's College London and a leading expert on the field, warned that sex robots could fuel the crisis. In countries like Japan, I fear that love dolls will only get worse," says Dr. Doblin.
Because loneliness is a serious social problem,” he said. "Now I have artificially intelligent girlfriends". They're also interested in female-friendly life size sex doll robots, and we're exploring how human-sized love dolls "contribute to people's loneliness and alienation."
Love dolls are not just a Japanese phenomenon; sex doll sales are increasing rapidly around the world. According to plush toy company Dutch Wife, 2,000 erotic devices were sold in Japan alone in 2017, costing £4,600 each. "It's amazing," says Shinobu Tanaka, a sex doll salesman. She looks like a doll, but she feels like she's really alive. "Something's wrong when you're having sex with your wife." Maybe. I don't care if I have a love doll," says Kanako Amano, a population expert at the NLI Research Institute in Tokyo. “The biggest problem in Japan is the declining birth rate and population.
