Slashdot Mirror
Robot Family in Every Home?
cswilly writes: "Yahoo has a story that Sony wants to see a robot animal in every home. I was wondering if Sony has a total cost of ownership argument for these things? Let's see, $2500 for a robot dog + $100 in electricity oven ten years. A real dog costs, say $1/day to feed, lives ten years for $3650 on food, plus $1000 in vet bills. The robot wins hands down." But keeping it in Mom's Robot Oil isn't cheap either...
Most families are already like robot families. White, protestant, republican-voting, heterosexual people with 2.5 kids, SUV and a house in suburbia who also go to church every Sunday - not because they believe but because it's expected.
If I sold flower pots, I'd want one in every home. Preferrably 10. That's a stupid statement on Sony's part, really. Anyone who sells anything wants lots of them everywhere. It's called "selling product to make money". Sheeh.
--jcwren
come and find all things to connected with sex: my sister, brother and my cute robot dog at www.robotdogfamilysex4u.com
;)
A sufficiently sized and well-trained dog is able come up with it's own food if you live in a neighborhood sporting enough cats.
OTOH, the Sony petdogs probably have a setting to disable barking at night.
+++ath0
I got two kittens a couple of weeks ago. I'm already out $500 in vet bills, food, cat toys, litter, etc., etc., etc.
I think my vet gets more per hour than my internist. And no insurance hassles.
Of course, he'll probably pick up robot repair as a sideline if this actually comes off.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Sony is talking to sell this dog to everyone in China, not US.
Some kind person left a pamphlet on my car, indicating that the world was going to end soon, and that I should beware the mark of the beast. As fate would have it, there is a pretty clear section of this highly informative and exceptionally soul-cleansing literature about robotic animals and their place in God's kingdom. As it turns out, this is clearly mentioned in an obscure and out-of-context verse of the bible. Beware, my friends, the end is near.
Man, what I wouldn't give to know who that kind person was, so that I might track them down and give them a good thanking.
Free artificial Minds for robots are now available from http://mind.sourceforge.net in both MSIE JavaScript (for learning about AI) and in Win32Forth (for implementation in robots). Some tweaking or porting to new languages may be required. Ports have already been launched for Visual Basic and Java.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mind/ is just one of well over three hundred (300) Open Source AI projects on SourceForge, and the AI "Mind" project is unusual in that it is based on awell-developed and highly original linguistic Theory of Mind (see SourceForge/ Mind/ Docs/ Theory of Mind) drawing upon Chomskyan linguistics and the neuronal feature-extraction for which Hubel and Wiesel won their Nobel prize.
Onwards to http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-s ing.html -- Technological Singularity!
(this is where it was described first, long time ago).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I've seen the AIBO being demonstrated and it's surprising how stupid it is and how tiresome it quickly becomes. It is certainly no replacement for a real dog and clearly won't be for a long, long time if ever.
Even assuming it ever does reach that point, are people really willing to spend more for fake dog than they would for a real one? Who would be so emotionally bankrupt?
Interesting article here on sony's attempts to standardize robot architecture. At least they're playing nice with whatever competitors they have.
They just announced a cheaper $800 model that looks a little more "Hello Kitty" than the previous ones, just fyi. Probably to compete with Tiger's i-Cybie that'll be $200. Duane
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Huh? "Robot" first appeared in "RUR" by Chapek -- IIRC, pets weren't mentioned there ;-)
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Last night took my girlfriend out to dinner and a movie. Dinner cost 72 dollars and the movie was about 23. This is just a fraction of the expenses I always pay on this girl.
Robot Girlfriend, however, will sit at home until I return from where ever I was having fun...
and the bitch will like it!
Long live Robot Girlfriend!
Haven't they already got a protptype working in this home?
You're using her as bait, Master!
I wonder what the average life expectancy of one of these is. Cats can live as long as 20 years in some cases. I'd bet this thing would wear out in about 5 if it was kept operational all day long, as a real animal is.
Yeah, but remember that anchovies are not extinct... yet!
Although in some parts of the USA you can't even call them "pets" anymore... they are now "companion animals". For me, I don't see why I'd want a smart, lovable robot in my house. Keep it stupid and make it work. That's what machines are for. So unless RoboRover can mow or vacuum or sort laundry I don't see the point. Can it even solve Rubik's cube?
I do not have a signature
Real dogs tend to scare away robbers, I don't think robot dogs have been found to do that. At least not yet.
There is in fact a good chance that a robot dog attacking a robber might be legally declared a trap, and that could be very bad for the owner, and maybe the maker. A real dog attacking a robber on the other hand tends to get declared as some sort of hero dog (of corse dogs attacking UPS delivery people get put down, which is sad).
Besides real dogs make good pool toys, fake ones die in the water :-)
Imagine if the things were spyware. Put one in every home, give them wireless networking and GPS, and you've have the perfect setup to be watched 24x7. Now THERE'S the stuff of sci-fi stories.
The word seems older than that. It comes from the czech for slave and has roots to Indo-European words connected to orphan and work.
robot noun
A mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance. A machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control. A person who works mechanically without original thought, especially one who responds automatically to the commands of others.
