Sony resurrects robotic pet Aibo with advanced AI

A decade back when CEO Howard Stringer decided to discontinue Sony’s iconic entertainment robot AIBO, its progenitor Toshitada Doi had famously staged a mock funeral lamenting, more than Aibo’s disbandment, the death of Sony’s risk-taking spirit. Today as the Japanese firm’s sales have soared to a decade high beating projected estimates, Aibo is back from the dead.

The revamped pet looks cuter than ever before, after nearly a decade of hold. And it has been infused with a range of sensors, cameras, microphones and upgraded artificial intelligence features. The new Aibo is an ivory-white, plastic-covered hound which even has the ability to connect to mobile networks. Using actuators, it can move its body remarkably well, while using two OLED panels in eyes to exhibit an array of expressions. Most importantly, it comes with a unique ‘adaptive’ behavior that includes being able to actively recognize its owner and running over to them, learning and interacting in the process – detecting smiles and words of praises – with all those head and back scratches. In short, a dog in real without canine instincts.

Priced at around $1,735 (198,000 Yen), Aibo includes a SIM card slot to connect to internet and access Sony’s AI cloud to analyze and learn how other robot dogs are behaving on the network. Sony says it does not intend to replace a digital assistant like Google Home but that Aibo could be a wonderful companion for children and families, forming an “emotional bond” with love, affection, and joy.

The cloud service that powers Aibo’s AI is however expensive, and a basic three-year subscription plan is priced at $26 (2,980 Yen) per month. Or you could sign up upfront for three years at around $790 (90,000 Yen). As far as the battery life is concerned, the robot will take three hours to fully charge itself once it gets dissipated after two hours of activity.

“It was a difficult decision to stop the project in 2006, but we continued development in AI and robotics,” Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai said speaking at a launch event. “I asked our engineers a year and a half ago to develop Aibo because I strongly believe robots capable of building loving relationships with people help realize Sony’s mission.”

When Sony had initially launched AIBO in 1999, it was well ahead of its time. But after the initial euphoria, the product somehow failed to get mainstream buyers as reboots after reboots failed to generate profits. That time clearly Sony had to make a decision as its core electronics business struggled in price wars.

Today, times are different – AI fever has gripped the tech world. A plastic bone (‘aibone’) for the robotic dog costs you around 2,980 Yen. And that’s the price you pay for a keeping a robotic buddy around. The word “aibo” literally means a companion after all.