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The Death of Aibo, the Birth of Softbank's Child-Robot

Posted by timothy on from the product-obsolescence-as-murder dept.

New submitter pubwvj writes: Sony is killing off their robot Aibo, stranding the 150,000 or so owners with no support, repairs or parts other than cannibalism. Now we have another Japanese company, SoftBank, releasing a robotic 'child.' Eventually, they too will discontinue the production of parts and support, beginning the process of killing off all those 'children' that are spawned. As robotics become (far) more advanced at what point will it be murder for a company to discontinue a product line?

12 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. it's murder, already by turkeydance · · Score: 5, Insightful

    reading this stuff.

  2. Just print your own parts by Sowelu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    By the time we have to worry about sentience, won't we have good enough 3d printing?

    Of course it's also a little worrying to imagine an AI that's sentient and impossible to murder.

  3. Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OK, I'll bite: when it's sentient.

    This place is going to hell lately.

    1. Re:Seriously? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OK, I'll bite: when it's sentient.

      Chimps fit most definitions of sentient. They can use language, and express complex thoughts. They are self aware, and recognize themselves in a mirror. They can work together to coordinate complicated activities. Yet killing a chimp is not considered "murder".

    2. Re:Seriously? by Jeremi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      [...] Yet killing a chimp is not considered "murder".

      Perhaps it should be?

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  4. Never ? by PIBM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not even murder to kill a cow to eat it. It's not murder to euthanize your old and sick cat. It is not murder for a woman not to have childrens. Why could it be murder to NOT PRODUCE a robot, which is a even barely an assembly of plastic and metal pieces ?

  5. dumb by quonsar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the dumbest post I've seen on Dicedot.

    --

    Sacred cows make the best burgers.

  6. Seriously? by Gibgezr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. WTF is going on at Dice?

  7. The real question is... by biedenbach · · Score: 5, Informative

    Who murdered Slashdot? Between this and the divide by zero question, I weep for the death of intelligent discussion.

    1. Re:The real question is... by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I actually though the divide by zero post was interesting -- not because I took the suggestion that language designers define x/0 to be 0 seriously, but because I thought it was an interesting challenge to explain to someone who thought this might be a good idea why it's really a terrible idea.

      Also there are applications of algebra to sets of things other than numbers, like the permutations of a Rubik's cube, or to matrices, or to error correcting codes. These applications are called "abstract algebra", although in truth they're really no more or less abstract than the usual kinds of algebra. In these kinds of applications questions might arise that sound really strange, like "Is 1 necessarily different than 0?" Ask 99.9% of reasonably educated people that question and they'll consider it stupid, but press them and they can't provide any better answer than "it just is."

      I think it's always interesting to try to explain something that most people think is "self-evidently" true -- by which they mean they have no idea why it's true. In 1984 when O'Brien torments Winston Smith with the non-sensical assertion that "2 + 2 = 5". But I doubt that a mathematician would find such a statement particularly disturbing; it depends on what you mean by "2", "+", "=" and "5".

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  8. Never by hduff · · Score: 5, Funny

    But I feel like I died a little reading crap like this on Slashdot.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  9. Re:Four year life span by geekmux · · Score: 3, Funny

    Aibo: "I want more life, fucker!"

    Uh, someone should have probably told him/her/it that we now live in a disposable society.

    It's also become rather obvious that the disposal rate mirrors our attention spa...woah, is that the new iPod in a different color?!?...