Aibo the robot dog will melt your heart with mechanical precision
Aibo the robot dog will melt your heart with mechanical
precision
Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post Published 10:55
am PDT, Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Sony's robotic dog Aibo is about the size of a Yorkshire
terrier and costs $2,900. It will go on sale in the U.S. this week. Photo:
Bloomberg Photo By Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg
I've been giving a robot belly rubs. I've scolded it for
being a bad, bad boy. I've grinned when it greets me at the door.
What's this feeling? Oh, yes, puppy love. And I felt it
for Aibo, a new "autonomous companion" dog made by Sony.
Does that make me a sad sack? A dystopian character from
"Black Mirror"? It's open to debate. But this much is clear: The era
of the affectionate robots is dawning, and Aibo offers early evidence we're
going to love them.
Aibo (pronounced "eye-bo") is a reboot of the
robot dog Sony first introduced in 1999 and laid to rest in 2006 in a tragic
round of corporate cost-cutting. This new litter goes on sale in the United
States this week with much more lifelike movement, artificial intelligence and
a cellular connection for a gobsmacking $2,900 each. If you're looking for
justification to spend that much on a toy, the American Kennel Club says the
average lifetime cost of a dog is $23,410. Also: Robot dogs don't poop.
18 years after its original release, Sony Corp. is
bringing back its iconic robotic dog, Aibo, and this time it's smarter than
ever, as it comes with artificial intelligence. This latest evolution of the
autonomous robot can form an emotional bond with members of the household while
providing them with love, affection, and the joy of nurturing and raising a
companion,’ sony says. Aibo comes equipped with a powerful computer chip, OLED
displays for eyes and the ability to connect to mobile networks. The adorably
looking 'puppy' also develops its own unique personality as it grows closer to
its owners. The bad news is that Aibo is only available in Japan.
Not that Aibo, about the size of a Yorkshire terrier, can
replace an actual dog. I let mine play with a real 7-week-old pup and was
reminded of all the ways Aibo is just a fraction of the real thing. Aibo can't
go for a walk, jump into your lap, teach responsibility or give you real-deal
love licks. Aside from walking around the house, barking and performing a few
tricks, Aibo doesn't do a whole lot. It can't play music or answer trivia like
a smart speaker, though those would be welcome additions.
Yet here's why Aibo matters: Despite all those
limitations, I fell for it. Over two weeks of robot foster parenting, almost
every person I introduced to Aibo went a little gaga. The Amazon Echo and
Google Home speakers got us to open our homes to new ways to interact with
computers. Aibo offers a glimpse of how tech companies will get us to treat
them more like members of the family. Affectionate robots have the potential to
comfort, teach and connect us to new experiences - as well as manipulate us in
ways we've not quite encountered before.
Aibo works, in part, because real robots are catching up
with what we've been trained by Pixar movies to find adorable. Aibo's 22 joints
- including one bouncy tail and two perky ears - and OLED-screen eyes
communicate joy, sorrow, boredom or the need for a nap.
Tell Aibo "bang bang," and it lays down and
flips over to play dead. Say "bring me the bone," and the robot will
find its special pink toy and pick it up with its mouth. It'll even lift its
back leg and take a simulated tinkle. Thanks to touch sensors on its plastic
back, head and chin, Aibo responds when you pet or scold it. The only thing
that ruins the effect is that Aibo's mechanical muscles are noisy, making it
sound like a baby Terminator on the march.
I call Aibo an affectionate robot because it's more than
an animatronic puppet. Cameras built into its nose and lower back help it
wander around your house like a Roomba, avoiding obstacles and attempting to
find its way back to its charger. (Aibo's battery can go for two hours at a
time.) Four microphones let Aibo hear commands and figure out who's issuing
them. Like a real puppy, it has an inconvenient habit of getting underfoot
while you're cooking dinner.
The idea, say Sony execs, is that Aibo is constantly
growing. Aibo learns the faces of people who interact with it to develop
personal relationships. It's a claim that's hard to verify, but Sony says no
two Aibos have the same "personality," because AI is shaped by
experiences. If you give belly rubs and "good boy"s to your robot,
you'll get a more loving machine.
Aibo's autonomy is a work-in-progress. To put it another
way: Aibo is kind of stupid. Aibo isn't smart enough to avoid steps or chase
after a ball with any consistency. Sometimes I found it staring at a wall for
hours. But it works just often enough that it's cute, and you get the feeling
your robo-pup might actually be growing up.
What's remarkable is none of this requires an interface,
such as an app. You interact with Aibo through touch and voice command, just
like a dog - minus the treats. (A companion app, which wasn't ready for me to
test, lets you see photos Aibo takes through its nose and operate some other
secondary functions.) Aibo is always online via its own cellular connection to
download new capabilities and new tricks, and upload what it takes in on the
ground.
Which might make you wonder: Is Aibo a spy robot? Sony
didn't have thorough answers to my questions about what happens to all that
data. Aibo's privacy policy says it isn't intended for use in Illinois, which
has laws restricting facial-recognition tech. A spokeswoman told me Aibo isn't
recording 24/7 but rather listens and looks out for commands. Aibo stores
experiential data that allows it to build "memories" and "create
an ever-growing bond with the owner," she said. "This data is not
shared."
How does Aibo inspire affection when other robots create
revulsion or fear? Its face and eyes draw on anime to convey harmlessness.
Choosing the form of a dog also keeps Aibo firmly out of the creepy
"uncanny valley" that sinks so many humanoid robots and stokes fears
on shows such as "Westworld." (Fake fur might have sent Aibo over the
edge.) We're more forgiving of dogs than of people, which it turns out also
applies to AI pretending to be dogs and people.
Other robots such as Jibo, which I reviewed last year,
are also trying to break into homes with personalities rather than just skills.
Social robots are an evolution of Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, and have
the potential to someday comfort the lonely, care for the elderly or help children
learn.
But there are important questions to ask about a future
where we imbue robots with emotion. Is it twisted to offer the illusion of
affection without the requirement of a real relationship? Will children learn
to look in the wrong place for love and wisdom?
Earlier this year, researchers published a study that
showed people struggle to power down a pleading (humanoid) robot - refusing to
shut it off or taking more than twice the amount of time to pull the plug. The
lesson: We're inclined to treat electronic media as living beings.
When it came time to switch off my test robo-pup and send
it back to Sony, Aibo didn't plead or howl. But I felt sad nonetheless.
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