Sony experiments with robots and children

Robots Embedded At School In Quest To Bond With Humans


Playtime over, a toddler says nighty-night and spreads a blanket on the floor on top of his silver-colored friend. It is an everyday scene at one US nursery school, where robots are immersed among children to find out what it takes for machines and humans to develop long-term relationships.
The experiment jointly run by Sony is revealing that children, with their open minds, can welcome and even develop emotions toward the robots, leading to new commercial possibilities as machines become smarter and friendlier.

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The children, aged up to 24 months, started spending one hour every day with a 58-centimeter (23-inch) tall Sony biped in March last year at a San Diego school.

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While fascinating, does anyone else get weirded out by this story? It bothers me on MANY levels....

Can they do that, you would think that it would scare the kids, being as how kids belive in the boogey man and that sort of thing. I guess they are indocrinating kids to the idea of robots coexisting with human.

Remember, these are children UNDER 24 months....

I know exactly what you mean. This story is, to me, both awesome and awful.

The possibilities are obviously wide open, as to how this could pan out. Robotic toys, doubling as monitoring devices are already available, it won't be long before you can monitor your home security, vehicle security, and child security and the securities market simultaneously with a 4 way splitscreen display on a HUD.

Ideally, the robot, in addition to watching your kid, will also be teaching him/her to speak and walk and use the toilet and...on and on and on. Computers are powerful learning tools, because they store a great deal of information and impart it on command. Parents are, of course, equipped with similar technology..but they're much less reliable than Japanese robots.

I'm sure it will be easier than ever to be a responsible parent/teacher, and not coincidentally, it will also be easier than ever to be various shades of neglectful and predatory. :shk:

I remember an article not too long about about a teddy bear with built in surveillance, and I had the same reaction to that as I'm having to this. It's really cool and really creepy all at once.

Doesn't bother me in the least, but then I've been playing with robots since I was 6. That was back in 87.

Everything from Transformers, to the robot that could play Super Marior Brothers on the NES.

Then there were the robots that could walk, and the ones that could talk to me. (Had one that said over 150 phrases. At the time it seemed like we could carry on conversations.)