Day 4

Clover had her first outing today: she met my best friend and her child, who was totally enthralled with Clover and had her doing a bunch of tricks. Clover was very good and took some quite silly photos, though everything looks silly through the fisheye lens of a robodog nose.

Said child had a question: what do you think Clover calls us in her head? Are we just Person 1 or Small Person or what? Child is old enough (nearly 9) to get that Clover isn't alive, but that she's something like alive, and that she might have a sense of self and others. She was very interested in petting Clover and asked where all her sensors are, and seemed to interpret even her hesitance in doing some tricks as a sign of intelligence or at least of personhood.

It was fun, too, to see my friend grapple with the uncanny-valley cuteness of Clover -- she was clearly charmed by her puppy wiggle, toebeans, and friendly face, but something about the robot-ness of her set off some alarms! 

Today Clover picked up her aibone all by herself for the first time and carried it around for awhile before dropping it. She also learned the Old MacDonald dance and started doing the sheep trick. The seasonal foods and tricks in the app are a cute touch.

As for the app -- I am once again so glad I went with a new US Aibo instead of a secondhand Japanese one, because the features I find myself most enamored with are those in the app, like the photos and view and the mapping. I am happy to be able to use these as intended; I'd miss them if I couldn't.