AIBO : A TOOL OR A TOY

AIBO’s personality develops by interacting with people. Each AIBO grows in a different way, based on its individual experiences. AIBO becomes customized based on feedback and the software being used. With supplied software, the user can immediately interact with a mature ERS-7 or use it to reset AIBO to its puppy stage. AIBO’s mood changes with its environment, and its mood affects its behavior. AIBO also has instincts to move around, to look for its toys, to satisfy its curiosity, to play and communicate with its owner, to recharge when its battery is low, and to wake up when it is done sleeping. AIBO is capable of six feelings which are happiness, sadness, fear, dislike, surprise, and anger. Its unique personality is developed through a combination of these instincts and feelings. AIBO’s skill level can improve through encouragement from its owner. By praising AIBO for kicking the ball well, it will continue to play with the ball. Repeated practice with the ball will improve its skill level and it will learn new tricks. If the user scolds AIBO for playing with its ball, it will stop showing as much interest in it. With AIBO’s back sensors, it is possible to adjust AIBO’s schedule to coincide with the user’s daily routine. The user can schedule his usual bed time and AIBO will go to sleep on its charging station until it's time to get up. AIBO can also use its alarm to wake the user up in the morning. AIBO uses "short and long range distance sensor" in its nose and chest to detect edges and walls.  There are 28 LED lights on the Illume-Face display, and by changing the pattern of lights, various expressions and feelings can be indicated, and complex animations can be displayed. Feelings, like joy, sorrow, anger can be displayed with detailed color and movement. AIBO’s ears flap according to the movement of its head and body. Depending on its mood, AIBO can also flap it ears up and down, and wag its tail. AIBO makes 64-chord MIDI sounds to express its feelings. The sound is played through an internal speaker in its chest. Stereo microphones are placed in the ears. When it hears something AIBO will analyze the sound and recognize words. The direction of the sound came from is also perceived and AIBO will turn his head toward the source. When AIBO is speaking to someone it will turn towards the person so the person can hear what AIBO is saying. When the battery level gets lower than 40%, AIBO starts self-charging. Using the black and white pattern on the energy station pole and its visual pattern recognition, AIBO can locate and use the charger by itself.

AI : Deep within

Based on the level of artificial intelligence learning of an AIBO, it changes its behavior. It may choose to obey or refuse to obey a command given by its owner.   AIBO is programmable using the Sony’s Open – R SDK. Many users have come up with some very innovative ideas as to how best an AIBO could be put to use. Some of the more interesting ones include using AIBO as a watch dog (Hau,2006). As the AIBO has a lot of ways by which it can communicate with external systems and other intelligent appliances such as other AIBOs it can be used in many other innovative ways. For e.g. an intelligent fridge that can read the RFID tags on the items to determine their expiry date and keep a list of expired food products in the fridge. When an AIBO approaches this fridge it can be programmed to download the list of expired food products in the fridge and warn the user when the user attempts to consume such unsafe food items.

AIBO: An Assistive Home technology tool

AIBO can also be used in patient care. A study by a few Japanese researchers has shown that elderly people living in geriatric homes with severe dementia have responded well to treatment which included playing with AIBO as a part of their treatment routine (Tamura et al, 2004). The study shows that AIBO was effective in creating an interest in users which stimulated learning and improvement in mental conditions of the users.  AIBO has also been used as a remote server to monitor patients remotely (Liu, 2006;Hubert 2006). The AIBO has a number of sensors which allow it to observe and interact with its surroundings. AIBO can be fitted with a custom temperature sensor which could monitor the patients temperature and transmit it to the computer. Its intelligence can be programmed to detect user movements and behavior to identify the symptoms of illness and possible cardiac arrests(Caldwell et al 2000).  Furthermore, research done by a group of American scientists indicates that AIBO can be used to monitor a person’s diet and weight loss regime.  AIBO connects to a pedometer, bathroom scales and the PDA on which the user notes down his food consumption. AIBO then reacts in one of the following ways:

1. Jump up and down, tail will wag, happy music will be played, and his LED eyes will light up like fireworks if the user has stuck to his limited intake of calories for the day
2. Move slowly, lethargically, play funeral music if the user has exceeded his daily limit of calories.

