Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/01/sony-re-introduces-the-aibo-ro.html
…
Monthly subscription? Get outta here…
Does it come with surveillance? That’s what dogs are for, right?
Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks…
Doesn’t seem to be available in the US. Bummer.
I estimate we are five years from this.
Sounds pretty expensive…
BUT, I just coughed up over $4k on an aging cat that went and dies anyway, so over long run maybe not so much but with these advantages:
- Doesn’t piss on your bed when your out
- Doesn’t cough up hair balls/yuk all over your stairs when it’s annoyed
- Doesn’t cause various friends to stop visiting due to allergies
…
Oh boy, hackers are going to have a field day with these.
For $1700 and a monthly fee, it better be able to get me beer out of the fridge.
I wonder if Sony set it to just shut down in absence of an active subscription; or if they went for the heartstrings and added the ability for the bot to emulate progressively more intense suffering when deprived of a hookup to the mothership?
(edit: like those rabbits in Second Life; but with more room for emotional engagement and interactivity. Watch your poor robo-pal get weaker and hungrier; feel your heart sink when the sight of a credit card(should be within the capabilities of the sensors described) that just might buy a life-giving subscription extension inspires an outburst of frenzied hope and gratitude, of the sort only a hungry puppy can truly pull off; feel like you are objectively hitler when you put the card away without helping your buddy out and it sinks the the floor with a whine of unbearable sorrow and a soulful betrayed stare… Emotional engagement, people!)
“The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man.”
That was a movie that I didn’t like on first viewing, but I found I liked it more and more upon further viewings.
Losing hope for sexbots, if they can’t even get a dog right.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.