The Allure of RoboPets
"Carnegie Mellon University robotics Professor Illah Nourbakhsh has thought about why humans form attachments to what they clearly understand to be artificial constructs. It happens all the time, not just to people who buy Pleos, he said. It's the same impulse that drives some children to choose a favorite blanket or makes grown-ups unwilling to get rid of objects that hold special memories - like the dune buggy that may be sitting up on blocks in the backyard today but which once kicked up its share of sand. Nourbakhsh said such objects, by their mere existence, evoke feelings of comfort or memories of fun. The human-Pleo connection is different, he said. The Pleo can perform certain actions - it rolls its eyes and makes cooing sounds - which allows it to trigger associations in the mind of sympathetic observers. Pet or baby lovers may link the Pleo to memories or emotions important to them, he said, creating a new bond in the heart of the beholder." (Tom Abate, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Coming soon: Spore's robopets?
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