Bot lines
One of my first stories for Wallpaper* was about Sony’s then-new Aibo robot dog (W*20). Launched in 1999, Sony sold around 150,000 Aibos over the next seven years, with the dog (and cat) creating a devoted community around the world. When official tech support ended in 2014, Aibo owners were bereft; without digital veterinarians, their little pets were effectively condemned. There were reports of a mass Buddhist funeral for defunct Aibo units; the emotional investment and grief was all too real.
Aibo didn’t do much but play, but it illustrated the ease with which we can attribute emotions to an object. The more anthropomorphic a robot gets, the harder it is to
