I find myself being very skeptical about robotics' use in society. I think robotics will splinter off into many different specifically designed forms. the "irobot" dream of a humanoid robot doing all the menial tasks that humans don't want to do will never happen. Instead, there will be robots designed for specific tasks, because that specific design will be better for that purpose than any generally designed robot will. Also, AI will solve most of the use cases that i see robotics used for and it will not require the expensive electronics and manufacturing required.
Japanese are exact opposite. They have extreme love of robots and are trying to put them everywhere. (Maybe caused by all the childhood robot cartoons like Astro boy) Examples include store greeters, companions for people living alone, etc.
I wonder if they will anthropomorphize the speaker services like Amazon Echo. In the US these are bare bones listening and talking cyclinders. The Japanese might want to put an animated face on them for feedback. And make them mobile too.