[Czech, from robota, drudgery. See orbh- in Indo-European Roots.]
robotic adjective
Word History: Robot is a word that is both a coinage by an individual person and a borrowing. It has been in English since 1923 when the Czech writer Karel apek's play R.U.R. was translated into English and presented in London and New York. R.U.R., published in 1921, is an abbreviation of Rossum's Universal Robots; robot itself comes from Czech robota, "servitude, forced labor," from rab, "slave." The Slavic root behind robota is orb-, from the Indo-European root *orbh-, referring to separation from one's group or passing out of one sphere of ownership into another. This seems to be the sense that binds together its somewhat diverse group of derivatives, which includes Greek orphanos, "orphan," Latin orbus, "orphaned," and German Erbe, "inheritance," in addition to the Slavic word for slave mentioned above. Czech robota is also similar to another German derivative of this root, namely Arbeit, "work" (its Middle High German form arabeit is even more like the Czech word). Arbeit may be descended from a word that meant "slave labor," and later generalized to just "labor."
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Robots are just modern versions of the ancient "golem" myth.
At this point, it's kind of hard to claim true originality for very much
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
There are countless dogs and other perfectly good pets waiting to be 'put to sleep' in Humane Societies all over the country and around the world. Go get the real thing. The Sony bot is just going to wind up turned off in a corner and eventually in a landfill.
$2500 for a robot dog + $100 in electricity oven ten years. A real dog costs, say $1/day to feed, lives ten years for $3650 on food, plus $1000 in vet bills. The robot wins hands down."
Firstly, a dog does not cost $1/day to feed. A medium sized dog would probably cost 25-50 cents at most to feed if you were feeding it dry food.
More importantly, however, since the majority of the costs you attribute to the real dog occur in the future (some of it in the far future) you have to discount those dollars spent in the future to today. For those of you who flunked economics, this means that the value of $100 in 1 year is less than the value of $100 today, the value of $100 2 years from now is less than the value of $100 in 1 year, etc and the decline of value of moneys to be paid/received in the future is exponential. I don't have a calculator handy but you will find that the cost of ownership of a real dog (assuming the already unrealistic cost structure as explained above) is far less than the $4650 you came up with.
Whereas with the Sony dog, almost all the costs of the dog are up front so the present value/cost of the Sony dog is very close to its $2500 sticker price.
...but... like someone else said, their newer model is $850, not $2500 -- *and* has all the features of the more advanced Aibo II, The newer model is cheaper, but not less functional.
Sure, this is all fun and games, but the reality is that they've managed to bring the price down from $2500 to $850 in a year. Who isn't to say there'll be more features and a bigger price drop in the years to come? Heck, a few trips to the vet can easily cost $850..
While I would never replace my dog for a robotic one just yet, I'll probably eat my words in 10 years... The Aibo's in 10 years will probably have hair, be furry, cuddly, and come in various sizes... making it hard to tell if it's real or a robot...
Anyone who has lost a pet would know... When the pet dies, it's gone, but the pain isn't. Now, consider this -- what if you could get a pet that would live forever? That's tempting...
Didn't you see "The 6th day"?
I very much liked the virtual girlfriend in that movie.
(too bad she was female, but that's what the guy choose to purchase.)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
If they could get up to the marginally useful level, like picking up junk on the floor, customers might leave them on all the time.
They should at least be able to find their recharging station.
The robot dog will be the equivalent of 1984 telescreens for Big Brother.
Sony would be the perfect company to do this since they are a major consumer electronics manufacturer, but also have an interest in protecting their copyrights on both audio and video recordings. None of the other major intellectual property giants have the capability to get a dog installed into every home.
IANAL, but now that the idea has been mentioned in public, is it too late to patent?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I've always wanted a steel wool sweater.
Microsoft must get their mits into anything that is destined to become ubiqutious. This will probably wake the sleeping giant. Just as most every other innovation has.
If you have mixed breeds in one house will they fight? <whistle> Here, xbox, here boy! <whistle> <whistle> Here PSX. Now get along and don't fight.
--
Very few animals were harmed in the making of this post.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
real dogs are cute and warm. robot dogs are cold and look robotic. The basic thing is I *can't* love a robot dog the same way I love my dog at home. Yeah, real dogs maybe harder to train, they might need to be housebroken, but so are human babies. We all complain how hard it is to raise kids, but do we even think about replacing them with robotic counterparts? I guess a robotic dog could work as a viable "man's best friend" for someone. But, real dogs all the way for me.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
Actually, the average dog costs its owner $13,500 over the life of the animal... way too much for me to pay.
Smart enough to be rich?
Hey,
Let's see, $2500 for a robot dog + $100 in electricity oven ten years. A real dog costs, say $1/day to feed, lives ten years for $3650 on food, plus $1000 in vet bills. The robot wins hands down."
Let's see, $100 for am inflatable woman + $100 in batteries over 10 years. A real woman costs $45+ to take out for a meal, lives with you ten years for $3,000 in shoes, plus a $1000 engagement ring. The inflatable woman wins hands down.
Except she isn't alive.
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
The robot dog probably doesn't fetch worth a damn, and I doubt that it does a good job licking your face when you get home from work.
1) Ram something worse than the DMCA down your throat.
2) Bomb Perl Harbor.
Sorry, I won't take those odds!
As a side note, if you try to throw one of those fuckers out, you'll probably have a run in with the Robot arm of the PETA.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think that Sony really misses the point of a pet. Humans like affection and loyalty from an independant entity. A robot will never be independant - it's loyalty is as immaterial as that of your shirt, and its affection is, at best, pre-programmed.
Now, if they could program it to do my laundry, that would be something else...
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Robot cats are the way to go here... they're much cheaper to make, since they only need to be programmed to sit there and ignore you...
This last battery was a lithium-ion job. And it was almost never used. It still crapped out as fast as any other rechargeable I have used -- and I babied them too. I'd never recharge until the battery was drained and all that good stuff. It didn't seem to make a difference. Just my luck, I guess.