A future in which it is difficult to tell man and machine apart could soon become reality, scientists say, after recent robotic breakthroughs in Japan.

But as the once-fantastical idea of wise-cracking android sidekicks takes form in laboratories — and the gap between humans and robots narrows — society faces ethical and legal complications as yet undreamed of, they warn…

Robots already perform a wide variety of tasks in Japan: they cook noodles, help patients undergo physiotherapy and have been used in the clean-up after the 2011 nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.

South Korea deploys jellyfish-terminating robots, while a robot with artificial intelligence able to analyse market trends has become a company director in Hong Kong.

One day, predict future-gazers, robots will perform all kinds of household chores, monitor the sick, and even serve up cappuccinos…

But will they look like us..?

“More important is robots and androids as a mirror to reflect humanity. Once we become friends, the boundary between human and robot disappears,” added Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University.

The blurring of that line has long been a source of worry for humanity, as often depicted in popular culture…

Ishiguro foresees that just as younger people today are attached to their mobile phones — in reality powerful computers that mediate much of their lives — androids will one day become an indivisible part of our landscape.

“Everyone is going to have an android,” he predicted. “Handicapped people need another body. We are going to have more choices.”

In my geek news junkie experience, most people sitting around moralizing about robots, worrying about the effects of their mirror to humanity, don’t know squat about machines, robots, computers – and probably human beings outside of their classrooms and psychologizing seminars.

Go back and read Isaac Asimov, read Ray Kurzweil, quit worrying about what you think Freud thought about Golems. Real life experience will sort things out.