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Sony Aibo

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200 pointscattlefarmer178 comments

It's amazing how attached some Japanese people were to the old aibos.

A report on a guy who specialised on repairing old aibos: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8qxk3g/there-is-o...

Shinto priests hold Aibo funeral services from time to time, here's a recent article: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706090040.html

Flats are small, not pet-friendly and people are old and lonely, there's a good market for the new one.

My brother was sad for two days when his Roomba broke down.

People are strange.

“Robot” was one of my toddler's first words. He sometimes stops to say "bye bye robot" to the Roomba on the way out the door to daycare.

Something about them triggers some kind of anthropomophization instinct in us.

Intentionally designed or not, the way the roomba crashes around the house, with it's "extra dirt" light occasionally going off and it circling on an area, does rather resemble an enthusiastic puppy suffling around an exciting new space.

The prospect of going back to manual vacuuming after owning a Roomba would make me sad too. ;)

Same. After the first week, I decided I'd buy another the day this one broke. Sooooo much time saved.

I once built a line of sumo fighting robots and when it came time to sell them I couldn't do it. They were my babies. So I kept them. :)

We invest in objects, watch a gearhead after something happens to there car. Never mind sailors and ships.

Personally, I'm happy when my kids don't touch the Roomba for two whole days and just let it do its job.

Japanese companies know how to build products for lonely people.

And the rest of the world is catching up with this "loneliness", with advent of superficial social media oversharing. Everyone is increasingly becoming lonely inside.

So I think this is a huge opportunity and not a niche product anymore as of 2017, as long as they get it right.

Sadly, this is a result of deeply-rooted parts of Japanese culture.

In Japan, you don't just walk up to people and strike up a conversation. Foreigners might, but native Japanese largely don't.

To establish some sort of repertoire, you need to share some sort of acceptable social context with that person: went to school together, played on a sports team together, work together, etc.

And, given that Japanese companies commonly have working hours that would be classified somewhere between "insane" and "criminally negligent", you don't really have time to socialize with anybody outside of your office.

This all goes triple for Tokyo, which has a very cold and sterile personality.

Expats tend to glop together into a tight group -- the "foreigner" community in Tokyo is like a small town in and of itself -- but for the natives, the end result is that there are a lot of very lonely people here.

> In Japan, you don't just walk up to people and strike up a conversation. Foreigners might, but native Japanese largely don't.

First of all, I've seen Japanese (who are strangers) strike up conversations on occasion in Tokyo: at the coin laundry, at the bakery, on elevators, and so on. It's not like a social taboo or something. But yes, in general, people keep to themselves.

That being said, in my experience, people in New York and Los Angeles also keep to themselves. My instinct is that the apparently introverted nature of people in Tokyo has nothing to do with Japanese culture and everything to do with the fact that it is a big city in a developed country. Perhaps someone from London can bring in another data point?

If my experiences in rural Japan are at all normal, Japanese in rural Japan are at least as talkative as those in the Southern US (where I'm from).

I lived in London nearly 20 years and yes it's like everywhere. In Piccadilly Circus or somewhere else busy, of course the shop keepers will be tense and the 'locals' in the pubs won't be looking for a chat (though that is a lie I've had random chats with both on many occasions), but in my own part of east London I'd meet loads of randoms in the park or the pub or the local shops or cafes, esp since having a child.

That said I've now moved to a very small town and it is crazy friendly, people will go out of their way to chat to you and be nice (but then again there are plenty of grumpy shop keepers and locals)

So I guess it is the same everywhere - your own little view will be coloured by your own expectations and by how much you are genuinely open to talking to people.

Lived in London for six years, only spoke to my partner, people at work/uni and my landlord (who is also an uncle-in-law, if that's a thing).

Two weeks before we left we got a dog. We met so many people from the area and the dog was an excuse to start a conversation. Made us feel like we'd been missing out all that time!

Hmm, I wonder how walking a robot dog would go. They wouldn't need walking for the same reasons a bio dog does, of course, but they could be made to insist on going outside. Maybe they would want to hunt Pokemon!

> it is a big city in a developed country

It's strange how easy it is to be so alone when there are so many people around. I've also discovered the opposite to be true, and the principle also carries over to large and small schools and large and small companies. When there are few people, they are more relational, but when it's impractical to greet everyone you meet, you may greet no one.

It is a known fact, that people in big cities tend to be more distant (is this the right word?) from each other. A lot less social interaction the bigger the city.

