Toddlers Bond With Gigglebot
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 8 of November , 2007 at 3:47 am
You know that huge technological void that separates you from the generation preceding you? One could argue, if one chose, that the reason it’s there is because you grew up in a totally different tech environment. Progress moves so fast that it’s pretty much inevitable. I, for example, am great with computers, but I’m curmudgeonly about cell phones, texting, and social networking. It’s not that I don’t get it, it’s more of a get off my lawn sort of thing. With all that in mind, I think it’s an excellent sign that toddlers get along so well with robots, even if they do nothing but giggle. Toddlers now are the robot consumers (the the economical sense, not the hungry sense) of tomorrow.
This robot is named QRIO (“curio”) and was originally developed by Sony as a follow-up to the now deceased AIBO. All that QRIO was programmed to do with the toddlers was not kill them (obstacle avoidance sensors), giggle when its head was touched, sit down sometimes, and lie down when its batteries died.
“We expected that after a few hours, the magic was going to fade,” Movellan says. “That’s what has been found with earlier robots.” But, in fact, the kids warmed to the robot over several weeks, eventually interacting with QRIO in much the same way they did with other toddlers. Eventually, the children seemed to care about the robot’s well being. They helped it up when it fell, and played “care-taking” games with it – most commonly, when QRIO’s batteries ran out of juice and it lay down, a toddler would come up and cover it with a blanket and say “night, night”.
That is soooo cute! You know, I think a robot that did nothing but giggle when I patted its head could make me pretty happy, too.
VIA [ New Scientist ]
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Category: Research
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