Enormous numbers of people are being replaced by (or perhaps converted into) robots, reports suggest, and the trend is set to continue.

Indeed, the issue has become so salient in Japan that a specialist thinktank, the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation (MIMF?), has been set up to monitor the gradual infiltration of society by mechanoid impostors.

Reuters reports that MIMF's latest estimates predict that 3.5 million Japanese workers - nearly three per cent of the population - will actually be automatic surrogates as of 2025.

In fact, the idea is that this is positive - the greying of Japan's population is well known, as is its failure to reproduce itself.

The Reuters scribes seem to imply that, rather than being invaded from within by an unwelcome droid fifth column, Japan will willingly convert itself from a flesh-based to a machine civilisation as a matter of choice, rather as the Cybermen (of Doctor Who fame) did in their remote past.

"Robots are important because they could help to alleviate... shortage of the labour force," said Takao Kobayashi of MIMF.

But there are still obstacles in the way before the Land of the Rising Sun can go fully cyborg: it seems that ageing Japanese citizens remain reluctant to be converted into eternal machine workers.

Blighty is thought by some to be facing a similar problem, as noted media robomageddon professor and gladiatordroid expert Noel Sharkey has famously said:

This has become a passion for me. There is a cultural mythology about robots... there are some real dangers that we may soon have to face. We need proper informed public debate... we must decide what we want from them before we dehumanize ourselves further.

"People need to have the will," adds Kobayashi.

Read all about it from Reuters here. ®