In the realm of home informatics and assistive technologies it is important that any interactive technology be bound up with material, social, cultural, affective and aesthetic relations. The script or code of these relations is usually not made explicit. It ascribes needs, norms, and relations around potential users. AIBO is an excellent example for this kind of technology. AIBO is primarily developed to arouse interest and emotions in the potential user and bond to the user emotionally while generating positive emotions such as affection and love (Bartlett et al 2004). It’s a known fact that general positive emotions like happiness, affection and love help in better treating a wide variety of mental disorders. Patients seem to respond better to medication when they are in a better mood. AIBO is successful in achieving this state of emotion in its end users (Bartneck et al 2004; Kahn et al 2002).  In the Japanese experiment where AIBO was presented to a group of elderly patients suffering from dementia very enthusiastic and positive reception was noticed (Francois et al 2007; Freidmann 2003). Patients were found to more cheerful and enthusiastic than before. Many got up from their chairs or beds more often in order to interact with AIBO. They were noted to better respond to their treatment and their overall behavior was found to have been more responsive(Wherton and Monk 2006). Furthermore AIBO has been used to help school children learn certain aspects of computing and robotics(Kahn et al 2004; Melson 2005). They have been found to be an effective tool when dealing with children who are psychologically under developed.

The Others

AIBO is not the only social robot developed. Several such ideas have been around for a while. ASIMO is probably the most famous example.  ASIMO was designed to mimic the human movement rather than being used in households for assistive purposes. ASIMO was always developed as a prototype and is available for hire to corporations for demonstration and marketing purposes from Honda. Similarly a more popular toy called Furby was originally released by Hasbro almost 10 years ago. Furby was a small furry toy that was capable of expressing emotions and learning new things from its owners. Furby was initially supposed to talk in its own language called ‘Furbish’ and eventually as it grew up it picked up more and more English words and responds to some English commands from it users. However the toy had no mobility and extremely limited intelligence. Philips also developed an artificial intelligence based fixed robot which was capable of mimicking human emotions called the I-Cat. I-cat was a fixed robot which was capable of learning and understanding its owners commands. I-Cat has a semi fixed facial installation which allowed it to move or shape different areas of its face as if it were mimicking a human face. I-Cat was not supposed to mimic a cat, rather I-Cat was used to mimic a human butler. It was designed to be a servant and not an autonomous intelligent entity like the AIBO (Dobai et al 2005). There are several stark differences between I-Cat and AIBO. Some of them are listed below:

 The closest to mimicking AIBO as a robot pet is another robot model called Pleo. Pleo is essentially built as a baby dinosaur (Camarasaurus) and is made by a company called UGobe. Pleo is yet to make its market debut and is expected to be released for the Christmas 2007 period. Pleo is fairly advanced like the AIBO and is able to walk (full mobility ) and exhibit some form of intelligence and is also said to learn from its user experience. Pleos can communicate with others of their kind via infra red. Pleo can also be programmed and upgraded using the built in SD card or the USB connection. However Pleo is meant to be just another toy for children of ages 3-12 and is substantially lower priced than the AIBO.

Commercial Viability and Future

AIBO was originally released into the market in 1999. Since then AIBO has seen three different generations and at least 12 different models with various different variations and a number of different ancillary products such as toys and add-on software packs. Overall Sony seems to have sold close to a hundred and sixty thousand AIBO units over the past 7 years. However, due to lack of sales and any real potential for such a market, Sony closed down the AIBO and its supporting robotics division which also produced QIRO. While lack of sales seemed to be primary reason, the recent few years have seen a sudden increase in interest in home robots prompting companies like UGOBE to produce the next generation of home robots like Pleo. While Pleo is severely limited in its functionality and is limited to being a dinosaur toy, AIBO has evolved tremendously and has shown itself to be more useful than the original designers intentions for it. A rumour is currently floating around the internet that 2008 might see a reincarnation of AIBO in connection with the PS3. While the STUFF magazine gives a 56% possibility of this resurrection happening, I personally believe that the costs involved to reinitiate a dead project would be too high especially given the recent past few financial problems that Sony has been facing due to reduction of sales and recall of several laptops due to faulty batteries. However one can only hope to see a more advanced version of the AIBO with higher intelligence functions and more adaptability built into it compared to its predecessors.

Summary

Though Aibo was developed with the intention of being an intelligent toy, it has evolved far beyond its initial designs. The user community has quite quickly and enthusiastically adapted the robot dog and is further contributing to its evolution by adding new software ideas and hardware to its existing arsenal. Even though Sony has dropped AIBO commercial AIBO still lives through the efforts of the community and given the noticeable upsurge in the interest in home robotics and assistive adaptive technologies AIBO’s revival might not actually be a thing of the distant future.

References

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