Will Robot Pets Ever Replace the Real Pets?? What Do You Think??

Recently several articles have appeared in tech magazines and journals about what the potential impact of a new wave of robotic pets, primarily robotic dogs at this point, will be on people and on society.

Part of the premise is that urban areas are growing worldwide and lots of people like to have pets and would there ever be a conflict in terms of space requirements, sanitation, noise and so forth. A number of companies have made simple robotic dogs that would likely never replace anything other than another toy like a stiffed animal. But in Korea and Japan there have been very high end, expensive robotic pet dogs to which, it seems, at least some people get very attached to...perhaps like kids today are very much attached to their i-Phones and some husky, heavily bearded males to their motorcycles.

Here are some articles and some pix:

http://gizmodo.com/robot-dogs-will-replace-pets-in-super-dense-cities-1703675016

http://time.com/3703243/google-boston-dynamics-robot-dog/  The title of this Time Mag article is (!):

Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration? [Note: Boston Dynamics is a company Google recently purchased and it does extensive robotics work for the US military, including robotic pack animals, robotic bomb detecting "animals" and an incredibly fast robotic cheetah. I showed a video of the robotic pack animal and it climbs around through the woods and, at one point, tips over. My class issued a collective "aww" like they thought it was sad! This link is for a newer video on the pack animal from Boston Dynamics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFkDV2NKEY

Here's a video on the dog that goes jogging with you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w  and note that at the end it is jogging with the pack animal robot.

In those videos the robotic animals are not being directly controlled in the sense of someone at a controller steering the robots. These bots have computer vision and other sensory inputs that allow them to be tasked to a person and they can also move in unison -- jog together.

An article from Wired, a very pro-tech publication:

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/creepy-collective-behavior-boston-dynamics-new-robot-dog/  

In Japan Sony made a very popular robotic dog and sold 150,000 of them but then shifted to other product lines and discontinued the product line. As the robotic dogs "died" some of their owners gave them funerals!

http://www.newsweek.com/japans-robot-dogs-get-funerals-sony-looks-away-312192 

And this was the Sony promo video for the dog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=32&v=2l2P8Uz0LkA  

First picture is the Korean robotic dog now sold for about $1800. The 2nd picture is of a funeral for 19 robotic dogs in Japan.

Um..... no. Unless they make them warm and furry and give them eyes that can look adoringly into yours.

Okay, fair enough. Just remember the funerals in Japan for the metallic and plastic robotic dogs.

But here is an article from MIT Tech Review on a furry "thing":

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/511121/this-robotic-fur-patch-is-cooler-than-your-cat/

No eyes, though. That article was written two years ago.

Again, from Japan, furry robotic seals used to help the elderly after the tsunami:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNw4oicWmWU

I suppose there is a lot to be said for a pet that doesn't pee or poo on your rugs or furniture, but I don't think I could ever feel the same about an "animal" that didn't have a real life and personality. As for the funeral for the robotic pets... I can't think of anything to say that isn't rather scathing. So I'll keep it to myself.

Incidentally, how does a robotic pet die? Just stop working to the point where it can't be repaired?

BTW, the link for the article about funerals didn't work for me...

They could be useful as service dogs for version impaired people. Probably other things as well. But Peggy makes a good point about the actual affection you know is coming from the animal of its own accord.

Not sure why the link didn't work. I went to Google and typed in "Japanese robotic dog" and got a hit that led to the page.

http://www.newsweek.com/japans-robot-dogs-get-funerals-sony-looks-away-312192

Then you could try this article from the Guardian on robotic dog funerals:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/12/mourn-robotic-dog-human-sony

In Japan and Korea companion robots are becoming a very big business since: (a) population is very much tilted towards the elderly -- huge elderly component to the population; (b) not many kids to take care of the elderly. Whether it is a companion robot that pretends to be more of a "person" or a "pet", this is a growing phenomenon.

It may be somewhat culturally specific -- maybe it works in Japan but not in the US, or at least not to as great extent here.

For example, check this humanoid robot unveiled in China: http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/687dffdfeaf4fae546be3a721f675eee.htm 

One picture is shown below.

I have no idea why, but the second link to that article about funerals worked.

The motion of the Aibo bothers me enormously. It is extremely unnatural and SLOW. If that is an animal, it's an extremely old or sick one.

I know it seems like I'm being difficult about this, but I have a very strong resistance to the idea, not sure why. The argument that the robotic pets are needed in Asia where there are so many elderly and not enough kids to take emotional care of their elders makes me very, very sad.

I've had dogs for most of my life, and I don't think the robotic dog would be the same - where's the love/quirkiness/playfulness/stubborness/fun that you have when interacting with a living dog - who usually has its own agenda and is trying to train you to do what it wants while you are trying to do the reverse!

If I were physically unable to walk and care for a dog, I still think I'd want an actual living creature for a pet - we've had rats and guinea pigs and both were so sweet and enjoyable. I'd rather go with one of them than a robot.

