Geekfoolery

*headline stolen shamelessly from the Philip K. Dick story.

Pleo is toy dinosaur made by a company called Ugobe that is expected to hit store shelves sometime next year. I’m sure if the marketing people had their way, it would be in stores in time for Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, with visions of Cabbage Patch dolls and Furbies and Tickle Me Elmos dancing in their heads, imagining that their $349 animatronic pet would set the toy market on fire like those other once-hot items.

The Ugobe website makes some impressive claims for the product. The toy’s inventor, Caleb Chung, is quoted as saying “Pleo is the first truly autonomous life form capable of emotions that allow for personal engagement.” Mmm-hmmm. Caleb’s resumé is includes at at least 20 years in the toy business, including a credit for co-inventing the Furby. For this achievement I have both respect and some lingering annoyance with Mr. Chung. If you never saw one of the these things, they were softball-sized electronic munchkins that made noises and needed various kinds of attention, and spoke a mixture of what was described as “Furbish” and English. They also had no off button, and would wake up if you picked one up, so if someone bumped into the damn thing, you were in for a good fifteen to twenty minutes of whiny chatter until it fell back asleep. Still, the things sold like hotcakes one Christmas season, so maybe the fact that Pleo has some Furby DNA in him isn’t a bad thing.

Ugobe brought a vanload of Pleo’s to the Maker Faire in Austin, TX, this weekend. C/Net had a man on the scene who was impressed with Pleo’s lifelike movements, and I am sure kids will want them–whether parents are willing to shell out four bills for one is another question.

But whether Pleo takes off or not is immaterial. Robots are becoming more capable and more common all the time. Military drones perform reconnaissance. NASA robots explore Mars. Roombas clean our living rooms. And technology improves all the time. Furbies that once went for hundreds of dollars on eBay in the frenzied rush before Christmas when everyone had to have them now sell–maybe–for ten bucks.

As goes Furby, so too will go Pleo, in a few short years. I can look at Ugobe’s claim that Pleo is “an autonomous life form capable of emotion” and wonder what kind of overreaching ad man came up with that one. Pleo is not autonomous–you have to plug it in–and while it may be capable of mimicking emotional responses, I don’t think anyone is going to seriously claim that for $349, it is actually capable of emotion.

But what about Pleo 2? Or 3, or 5, or 10? I have no doubt that in my lifetime, and probably sooner than any of us imagine, Ugobe or someone like them will be able to produce a robotic pet that will be largely indistinguishable in appearance and behavior from the genuine article. Then the question will be: Does anyone want a robot pet?

I expect that old codgers like me will accept robotic pets about as readily as my parents accepted email, which is to say, not at all. But think of the benefits to the pet owners of the future: No house training. No chewing. No behavior issues. No barking. No fleas or ticks. No ringworm. No unwanted puppies. Going on vacation? No problem. Traveling with a pet? No problem. In addition to the things it won’t do, a robot pet could do things your meat-based pet could never do. It could be the perfect watchdog–night vision, fine-tuned hearing, voice recognition. Telepresence in the home. It could accept deliveries–probably from other robots. The raising of actual dogs and cats might become the hobby of the idle rich, who can afford to pay others to cope with the needs of another animal, much the way raising horses is today.

But will people actually love a robotic pet? I don’t know what the Turing test would be for determining if a robotic pet could ever love an owner back, though I have no doubt that a real pet’s love could be mimicked. But knowing that the furball romping and playing with the kids isn’t real–though the meaning of that word may change over time–would that prevent human owners from developing emotional attachments to them?

I would almost say no way, it’s impossible, never gonna happy–until I saw this story. According to Bekki Grint, a Georgia Tech professor, people are developing emotional attachments to their Roombas, the little disc-shaped vacuum cleaner that runs around your floors randomly and cleans up dust bunnies. They name them. They decide that their Roomba is a he or a she. The dress them up. They pre-clean the rooms they got the Roomba to clean for them so the Roomba doesn’t have to work so hard.

So good luck, Pleo. I am sure you will win over the hearts of more than a few children, and few adults as well. As for me? I try not view my machines as having human qualities. They hate it when I do that.

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