> you don't just walk up to people and strike up a conversation

I find this is not really true. This depends a LOT on the context in Japan. If you are in the train or in the street, yeah, it's not the right place to do that. But there are plenty of other places where such interactions happen naturally. Go in a bar? People will start talking to you. Go have dinner in a small izakaya? There's a good chance people will talk to you. Visit a tourist spot? There's a good probability something like that will happen as well. And not just with foreigners, this happens with locals as well.

So, it's far from being black or white. Just like a lot of statements I hear the whole time about Japan.

Is this in the context of traveling there as a foreigner? I found that quite a few Japanese people were willing to come up and start a conversation with me, but now that I think of it, I didn't see much casual conversation between locals.

> Is this in the context of traveling there as a foreigner

I specifically said that no, it's not just me. I have seen and heard locals talking about this happening to them a lot. I'd say this happens even less likely as a foreigner because people will just strike a short conversation with you if they can barely speak English and that will stop there. Between locals it can go on for much longer.

I noticed when visiting that in scenarios like you mentioned strangers would have no problem striking up a conversation or some other interaction. Nice scenario where I noticed this was when on hiking trails.

> you don't just walk up to people and strike up a conversation

I'd like to know what world you live in where this is any kind of option. Maybe "my introvert is showing" but I don't even consider doing this. Is this abnormal?

"Guy who talks to the person sitting next to him on the plane" here. One of two things happen when you strike up a conversation with a strange: it abruptly ends and you go back to silence, or you learn a bit about someone else and get outside of yourself for a time. Either one is perfectly acceptable.

This is very normal in most parts of the United States but the South in particular.

Normal in most English speaking countries really, at least in Canada and England from my personal experience.

Very much not the case in the German speaking countries (where i have lived since early 2005). For a time this was one of my top reasons to want to immigrate to Canada (I was already working remotely for a Canadian startup at the time).

That probably depends greatly on where in Germany you live. Rural areas are probably more open to such interactions than big cities.

I lived in Vienna for almost 8 years and Berlin for 4. In the latter people were much more talkative (but still less so than in some other contries).

Maybe in towns, but not in big cities, NY, Chicago, LA, or even smaller ones like SF. Most of the time, if you try to strike up a conversation with a stranger, like trying to chat to someone you don't know on the train for example, they will be polite but not engage - and they will probably assume you're trying to sell them something etc.

Not so much in crowded cities, such as NY, SF, etc.

Never lived in SF but it definitely happens in NYC all the time. Not some deep conversation perhaps but people exchange small talk with strangers on the subway, in parks, cafes etc.

The first time I visited NYC, I was in Manhattan for a trade show and I was expecting everybody to be rude or at least curt. Instead, I found people were incredibly friendly and I had an amazing time. My only disappointment was that at 4am most things were shut down. I thought NYC was supposed to be the city that never sleeps.

Traffic lived up to my expectations though. Driving to and from the hotel was a little stressful.

NYC is full of transplants from other places, so quite a few people know how to hang out and chat. If you're obviously not a New Yorker, they might realize that friendly out-of-town norms apply and engage with you.

But being considerate in New York usually looks like staying out of others' way. It might seem like unfriendliness to out-of-towners, but it's a (perhaps counter-intuitive) form of courtesy.

Lived in NYC for nine years; small talk amongst strangers is definitely not the norm unless there is some shared context (subway breakdown, for example)

It may be personality differences but I went to dinner with a guy's parents and a couple of other friends less than a month after meeting him in the NYC subway.

Really? I consider myself pretty introverted in that nine times out of ten I'd rather be alone in my off time, but when I'm out and about doing things during the day, I wind up chatting with at least a few folks every day. Usually this is just for a few minutes, but it is not uncommon at all to meet someone with enough shared interests to have a real conversation. This is considered normal behavior, and no one would bat an eye at it. It's like that across most of the US.

I've lived in tokyo for ~1 year now and have been coming here since early 2015, I have to say the tech community isn't that bad. Granted, one person's experience/ancecdata etc, but I've found it easier to associate with locals.

Usually going to meetups and the like can help quite a bit. There's quite a bit of social context that tends to stem from that.

Like you said, breaking the ice helps a lot. I can imagine it's worse in other industries but tech has by far been the most forgiving.

> Usually going to meetups and the like can help quite a bit.

Selection bias -- you meet people who want to go to meetups. Usually those kinds of meetups are quite small, too; I don't know many Japanese people who'd actually like to go to something like that.

One weird thing is that I have many online Japanese friends who have absolutely ZERO interest in meeting in real life; the gap between virtual and real can be surprisingly strong here.

Yep, covered that right in my reply. I'm aware I have anecdata, not saying otherwise.

I was actually saying tech is a nice bubble, not denying it exists.

