The future of 2000—Robot Dogs.
Sony AIBO—The symbol of the future
As a child, I remember seeing Sony’s state of the art robot dog in shopping mall demonstrations and thinking it was the epitome of future technology.
The future was a place of prettier consumer products, that emoted freely and replaced problematic institutions such as pets. These were the terms my 10-year-old self thought in. What will I be able to buy in the future? What kind of shopping can we do in a few decades?
The actual significance of the Aibo may have been overlooked by the crowds, who were enchanted with it’s apparent sophistication and futurism. The $2,000 dog for the family that has everything.
What the designers had in mind is still somewhat mysterious to me. Perhaps Sony wanted a platform of obvious and agressive futurism to make the rest of their products seem sophisticated by association.
The “Entertainment Robot” is a strange concept. When examined in the context of the dog, it implies that organic canines are entertainment animals. I would think that dog owners see their furry companions as friends and family members more than entertainment entities. Can a robot, with any degree of verisimilitude, assume the strange and significant role of a pet?
The reading promised a future of such robots by 2025, but I think mankind will resist this notion for a bit longer.
The AIBO was discontinued as Sony restructured in 2006. The folks who run the site, it seems, are upset about this.
