Robot taking care of your dog

This is possibly the worst idea I've ever heard of. If you can't walk your dog then why do you have a dog... and why does the dog have you? Both you and your dog need those moment for bonding. I actually answered the survey but it's not going to be the encouragement you hoped for. There is no technology currently that even comes close to being reliable enough that I would let my dog out of the house leashed to one. No way. No way!

If you want to develop a useful robot (dog or non dog related) then try focusing on one that can do light house keeping and/or surveillance tasks (possibly related to the dog) when you are not home. I could see a role for a robot in the house that kept an eye on the dog but beyond that my Roomba is more useful to my dog than a walking robot would be. Moreover, a dog will know it is not human and while I'm pretty sure you could train a dog to tolerate the presence of such a machine, they're not going to warm up to it.

Buzzu2 said:

This is not a new or novel idea, and was thought of in 2011.

Luna Personal Robot Can Walk the Dog

It's hard to be a geek and not like robots. They have a lot of promise to free us from the mundane tasks that no one really wants to do. Things like

technabob.com

Considering there is no current information on Loomo Puppy, I gather the idea was a flop.

https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/88rd0t

Click to expand...

I'm going to make a guess that the first time they tested that thing that the dog pulled the robot over and the robot fell on the dog and killed it.

That said, I honestly do believe that robots will become very VERY common in people's lives in the future. I think people will own them like we own PC's now.

To my mind there is a very big (future) market for robots that clean the house, wash the dishes, do the laundry, tidy up etc... things that people need to do but don't necessarily enjoy. I already have a robot that vacuums my floor while I'm sleeping and I view it as a "must have". if mine breaks I will definitely buy another one. Moreover a "tidy up" robot, once told where things go will be able to put things back where they belong (something humans have trouble with) so you can find them again. You will be able to say to the robot, "find my keys" and it look for them. If you ask the robot "where are my keys" it will know because they don't forget where they saw things last.... etc etc. It will require a level of AI that isn't commonly available right now, but these things are coming.

Another application for robots that I think has a HUGE future are robots with "companion" functionality. I'm not talking about sex robots. Imagine a "companion" robot that lives in the house with you. Not like a pet, but one that can play games with you, maybe cook light meals, make tea, find recipies, help you balance your diet and exercise routines, do grocery shopping, engage in some conversation about ... current events or whatever... monitor grandma's blood pressure and interact with the doctor on her behalf if needed, make sure someone is taking their meds, getting to bed on time, getting up on time, etc etc etc. This is going to be a HUGE market once the robots are sophisticated enough. People don't WANT to move to geriatric centres when they get older. They WANT to remain in their own houses but many will need help in order to do so.

Robots can fulfill that role once their programming and functionality matures. I know for sure that if I lived in some future world and I were single, older and companion robots were sufficiently mature that I would want one. I would use it like a personal assistant.