Faking that emotion
AIBO periodically makes human gestures to illustrate which of five emotional states it is operating in at any given moment. Motions such as stretching its legs, waving its paws in the air in specific patterns, or an unmistakable yawning action are key indicators. The colour of the light in its tail, and the lighting pattern displayed its robotic eye socket indicate degrees of behavioural intensity.
When picked up, AIBO would make graceful swimming motions, as if responding languorously to the attentive touch of his owner, before retracting its limbs to facilitate transportation (presumably). When placed back on the ground, it carries out a convincing full-body shake before resuming operation.
AIBO is touted as a machine that can learn, responding to its masters by understanding positive and negative feedback. AIBO can respond to its human masters through rewards delivered through of its tactile feedback (approximating the petting response of an actual domestic pet). AIBO has touch-sensitive switches on its head, back and on the end of each paw. Stroking the head sensor back and forth rewards AIBO resulting in pleased little trills, and reinforcement of the current behaviour patterns. Penalising AIBO's behaviour involves sharply tapping the head switch, the signal for AIBO to cease what it is doing, resulting in a displeased response, and discouragement of the current behaviour.
Contrary to the sales hype surrounding the device, it isn't quite the sentient companion you might have been expecting. In fact, the biological sophistication of real creatures has never been brought into such blinding contrast. AIBO cannot learn new games or interactions in the way a real animal can. It has a limited capacity to learn about navigating new environments, but it won't be fetching your slippers in a hurry. Everything you see AIBO do which is interminably cute or dog-like has been painstakingly animated by a team of Japanese artists and technicians locked in a laboratory somewhere. Work like this is finite by definition; it learns what kinds of patterns you prefer and respond by repeating those patterns more often.
Voice response
You don't have to touch AIBO to interact with it--AIBO possesses highly advanced and robust speech recognition technology. Straight out of the box, AIBO understands a wide suite of voice commands.
Saying "name registration" to AIBO results in it raising a paw to listen for its own name. It will then respond to this name when called. It even compares the name you give it to existing voice commands it knows, shaking its head when it's given name is too similar to something it already uses.
You can greet AIBO in 4 different ways and admonish or praise the robot vocally as an alternative to stroking or slapping it. You can say "Good boy" and "Don't do that!" which are recognised through a range of accents and voice characteristics. Incredibly, AIBO requires virtually no voice training to understand you. You can even ask it questions that it will answer, such as "What is your name?" and "How old are you", which it acts out in strange coded light patterns and musical tones. Say "Hello" and AIBO reciprocates with a very close musical facsimile, immediately.
AIBO can also be told to take a picture and it will capture a digital snap from its nose camera, which can be extracted later using the software interface. Upon hearing the command, AIBO nods vigorously - pressing its head switch at this point confirms the photo instruction. All the lights on his head illuminate, sequentially extinguishing along with an audio-based countdown sound, culminating with a "photo taken" sound effect.
Despite the cheesy Barnum & Bailey party tricks, occasionally you can't help finding yourself spellbound by the AIBO's little adventures around the lounge room, temporarily forgetting that it is an expensive collection of plastic, electrical servomotors and software.
At other times, attempting to interact with it or teach it something makes you feel a little bit juvenile; like a toddler attempting to squeeze some more Fisher-Price 'push-and-pull' entertainment out of a AU$3,000 canine version of Teddy Ruxpin.
Occasionally brilliant, the AIBO serves primarily as a spectacular and stylishly constructed proof of concept device. It has certainly succeeded in emulating the cutest human and canine emotive behaviour and packaging it in a toy. Young children instantly fall in love with the AIBO and its charms.
Paradoxically, it is a little bit too expensive to consider as a gift for children unless you fall squarely into the millionaire category, and can comfortably blow AU$3,000 dollars on a fragile toy which can only exhibit around forty recognisable traits before you have experienced all of its behaviours.
AIBO comes in black, silver, and champagne, boasts 1.5 hours of battery life and takes 2 hours to fully recharge. Unfortunately it cannot recharge itself. Instead, communicates to request recharging and needs human help to be placed on a charger station or plugged in.
The AIBO ships with a very basic set of interactive functions. To really get the most out of it you would be mad not to purchase one of the personality application software packages for it, which add not only features but let you contour the AIBO more closely to the kind of product you want to own.
I fear the obsession with recreational gadgets is becoming insane. These are toys. Things without a soul or emotions. Kids are becoming more anti-social and obese. Shorter attention spans from hours spent in front of the TV or playstation cripple their concentration in school and their thirst for knowledge.
These toys are dangerous to any children. How can a child mature normally with electronic toys as pets and companions? The real world is full of real people, with real ideas and emotions.
We should understand the consequences of a new technology before we discuss and admire the new features. I'm in favour of many new technologies which serve a constructive purpose. For example, robots used for bomb disposal and other life-threatening situations.