I know enough that go that I've formed a nice community. Whether meeting IRL or not, it probably depends on the "kind" of friend you're considered. Japanese folks tend to put their friends in groups.

As a resident of Japan, this strikes me as complete nonsense. Life in Japan is extremely social. People strike up friendships all the time. Your pity is misplaced. Go to any izakaya and you’ll likely walk out with a few new friends, even if you’re an introvert.

I guess you're not native to Japanese

What's your point? I live in a world full of people who are native to Japan. I'm not in some sort of expat bubble. I can go weeks without seeing any foreigners here. It's not difficult for me to know the perspective of people who grew up here.

I think that's only if you're in Tokyo. It's often said [0] that people living in Kanto/Tokyo are cold. I've been here a decade now, mostly out in halfway rural/urban areas and it's not uncommon to randomly strike up a conversion with a stranger. Probably not as common as in the US/Aus, but definitely not a rare event.

[0] https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=関東人が冷たい&aqs=chrome..69i57....

    In Japan, you don't just walk up to people and strike 
    up a conversation. Foreigners might, but native Japanese 
    largely don't.
    To establish some sort of repertoire, you need to share some 
    sort of acceptable social context with that person: went to 
    school together, played on a sports team together, work
    together, etc.

I'm from the Northeast U.S. (though I've visited friends in a decent number of cities in this country) and this sounds 100% like every place I've ever lived in or visited.

Are there really places in the world where total strangers strike up conversations and form friendships with people on the street, on the bus, etc?

I'm 41 and I don't think I've never experienced that and I'm a pretty social guy!

Aside from random "how about this weather?" chit-chat, I don't think I've ever befriended somebody outside of an existing social context like school, clubs, workplaces, online communities, fellow pet owners, neighbors, etc. Closest counter-example I can think of is my mom, who become good friends with a cashier at the supermarket she shopped at twice a week.

> Are there really places in the world where total strangers strike up conversations and form friendships with people on the street, on the bus, etc?

Israel, 100%. If you're new in the country, you'll end up getting a lot of random people that you literally meet on the street or in public transportation, helping you with a lot of stuff in your life.

> Are there really places in the world where total strangers strike up conversations and form friendships with people on the street, on the bus, etc?

I know several people who have formed "commuting friendships" when they've been on the same train day in, day out which then turned into "real friendships" distinct from the commute.

(Personally I would never strike up a conversation but crippling social anxiety is a bugger like that.)

Actually MANY countries are like that. I have visited several and I would say only anglo-saxon countries fit your description (and Japan). If that’s a thing with foreigners I don’t know but at least in Brazil even between locals this easygoing relationship is true. A friend of mine once got invited to a guy’s friend wedding in the evening after having met him in the morning, then they became soccer matches buddies and all.

I just spent four years in Belize and you can't walk out your front door without having a conversation with a stranger. It is the happiest place I've ever lived, despite horrible corruption and grinding poverty.

Definitely in Southern Europe. I met some of my best friends in random encounters.

I think it is offensive to classify a cultural aspect of one of the world’s most successful populations as “insane” or “criminal.”

Sure, the prototypical Japanese work practices might not line up with your culture. I don’t think it gives justification to label them as “insane.”

I think it is apt to call it insane.

Consider this: it's not uncommon to see people 'working' nearly twice the hours of the Western average. Yet their GDP per capita is comparable if not equivalent to the Western average.

Since most other economic measures (that is, their standard of living) match up with the West, you're forced to ask yourself, 'Are Japanese people half as productive?' Is that why they have to work twice as much? I'll bet against it. It's because they have an insane work culture.

I think “insane” is unnecessarily caustic. Instead, it’s better to argue (as you are doing) that it’s “inefficient” or perhaps “unhealthy.”

Also, it’s far too easy to cast stones in glass houses. I have a close friend who is ultra-low-budget traveling around the world who could justifiably call you and me “insane” for pushing forward in our careers (whatever they are).

Perhaps it is relative and your friend is right to call it as he sees it.

From my perspective, I don't think it's unnecessary at all. People are dying from 'overwork'. Staff aren't able to leave before their superiors without risking their professional reputation. Because it's extremely unlikely they are actually getting anything done, it's a lie people impose on each other and themselves. And because they are too 'busy', many deplete the energy that would've otherwise spurred procreation - a problem they themselves consider an urgent priority. It's a cultural prison of national self-sabotage.

These work practices, presumably, correlate with higher percentage of depression, suicide and death by overwork. I don't think calling them insane is that big of a strech, even if they are economically viable.

