I'm not a Sony employee or anything, but theirs is whole next level even just sitting unpowered, compared to even some of other Japanese bots. Everyone making these cutebots should have one of any of Sony bots to study, even just as a dead kinetic sculpture.
She's still bitter we didn't get the Sony dog a decade ago.
(it does look like subsequent models were launched about a decade ago)
(Chinese but since it's esp32 and raspberry pi it is possible to tinker with it)
I wonder what's the catch? Cheap IMU/motors?
> Emotional AI Support, Powered by Intelligence
Targeting emotionally vulnerable people with AI promises is pretty disgusting
> If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written...And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.
Basically, reading writing (without instruction) will only make people seem like they know stuff, by parroting others, when in fact, they know not much of anything.
> Through communication, Moflin’s emotional state changes. Your robot companion can show joy, sadness, and happiness, reacting just like a living creature would. Moflin does not possess actual emotions like humans do. Their emotional expressions are simulated by AI. And lots of bits of the advert seems to be explain how it's not real in the QA and that everything is a simulation.
I have not used the product, but nothing strikes me as dishonest about the advertising.
Seems like a lie to me. Compare:
> Our synthetic foodstuffs can taste sweet, salty, tart or tangy, delicious flavors just like natural ingredients.
(But then it's all aspartame, etc.)
Your second one point also does not seem like a lie to me since it's claiming to emulate natural ingredient (although here I guess to be just like means to emulate perfectly).
I don't really see why any one would look at the product and it's marketing as evil. It seems to me aimed at people who can not have pets and are want to create a simulation of a soothing positive interaction with a pet. I don't see this as exploitative (apart from it's exploiting a desire that people have in the same way that virtually all products do), I can not see someone forming a relationship with this to the detriment of human interaction or exacerbate some kind of mental illness or cause addiction. It does seem a little expensive and that would be my only criticism of the product so far as I can see.
The sentence is not saying “it is a living creature”. It says it behaves as one. How much of that sentence is a lie obviously depends on how well the robot works.
In Western cultures, "mouth" is how one perceives emotions, while in the Eastern cultures, it's the eyes.
e.g.
You see Disney characters got all big mouths, while say, Japanese ones like in anime or Hello Kitty has small or no mouth but BIG eyes.
Same for Microduck. It's got gigantic mouth, while Moflin has none.
---
As a personal preference, I like anime/manga characters but not fond of disney characters nor other Pixar characters. they look terrible to me.
I suppose Moflin is preemptive revenge against that scenario. “How do you like them apples, future torturing AI?”
I can see some parallel between how arduino gave hobbyist a mini computer they can use in any way imaginable, I can see this kind of thing being used to solve unimaginable problems by hobbyist or RL computer scientist or heck any UG student with claude subscription
Here’s the tech specs page, which is also busy: https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/press-kit/