You can't just tell the Japanese to not use robots.

Yeah, I’m no expert on bear psychology… But if I were a bear and that thing came ripping across a field at me with glowing red eyes and sound effects, I probably wouldn’t return any time soon.

In my country wolves have returned and within a few years people want to eradicate them because they kill sheep. Because these farmers are too stingy or too stupid to buy a kangal shepherd dog that protects the herd. Basically in my country people see nature as something that is purely there for the enjoyment of humans. Just glorified city parks. The moment they face the harsh realities of nature they want to exterminate it.

You just made my fucking night

Those bears are living in mountainous areas with forest cover. One of the causes of the bear population boom was the declining number of hunters in those areas. The Japanese government had allocated 3.4 billion yen (around 21 million US dollars) for "bear countermeasures" in 2025. They also had already deployed soldiers to put traps and allowed the police to shoot and kill bears when necessary.

wait until they hear about mosquitoes

I wish I live where you do. Here in the USA, we have an escalating boar problem and it is just ignored. But then again, it's a capitalist country.

By that logic it’s a good idea to live in an empty clean room than on planet earth.

Well, we need a defence against terminators.

I prefer the threat of a potential bear attack over the guaranteed nightmare of having this thing around all the time.

Have you ever seen the presentations by Boston Dynamics and the like? The biggest contracts for just about every robotics company probably come from the military. It probably won’t be long before war looks like it does in Terminator 2 - let’s just hope Skynet takes a while to show up, given all the AI stuff governments are already using for their military campaigns...

Its a fancy scarecrow.

Oh. I thought it could walk/run, which would have been 200% scarier (and totally overkill, surely).

Turns out that in action the thing looks more like Curiosity with a creepy furby on top of it.

Bear us very friend