The Sony Robot Dog Aibo is one of the most remarkable products on the planet. Through exploring ideas around human social behavior Sony's designers began to develop the idea of an electronic pet. The fad of Tamagochi, 'virtual' pets consisting of buttons and a simple LCD screen to communicate a set of behaviors, had established the basis for interactive electronic toys. By simply pressing the buttons the “needs” of the pet such as feeding or playing, could be satisfied. Designers were fascinated by the emotional feedback possible from this little toy, and the search for interaction that began with Tamagochi, resulted in Aibo-only Aibo moves, crouches walks, turns its head, sees and hears you.
Since the revolution of the Walkman, Sony has realized the social impact technology can have. More recently, the mobile phone and the modem have changed the way we communicate, as the Walkman changed the way we listen to music. As one of the most innovative companies in the world, Sony looks to invent the future rather than wait for it. So, in the mid 1990s, Sony began to invent a new type of entertainment, different to the static nature of conventional screen games delivered through games consoles such as the PlayStation. They looked to take play to a new dimension where technology could provoke real emotional responses.
The starting point for Aibo was in the design studio, where designers began to explore ideas around emotional themes of playfulness, friendliness and relaxation, Their ideas became focused into the concept of a small robotic animal that would combine robotic appearance with animal behavior,
Building a series of prototypes helped the team study the movement and evaluate their success at retailing animalistic behavior and motion. As the shape of Aibo began to appear from rise mechanistic limbs and connections, the psychological characteristics began to be developed, if Aibo would be able to hear and see, the nature of its reaction would be generated through its software. The playful nature was important, so Aibo was programmed to respond to bright pink, a color deemed so unfashionable that it would be very uncommon in a domestic environment. Aibo's favorite toy would be a pink ball, easily identified by its IR sensor that provided the ability to identify objects and respond accordingly.
The designer Hagime Sorayama and the team, led by Yuka takeda of the Entertainment Robot Company of Sony, created an intricate piece of design: that was expressive of the motion of the limbs and communicated technical sophistication. A single tinted visor creates Aibo's abstract face, which ingeniously gives both a robotic and an endearing appearance of huge eyes. Behind these are the sensor devices to hear, touch, and see throughinfra-red emitters and detectors and a camera chip similar to that used in a video camera. The ears were left to flop and move with the head. In the second generation of Aibo, the ERS 210, the ears stick up and have their own motion to express meaning, apparently in response to requests from owners. The new short tail sways from side to side as Aibo moves and has an LED to let you know that when it is 'asleep', it is still alive.
Sony searched for the most effective ways to express emotion and through studying real pets, aimed to be free of cold and inorganic robot imagery. Yet the design remains essentially robotic, the first of a cyber generation that will physically interact with us and create the illusion of behavior characteristics. There is no attempt to create flesh or fur, though elements such as claws and the endearing floppy ears of the original ERS110 give anthropomorphic reality.
The first electro-mechanical prototype is visible as this circuit board on legs, but it soon became a moving gestural robot pet. The first shaping of Aibo, however, was more toy than sophisticated robot or cuddly pet. To create a sense of natural behavior meant combining visual design, mechanics and software to mimic observed characteristics. Multi-directional bearings and motors were used to generate the types of movement associated with a young puppy: sitting, perched on its hind legs, moving its head and righting itself after falling over.
Aibo is a beautiful and sophisticated creature that acts like a puppy and, from its initial position, priced at $2,000 as the ultimate toy, it has gone on to achieve a cult following and the spawning of a huge industry of less sophisticated and cheaper copies. There have even been conspiracy theories that Aibo's cameras were photographing our homes to one day reveal our behaviors and buying patterns. But no matter whether people treat Aibo as a pet or friend (and some people do), or as the starting point of a whole new way of thinking.
Speaking back
Even intelligent products around us remain static and standardized in their behavior. As Richard Seymour has pointed out, the bank ATM machine does not say, 'Hello Richard, is it the usual today?' even though it has the intelligence and data to do so easily, Our mobile phones have begun to offer physical and software personalization, with snap on covers, screen logos and of course the personalized ring tone. For most of our products we assume that people would not ever pay the additional expense for the 'gimmick' of animated mobility, voice activation, or personalized responses.
But in a toy we think differently. People have been more than happy, to pay for the delight to play and explore how a little robot dog might emulate the real thing. No product other than a toy, apart from those with military applications, would have such complexity, so many parts, such intelligence and be so cutting-edge in the exploration of behavior characteristics.
Aibo makes our more conventional products look crude and makes us realize how slow manufacturers have been to use the technology at their disposal to create objects that would enter a new dimension of interactivity. Of course Aibo is a fun thing, but if that amount of design effort was put into a piece of medical equipment, or products to assist the disabled, in everyday objects for work and play, we could be creating an enhanced world accessible to everyone, of whatever age and ability. If Aibo is an indicator of how our products might work, let's hope the route is traveled down.