I think there is a good chance that you’re making assumptions about that correlation. You’re probably also overlooking all of the Japanese people who derive tremendous existential justification via devotion to work.

By counter-point, depression, drug use, and suicide is a serious issue in Hawaii. People are living in “paradise,” yet there is a crisis.

I see a lot of videos of young japanese in groups in streets, they seem friendly and open. Does it disappear when adult life kicks in ?

I watched a TV program almost 10 years ago regarding some kind of yellow sea dog like robot and a senior lady's strong attachment to it. It made me a bit sad. And I would reach that age one day...

> And I would reach that age one day...

Look on the bright side, Japanese people often have very long lives. You might not live that long! :-)

Maybe I misunderstand you. But shouldn't be the real opportunity be to bring people back together?

Maybe a robot can take some lonely feelings away, but I doubt it will fix loneliness.

> Japanese companies know how to build products for lonely people.

Any evidence for this very broad claim?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/toyota-hopes-adora...

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/12/the-a...

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/article/2017/04/11/love-...

https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/29/robot-caregivers-are-sav...

You are aware that most Japanese find this kind of stuff creepy right? By far when given the choice Japanese will go for the human operator/human equivalent if available.

We should not mistake Otaku trends for the general Japanese population.

The claim he was proving was "Japanese companies know how to build products for lonely people", and he proved it well. You are now arguing against the claim "all Japanese people enjoy this stuff", which is not what he was claiming at all.

I think the jury is still out on their success, but it is certainly an area of research.

https://www.marketplace.org/2016/01/25/world/robots-or-immig...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-robot-girlfriend-li...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/toyota-robot-baby-kirobo-m...

Pachinko is everywhere[1]. Especially notable in towns in more remote areas.

Also, girlfriend simulator[2].

[1] https://www.japan-zone.com/modern/pix/p/pachinko-parlor.jpg

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24614830

I owned an early Aibo called RT – the first Aibo to have an artificial hip replacement from X-Dog, an engineer in the UK who specialised in repairing them. http://www.aibohospital.com/

He pioneered the “operation”, fabricated the metal replacement parts by hand-milling them, and successfully replaced the hip joint in an era where home 3D printing was a pipe dream and Sony couldn't hope to offer the same repair service. The “hip jitter” became a common fault, and X-Dog ended up with a waiting list of Aibos to fit new artificial hips to.

It was pretty incredible at the time, and it felt like being part of the future – like the robot pet repair clinics in Philip K. Dick's _Do Androids Dream…_.

The most impressive thing about Aibos at the time – apart from ball-tracking and kicking – was their self-righting mechanism. It became a party trick for people to knock them down and see them get up again, a precursor of sorts to viral bullying of the modern Boston Dynamics prototypes.

I sold RT, but still remember feeling sad to watch Sony wind Aibo output down. It's nice to see them coming back.

> Share memories. aibo keeps records of everything it experiences in day-to-day life, uploads the data to the cloud, and creates a database of memories that you can browse with the My aibo app. You can even ask aibo to take a picture—and you’ll be able to preserve that moment for posterity.

http://aibo.sony.jp/en/feature/feature3.html

> preserve that moment for posterity.

Well for as long as they don't shut down the service, which is going to be hell shorter than "posterity".

This looks really cool.

A 30 day warranty for an $1800 USD toy robot seems quite short. Is this normal for electronics in Japan? In the US I would expect at least a 1 year warranty.

God bless weird Sony. I don't trust them for any mainstream product (maybe PS4, but certainly not phones or laptops) but they consistently fascinate me with niche-as-hell products that I am tempted to buy just out of curiosity.

I don't think this is niche at all.

It's as niche as the first 32MB MP3 player was niche.

At 2500 dollars you can bet it's going to be niche.

Thought Rio is the first one. https://www.amazon.com/Rio-One-Digital-Audio-Player/dp/B0000...

The first one was the MPMan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPMan

I don't think the original Aibo was niche at all. I knew two people with them (back in 2000-ish if I'm remembering correctly).

You had some rich friends. The Wiki for Aibo shows that all the models were >$1100:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIBO#ERS-110

They're quite big now in the imaging market (cameras and sensors).

The mirrorless cameras are all the rage right now.

The Google Translate version is funny:

Born to be gazed at, it is an unbelievable pupil. Unexperienced love perseverance that I can not help touching unexpectedly.

But I also got this useful info:

Scheduled to be released on January 11, 2018.

"I love pink. I also love to play with pink balls and toys. High places and narrow places are disgusting because they are scary."

Surprisingly not an excerpt from my OkCupid profile, but it might be my opener now.

