Coming Soon: Your Very Own Pet Robot
With an open-source brain, a host of potential apps and the fact that it can be 3D-printed at home from online files, Jimmy could be the must-have tech device of 2014.
Unveiled by respected futurist and Intel researcher Brian David Johnson at the Maker Faire event in New York this weekend, Jimmy is a very real example of what a 3D-printing revolution could usher in as well as demonstrating how far the tech community has come in the field of artificial intelligence.
Simply print out your own Jimmy at home and then install his personality and abilities via an ecosystem of apps and code, making the little fellow as easy to program and personalize as a smartphone. Johnson says that the first do-it-yourself kits will become available within the coming months and will cost around $1000.
However, he hopes that he will have refined the robot sufficiently that by May 2014 it could be on sale for as little as $500, making him cheaper than an iPhone and equally, if not more, customizable. Johnson hopes that each Jimmy will be imbibed with its creator's personality meaning that as well as being built to do different jobs, each Jimmy will be a character in his or her own right and will no doubt have his or her own Twitter feed, just like Johnson's.
The demonstration comes in the same month as a new study by U.S. academic Julie Carpenter into how and why people build emotional attachments to robots, coming to treat the devices like pets or even friends. Focused specifically on the bonds that military personnel build with bomb-disposal robots, Carpenter interviewed 23 explosive ordnance personnel about their thoughts and feelings towards their mechanized assistants and found that on the whole, while the soldiers saw the robots first and foremost as little more than tools, there is also an underlying emotional bond, most observable when a robot was damaged or destroyed.
"They would say they were angry when a robot became disabled because it is an important tool, but then they would add 'poor little guy,' or they'd say they had a funeral for it," Carpenter said. "These robots are critical tools they maintain, rely on, and use daily. They are also tools that happen to move around and act as a stand-in for a team member, keeping Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel at a safer distance from harm."
For any potential owners worried about forming such an attachment to their Jimmy but at the same time concerned that like any other pet the robot will start to misbehave without attention, Johnson is planning another robot, 'Paul' who Jimmy will be able to talk to.
