Why Do You Do This, Japan?

The first “robot pop star” [Lady Gaga doesn't count, no matter how much tin foil she wraps around her ambiguous crotch] just made its debut at Japan’s Digital Contents Expo.  The HRP-4C — AKA “Divabot” — was designed by Japan’s Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) to be a singing, dancing, killing machine:

She can sing realistically because of some special software that mimics human head, mouth, and facial movements, called VocalWatcher, and she synthesizes the song with software the team created called VocalListener. [Discoblog]

They even incorporated blinking and “breathing” modeled after a human singer, which you can see demonstrated in the terrifying videos below.  Team leader Masataka Goto explains this abomination thusly: “For robots to become widespread in society, I think they need to be used widely in the entertainment industry.”  No.  First you build the sexbots. Then you make them sing and dance.  If even then.  I also tried to explain this logical progression at Disney World’s Hall of Presidents, but they were all like, “Where are your pants?” and “Get away from Mr. Lincoln.” and “We’re calling the police.”  Happiest place on Earth? Yeah right.