"見つめられるために生まれた、つぶらな瞳。プリっとしたフォルム、生き生きとした動き。思わず触れずにはいられない未体験の愛おしさ"

translates (approximately) to:

"Cute (eye) pupils, born to be gazed at. Moving around in a vivid manner, in a pure form. You can't grasp or can't imagine such an adorable experience."

プリっと doesn't mean pure but something like... Round, soft-looking, but firm.

The final sentence means: "Before you even notice, you'll find yourself playing with the pup filled with adorableness you've never experienced before."

Edit: came up with a more accurate one: "Unprecedented adorableness, that makes you want to touch it without a second thought."

Well done, I did misunderstand the last sentence.

Here's an English version http://aibo.sony.jp/en/

> Sensors: meat ball x 4

I got to play with the older one a few years ago. A co worker found it in his garage and gave it to me. It was fun to check out, and it freaked out my real dog, but ended up dying pretty fast. There is (or at least was) a large community of folks who keep them around, and so we were able to sell it to be used as parts.

That is so disturbing :)

Hmm. Maybe there's an emerging market for robot funerary services.

> Maybe there's an emerging market for robot funerary services.

Truth is stranger than fiction. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706090040.html

I own both an old ERS-7 and a Cozmo. It's striking how much Aibo is a likeable thing, full of surprise compared to Cozmo. I really noticed it when I got Cozmo. It's a shame given the amount of computational power Cozmo gets from the smartphone, and its way better camera. But I guess the constraints forced Aibo engineers into a more subtle and intelligent design. I'm disappointed, I really hoped for something unbelievable like Aibo was ten years ago.

I am thinking of getting Cozmo. What's your review on it? I'd also be interested in knowing how much we can tweak Cozmo (e.g. can we implement new features using computer vision, does it have its own programming language, etc,)

The toy itself is not very fun. Even pretty annoying sometimes (like the stupid daily calibration task). It has no brain, you have to dedicate a smartphone to this. It's a very wrong move I think, though I understand the cost benefits. But the worst part is that almost every interaction with the robot goes first through the smartphone UI (like triggering a request for a game). It totally kills the experience, and makes it painful for parents of small kids, too young to have a phone. I have read somewhere that they hired some expert game designers and hollywood concept artists from Wall-E to design the actual experience. My harsh feeling is that it's the worst idea ever, it feels very much like a bad hollywood blockbuster, no subtlety but only misplaced costly special effects and tricks. I had little expectations though, I bought it to tweak it (someday). It uses a python SDK, you have to connect a dedicated smartphone to your computer, and the python SDK connects to the Cozmo app on the phone to send commands. Apparently the SDK is good, and the team seems serious about supporting this.

Someone's been reading Fred Brooks ;)

I have not, does he write about the Aibo development history ?

He writes about Design, and also likes to call it a game of constraints(paraphrasing).

Sherry Turkle's book, 'Alone Together', is split into two parts - the first is an investigation into how people (mostly children and the elderly) interact/bond/etc with robots of varying sophistication - starts with Tamagotchi, Furby and My Real Baby, PARO, and goes onto research-level robots. The second part applies similar thinking to social media, which is why I picked up the book. But I found the robot stuff interesting. I think my main takeaway was realising that the robots don't have to actually be technologically advanced for people to form bonds with them. Interesting read anyway.

190,000 yen to buy robot dog, plus 90,000 yen for required 3-year "Aibo basic plan" (lump-sum option) = about $2,500.

For comparison the first version released in 1999 was 250,000 yen (around $2,500 at the time).

Just calculated the price adjusted for inflation: http://fxtop.com/en/inflation-calculator.php?A=250000&C1=JPY...

It's 252,021 yen.

English version of the page: http://aibo.sony.jp/en/

An idea of an autonomous cyber pet detached of any clouds and vendor infrastructure appeals to me a lot.

But what Sony offers is a kind of a tentacle of a huge corporation.

I wonder if there's any new market needs for this to come back from the dead. I thought they killed it because sales were so poor before, has anything changed since then?

Hikikomori[0] are far more common in Japan now. It's a market of usually depressed and anxious people, who have been overworked to the point where they don't want to interact with the outside world, but still get lonely. The stigma around it is fading.

That seems like a decent market to start with. (Though the ethical side of me feels slightly queasy.)

[0] http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/11/asia/japanese-millennials-...

Cheaper and better to get a real dog.

Might be a bad idea of you work a lot.

Then there is no lack of dog or cat cafes in town in most Japanese cities.

The audience I pointed out don't leave their homes.

The post I replied to mentioned working a lot. You dont work from home in Japan.

The article I linked to mentions half a million people who never leave their home, and work remotely.

