The man who put a Roomba in every home wants to replace your dog with a plush robot

"The robot is called the Familiar, and the company behind it is Familiar Machines & Magic, a startup that operated in stealth mode in Woburn, Massachusetts until Angle brought a working prototype to the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything conference in New York on 4 May. The device is roughly the size of a bulldog, with doe-like eyes, bear cub ears and paws, and touch-sensitive synthetic fur. It makes emotive, animal-like sounds but does not talk. It has audio input that allows it to listen and learn from what you say to it, and its AI system, built on generative AI advances, gradually adapts its behaviour as it gets to know the people around it."

"" We chose a form factor that's not a human, not a dog, not a cat, because we wanted to steer away from all of those preconceptions," Angle told the Associated Press. " The challenge is to make something that's not a watch-me toy. This is about having something that you want to hug, you want to pet. When it's happy, that makes you happy. ""

"The idea of an artificial companion animal is not new. Sony introduced its plastic robotic dog Aibo in the late 1990s and rebooted the concept in 2018. MIT researcher Cynthia Breazeal, who is now one of Angle's advisers at Familiar Machines, created the robot head Kismet and later the tabletop speaker robot Jibo, both early experiments in giving machines social expressions. Jibo shipped, found a loyal niche audience, and then shut down."

A four-legged, plush-covered AI companion robot called the Familiar is designed to follow people around a home and adapt to daily habits. The robot uses touch-sensitive synthetic fur and makes emotive, animal-like sounds without speaking. Audio input lets it listen and learn from what people say. Its generative AI system gradually changes behavior as it gets to know the people around it. The robot’s form factor avoids human, dog, and cat expectations, aiming to be something people want to hug and pet. The company behind it, Familiar Machines & Magic, previously operated in stealth before presenting a working prototype publicly.

Read at TNW | Robots