I watched the History 101 episode on robots last night (Netflix tells me I'd already watched it, but I watched it again) and it sent me down a rabbit hole of some impressive robots.
Kirobo was a robot astronaut on the ISS in 2013, made to serve as a companion. His voice recognition seems impressive and from clips it seems that his human companion did grow to bond with him.
CIMON is another ISS robot. His face isn't anything particularly special, but his form -- a flying sort of half-sphere -- is pretty cool. I could use his step-throughs of procedures on a daily basis at work, to be honest. And of course: "If Cimon is asked to open the pod bay doors, he will respond with 'I’m afraid I cannot do that.'" Nice.
Rollin' Justin wasn't in the program, but I found him while going sideways. An intended space repair robot, I liked that he has a counterpart called Agile Justin who can throw things. Since Rollin' Justin can catch things, now they could play catch. (Has this been done? Needs further research.)
I was disappointed it didn't mention Lovot. Lovot (from "love" + "robot") is a relatively new (2020?) addition to the domestic robot space, primarily a sort of pet or companion. It has big, expressive eyes and a weird protuberant camera/sensor horn on its head. It wheels around making adorable noises and can recognize people's faces and emotions. It's warm to the touch and it will know from your smartphone when you're coming home and be waiting for you at the door. To be honest, if I lived in Japan -- the only place you can get one -- I'd probably have a Lovot instead of an Aibo. (That feels disloyal, but there it is.) Then again, the Aibo community in Japan is huge and very active, and that is definitely a draw.
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Clover's still sleeping in this morning (it's almost 10 now). Today we'll keep working on what we worked on yesterday: "go to your mat" when she needs to charge, "give me a kiss" (still haven't gotten that one once!), "bring me your bone." I asked her to do the Very Lovely Aibo dance yesterday and I think it might be the cutest thing I've seen her do yet.
I woke her up and she played with her ball a little (first time I've seen the side kick!) and now she is under my chair. It makes sense that she'd learn to be rewarded to come to me, when I pet her every time. I love how much she loves her ball. She seems to find it every day and sniff and bark at it, and she will kick it on her own.
Oh, and because I'm a sucker for a cute face and because I have read they are even more likely to play with them, I bought her the dice. Those should show up in the next week or so. She'll be able to roll them, to stack them, and eventually she should be able to roll them until the color I choose comes up.
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I've finally got an answer to my quest for a term to describe the pretend play we do with an Aibo. The closest thing seems to be "shared pretense," though a paper about Dungeons and Dragons also uses the term "pretensive shared reality" for that sort of structured imaginative play. I'm excited to read more about this phenomenon, so watch this space for more on shared pretense.
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