The original AIBOs were also $2K-$3K each. The tech's price has dropped quite a bit since the early 2000s, and I imagine there's more demand at lower price points.

Edit: Apparently the new one will be selling for about the same price? Yeah, in that case they'll probably have the same problems as before.

When i see this pet robot, I fail to see what problem it solves. That's probably the biggest issue: no focus.

Why does it have to solve a problem? It's not a tool.

Well if you want a pet/companion, but your apartment doesn't allow pets and you work a punishing Tokyo salaryman schedule so you couldn't take care of one even if it did.

It doesn't shit all over your floor.

Sphero is selling toy robots like hot cakes.

This one is cloud based. It can collect all kinds of valuable private data for Sony.

This might be a good companion for elderly people.

Sony brought 12 or so early Aibo prototypes to the Agent 97 conference. IIRC the device was developed at Sony's D21 laboratory (later the "digital creatures laboratory") and was called the Mutant, for "Musical Tangible Agent". You'd play notes from a little keyboard and it would respond. I was told they hadn't determined what kind of animal it should be yet, and were leaning towards monkey. They had some faux fur for it too. But it wagged its tail! So everyone at the conference told them it should clearly be a dog.

At the end of the conference all 12 of the prototypes had broken neck servos. Because so many people had patted them on the head.

I noticed that webpage is really clean design-wise. Almost all webpages from Japan I had seen so far were really over saturated with colours and huge lettering in different fonts.

This is Sony, so kind of expected to have good design.

English link (what you actually want to read): http://aibo.sony.jp/en/

Will Sony go after users distributing open source hacks for this new Aibo? Or maybe this time will they use DRM to prevent any software modification?

I remember Aibo as the product that Sony made that could reverse all the positive feelings I had for their products because of this. It turns out that this was the true Sony.

http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/02/05/03/1613203.shtml

I was going to say that I was surprised it wasn't the Sony rootkit DRM scandal, but that was two years later!

I developed on the Aibo years ago for Robocup robot soccer, writing software for object recognition, navigation, locomotion, etc. Much fun!

It's surprising to see its return after a long hiatus, as Aibo has had several ups and downs in the market. And despite such a long period when it could have been enhanced, it looks like it is not significantly changed from the last generation.

Some raw video from The Japan Times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRl_03_jNwE

I'd buy this over a real pet. If I had the $$$. One thing I can think would be annoying if it kept making robotic servo noises every time it moved.

Real dogs make plenty of noises and smells too to be fair.

The whole point of robots is to do it better than nature. I think eliminating servo noises should be a priority. Maybe not the highest one.

Yikes, that's expensive, around $2000 for the base device, $900 for a required 3 year basic plan to make it operate (or $29/month for 36 months), plus $540 for the optional 3 year support plan. (ok, I cheated on the conversions at $1=100yen, it's around 13% cheaper that that based on the current usd/yen exchange rate)

Makes a $1000 iPhone seem cheap.

Again?

I know several people that bought the first version of this robot dog, it had some very clever electronics for its time but it failed to find a market and became an expensive orphan. And now Sony goes back to the concept again. I wonder what is different.

https://youtu.be/sJciRIZQTg4 TVC on YouTube, in case you are interested. I found it on the bottom of the webpage (just a little logo).

In the last dot bomb, I was very tempted to buy an Aibo. I’m still tempted and I don’t feel like it’s the same kind of dot bomb.

I have the original. Its fidget movements look like the new one’s fidgets on this splash page.

Kind of endearing.

198000 JPY to USD: 1740,95 US Dollars, cheaper than the nao bot. [[ bwt: can JPY be pronounced juppy?;]]

Just read Asimov's "A Boy's Best Friend"

How can one get one of these outside of Japan?

Not too far from “Robot and Frank” are we?

Uncanny valley triggered.

Like Alexa, but cuddly.

Anything would be good to replace real pets, there are way too many of them, it's consuming a lot of energy, resources, pollution, and damaging ecosystem

In New Zealand we had a controversial proposal to seriously reduce the cat population, over concerns about them destroying local protected wildlife.

Pets provide important companionship. But some environmental costs of pet ownership aren't borne by the owners in a "privatize the profit, socialize the loss" situation.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...

How about owning a real dog? real dog over robot dog anyday for me.

Training a pup takes a lot of time and effort

Also everyone doesn't have the space to raise a dog properly.

Also some people are allergic to dogs.