But, on the other hand, these could have uses with patients  who might have dementia or have some medical issues that preclude a living pet....perhaps they might even be useful for other populations who simply cannot have a live pet.

But would they replace what most of us think of and love as "pets"? I don't think so.

Japanese men also get emotionally attached to love dolls. I think it's something cultural that doesn't translate over here. However, anybody remember pet rocks?

I think it might be a hard sell but I am up for anything that could maybe walk itself, and not pee and poop in my house  

I think it's a generational thing. Kids growing up today in a world of Siri, Cortana, and Watson will get used to ascribing intelligence and personality to nonliving things. Some of the criticisms of the robots above are of either their movement or their appearance, both of which are simple engineering problems. 

It's become pretty clear that we think certain animals are 'cute' because they've adapted to domestication by developing behaviors we respond to. For instance, the "guilty dog" look [shortening links to prevent the truncation problem on phones]:

http://bit.ly/17N9GWE

Again, just an engineering problem to program a synthetic dog to use voice & speech recognition as well as image recognition to 'react' the same way in the same situation. Howabout following you around the house because they want to be with you (or, more likely, want to hoover up any food you drop):

http://ind.pn/1Frql1k

In any case, I would LOVE a combination of all three. We have seven parrots, whose "unpredictable and spontaneous" behavior consists of biting me and crapping on the floor. I would prefer a robot parrot that follows me around the house, acting all parrot like, until i need specific information- then I could say "Watson, [our parrot, which is ironically named after the supercomputer I mentioned before], what's the fastest way to St, Michaels, Maryland at eight PM on Tuesday?" and it would spit the answer out in perfect English. 

At night, it would return to its charger for both rest and nourishment. When it's not being used for information, it would run a 'cute loop' and say random things imitating me and my family, or hang upside down, etc. I'm pretty sure we'd soon forget that all of the behavior was 'put there,' and begin to treat it as if it had a brain behind it's eyes, and not a wifi connecetion to a giant data center in North Carolina.

I have to agree with MickeyMouse about this, and if the younger generations are growing up willing to have relationships with inanimate objects to the point they are willing to do without living creatures, I feel really sorry for them.

Prepare to be WOWED! I have the first Robo kitten available right here in South Orange! You will be amazed at how life-like she is. And this one will lick your face and is warm and fuzzy! She moves with amazing speed, and will realistically use her litter box and appears to eat food and drink water.

She even comes with her own little adoption contract!

PM me if interested.

bookbabe66 said:

I think it might be a hard sell but I am up for anything that could maybe walk itself, and not pee and poop in my house  

You don't need a robot, just a really smart dog

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO4i-1pto5s

Some women would argue that this dog is smarter than some men. Just saying...  he did put the toilet seat down.

Hah! Love it, Morganna.

Some stories about robotic pets. This one is based on the robotic baby seal that a Japanese company has pioneered.

http://kalw.org/post/robotic-seals-comfort-dementia-patients-raise-ethical-concerns

This is the web site of that company:

http://www.parorobots.com/

And this is a citation for a research paper on the effects of pet robots, specifically the robotic baby seal:

http://web.media.mit.edu/~coryk/papers/Paro_AndroidScience05.pdf

That paper references the work of Prof. Sherry Turkle at MIT who has written extensively on humans connections to technology, not just robots. Her books are excellent resources that help in understanding the endless fascination we have with technology.

Watching students today some of them appear to have vastly more "connection" with their i-phones than with pets!

Why stop at pets? Let's have robot kids too.  I'll take mine with the Disney Channel Sassy-Jerk personality attachment.

Well, go out 20-30 years and who knows what the world will bring us in terms of robots. We could have millions of personal assistant robots, autonomous vehicles (which are a large-scale version of robots), pilotless planes, autonomous combat vehicles, and on and on and on.

Asimov's trilogy on a robotic future starting with Caves of Steel is very interesting reading.

marylago said:

I think that the best thing about a robopet would be that you could leave it alone while you went on vacation...

 Yes. And know that when you go to bed at night, you won't get up to a mess by the door in the morning.

Given some people's attachment to their cars this must be disheartening;

http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/advanced-cars/meet-zoox-the-robotaxi-startup-taking-on-google-and-uber/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=052115

You can take your robotic pet into the robot car and, by 2020, you can have a personal drone follow you at a discrete height and video you as the robotic car drives along, all the while you can be talking with Siri or with a humanoid companion robot. Just a century+ ago the wealthy would get in a horsedrawn cab with a servant and poodle, perhaps wondering about those noxious motor vehicles that scared the horses.

Not exactly a pet -- more like an insect in a hurry -- but watch what it can do.

Story:

http://phys.org/news/2015-05-self-folding-robot-climbs-dissolves.html?utm_source=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu

Video is in the story about half way down.