Meeting AIBO

Think of a robot…and what comes to your mind?

A creature (…one I cannot define or slot as something I have seen / encountered before)…that moves in a slow, deliberate fashion…something that is pre-programmed to do a set of simple tasks…perhaps walk a short distance, pick up an object and reach it to you. If it trips and falls down…something that would make a buzzing noise to catch the owner’s attention…

I would not certainly associate emotions…feelings…moods…with robots. In fact the two I would have thought were on diametrically opposite ends of a spectrum.

Robot = something mechanical…someone or something that responds automatically without thought / emotion. And by extension…the character of a robot (as opposed to that of a living being) would define one's interaction with it. So if I had to think about myself interacting with the robot, I would imagine myself giving it ‘directions’...to do things...at best. I could not imagine ‘talking’ to one…and quite honestly If I would see someone ‘talking’ to a robot / playing with it…I’d think the person has either lost his sanity, is terribly lonely or is one of those with the ‘geek strain’ who gets excited at the thought of gizmos.

I know that I never had that ‘geek strain’. Since like most women (and here I make an assumption that technology does not excite women), and at the risk of sounding absolutely sacrilegious to my male counterparts…I’d say that for me an IPOD was a music player, much like any other…or a mobile phone was a mobile phone…whether it is my basic Nokia 3310 or the one with the latest alphanumeric code suffixed to it. I seriously would not get that ‘butterfly in my stomach feeling’ at the launch of the next generation X-Box.

But last week I met AIBO and it changed my perspective on robots and technology.

At first I stood at a safe distance and just watched people…the whole experience of watching humans interact with a robot was so captivating that I stood there for more than half a day watching people stroke its head and rub its back…hold their hand forward to its paw. I watched AIBO respond to it being called by name, it played in its pen, sat down when it was tired, tried to grab its bone and even made a sad face :( when it dropped the bone.

I saw people talk to him…Good boy…hear take this…as naturally as they would. There was no feeling of hesitation, embarrassment or of ‘being watched’ by others in the crowd

I saw children giggle and play

I saw men from the museum staff… (and I thought men would not do that at the risk of sounding stupid)…come up to him at the end of the day and say…Bye AIBO…see you tomo

For the whole time that I stood next to that exhibit in a museum, not for once did I realize that it was not a dog…it was a robot!

By the end of the day, I had grown to like AIBO and wanted to take back a picture of him with me…AIBO surprised me by standing up and posing for the picture :)

It amazes me to see that what technology can accomplish. That robots can recognize voices and people and faces…that they can talk…dance…sing to you…emote. They respond to what you tell them, they learn and remember what you teach them (one can teach AIBO new tricks that it will remember).

Sony, has circumvented the conventional concept of robots and positioned AIBO and later QRIO as ‘entertainment robots’ that don’t do anything. AIBO is just there as an entertaining and lovable pet that no one would expect to be useful and as for QRIO, it’s more like a playful child…“QRIO’s dreams are limitless. But one is clear: to make your life fun and happy” explains the promotional text on Sony’s Web site

At the end of this post I feel calling AIBO and QRIO robots would be doing injustice to their character, (etymologically the word robot is derived from roots that connote ‘labor’ or 'slave labor'...there is always some reference to ‘work’) Perhaps just as a new category of robots is born, we’ll soon see a new word in the lexicon that describes these complex creatures…playbots perhaps…pardon my lack of creativity!

Categories: Wandering Around_ ,