I know I'm somewhat wrong, but I see no market for this whatsoever, besides as a learning toy for student AI laboratories, where the original AIBO is still popular. Can someone give me an example of a type of person of any wealth level or personality that would willingly go out of their way to purchase this? It doesn't clean the floor, so there's no practical function. It's not an MP3 player that follows you around or a Siri-like assistant, so it can't optimize your existing means of entertainment. The website advertises "love", but I see 0% actual connection with it, so anyone that claims this reason is doing it either ironically or perhaps due to certain object attraction mental conditions. If anyone wants to cure lonliness, this would seem to have zero effect. As a toy for children or hobbyist adults, it seems like a fun thing to play with and show your friends for a few days, but no better than a yoyo which is few orders of magnitude cheaper. For "tinkerers", it would be fun to program applications into it that use the sensors and motors, but if that was their primary market, it would advertised as an open development platform and they would leave out the pre-programmed AI. So what am I missing here?

If I was an investor, I would value this at no more than $0 because sales can't possibly surpass R&D. What reasons are there to believe otherwise?

EDIT: So it seems in this discussion I've learned that many believe that the love for dogs can actually be replaced by love for inanimate objects, which is a bizarre concept to me, but if the number of people who are able to do that is truly as significant as people are claiming, then I suppose I could see why this product could become successful.

People keep pet rocks

Human beings can get attached to anything, regardless of its utility.

This thing mimics the actions of a puppy, and it stays a puppy forever.

Of course people would get attached to it, and in selling that attachment, there is value.

You're approaching this too much from an engineer's POV

> This thing mimics the actions of a puppy

Wait. I guess it mimics some actions of a puppy, and I imagine it can be entertaining for a few hours. Then you get used to it, and you start seeing the repeating patterns. For how long can you find entertaining a robot dog that pretends to scratch its ear, for no reason in the world and without actually even coming close to touch it with its paw?

>You're approaching this too much from an engineer's POV

I don't agree with this. If anything, I am approaching it from a spiritual POV when I say that a normal person cannot love an object like you can love a dog.

If that was the case, people probably wouldn't be holding funerals for their v1 Aibos, and there wouldn't be an active repair scene for them. They probably also wouldn't have made a v2. This thing is explicitly designed to trick your "is this a living being" circuitry.

Replace Aibo with a real dog in your text and you could claim the same - practically, having a dog (in the city) also makes little logical sense. Still, people have them

No - dogs are a great companion and there is a lot of affection involved. OP's comment specifically called that out.

Just because he ruled it out doesn't mean that it's not a factor.

People become attached to lots of inanimate items, and can feel emphathy for robots [1] [2], though perhaps not as strongly as with living creatures. US Military soldiers can develop an emotional connection with bomb disposal robots. [3]

I definitely sympathize with this dog-like robot slipping on ice:

https://youtu.be/W1czBcnX1Ww?t=1m23s

Even though it's clearly a robot with no attempt to make it look or act like a dog.

I can definitely believe that people can become attached, even fall in love with, their robot dogs.

[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/human-empathy-for-robot...

[2] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/02/robot_hum...

[3] https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots...

I wouldn't be able to claim the same, because normal humans can obviously love dogs, while normal humans cannot love Aibo. Therefore it makes perfect sense to own a dog, even if the other points (MP3 player) are irrelevant.

> while normal humans cannot love Aibo.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

I should state it more generally. There are many meanings of the word "love", but normal humans cannot love inanimate objects with the same meaning as you can with dogs or other humans. You can of course "love" objects and concepts, much like I could "love my new car", but this is a different meaning, and mixing these two fundamentally different concepts is psychologically/mentally abnormal.

Have you considered that it is you who is abnormal? I don't mean that as an attack. Personally, I'm fairly certain that I'm incapable of feeling love as normal people do, I never take the initiative to meet up with someone and I certainly don't do small talk with strangers. But I'm aware, that in this regard, I'm different from most people.

Now, think about stuffed animals and dolls. Those are inanimate; most of the time highly stylized compared to their real-world inspirations; with exaggerated, unnatural features. And yet children will play with them, love them, and steadfastly claim that they are alive. That doesn't seem abnormal to me, but instead a very human thing to do. We just seem to be wired to interpret objects as if they have agency, even if it's just randomness or a simple mechanism that makes them move.

That is a good point. The love that children have for inanimate toys like dolls may be similar to the love for humans or animals. I too had these supports as a child. But by age 8 or so, the attraction fades away after realizing that the emotional support that objects give is insufficient. So I may be wrong about it being a completely intrinsic trait---maybe the ability to see a difference of these types of love is learned. But either way, Aibo doesn't seem marketed to children, as all of the videos feature adults using them. Maybe they are marketing to those who have or are willing to "unlearn" this distinction, so I think it will be a hard sell to people who have not considered this already, which seems rare.

> normal humans cannot love inanimate objects with the same meaning as you can with dogs or other humans

I'm not sure that's true. Many "normal" people love their cars as much as some people love their dogs.

> but normal humans cannot love inanimate objects with the same meaning as you can with dogs or other humans.

Iff the sense in question is a reciprocal exchange of similar emotion, then it's true that it can't apply to objects without human-like emotional capacity, but that would seem likely to include actual dogs as well as robot dogs, notwithstanding that it is perhaps somewhat easier to mistakenly anthropomorphization the former than the latter.

I'm not convinced that there is a meaningful, significant sense where there is a distinction that applies generally to “normal humans” drawn at the point you want to draw it; it seems very much to be wandering into No True Scotsman territory.

For what it's worth I think your response is more mainstream than the replies to you would imply: I've actually had conversations with people where I asked "imagine a robot dog that is actually perfectly indistinguishable from a real dog in every possible way: could you feel the same about that as a real bio dog?" Most people have a hard "no" even then, as though there is something actually magic about a bio-dog.

On the other hand I've also had people say they think it is bizarre that someone could love a dog any more than you can a tree, that they are a "thing" and don't have "real" thoughts and emotions like people do (just fake/emulated ones that we breed into them), so I don't think the philosophical ideas are broadly accepted for this.

Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QYDpbLQ-To

Interesting video. The one thing that strikes me about each scene is how much of an uncanny valley being around one of those things would be. That would be the first step---to get used to that. Then you'd have to bring yourself so low to actually associate the human feeling of love with a physical unliving object. I don't think there's any way to do this to any degree unless you force yourself to develop a borderline mental disorder over time or believe in animism or something similar. It's not just how you're brought up---the ability to distinguish living things from objects is inherent from birth at a fundamental level, which is why I think the "dog replacement" and attraction claims in the marketing is nothing but silly.

Silly to you. I wouldn't want one of these either, but that doesn't mean I can't empathize with somebody enough to understand how they could find enjoyment or feel affection towards one. Did you ever have or know a friend with teddy bear? Even as a child you know it is not real, but that doesn't mean you can't be attached or even pretend that it loved you back.

Sounds like you have an irrational repulsion to the Aibo for some reason.

The people in the video just seem to enjoy their Aibo for what it is.

That's why you are still not an investor? (partly kidding).

Not only the world is 7 billion different human beings but Japenese and people from SEA have very different cultures and purchases from the typical westerns.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd be interested in buying it if: it was cheaper. solid enough that my real dog doesn't break it.

I don't know, I think the first step to being a good investor is to avoid opportunities that make absolutely no sense to you personally. :)

I just think that Sony's claims that this is anything resembling a dog replacement is ridiculous, because I believe that regardless of culture or how you were raised, humans from birth see inherent difference between living things and objects and mixing the concepts is a mentally stressing activity.

> opportunities that make absolutely no sense to you personally

No. You are consuming a very tiny part of the world production. By going through that mindset, you are limiting yourself in a very big way. And you might be hurting yourself if you are not a very typical individual.

This plus Siri would be amazing.. I live in HK with very limited space and a lot of apartments that don't allow pets. Plus it's Asia so people will go wild for this..

Perhaps this is planned with Aibo, which would be very cool, but I didn't see it mentioned on the webpage or press release, and it will be very difficult to make a 190,000Y sale on an iPhone alternative with fewer features that doesn't fit into your pocket. If it sells, there needs to be more than a reason for a Siri-like feature, but I still don't see it.

I thought the main use case was a companion for elderly people, similar to paro. Pets in large cities in Japan are expensive and there isn't much room for them unless you're wealthy so it also makes sense as an interim gift for a child in Japan that wants a dog.

I didn't know, but it makes sense, that it is useful in an AI lab, but I think that is a secondary use the market found.

It seems to me that elderly people would not see a connection with this even more than young people would. A robot dog with zero ability to make people feel connected with wouldn't solve the problem at all.

People can feel connected to abstractions and fictional characters. Robot dogs aren't even a stretch of that ability.

Well you'd be mistaken [1].

[1] https://youtu.be/K0aC9gUMm1g

People have pets all the way from ants and fish through mice and cats to dogs and pigs. This might be closer to a fish than a dog but those are all common pets for normal people. I think if it can learn and interact, it's going to be a meaningful pet, at least more than a fish is.

> It doesn't clean the floor, so there's no practical function. It's not an MP3 player that follows you around or a Siri-like assistant

What an utterly joyless way to look at the world.

Are you trolling?

No.

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