Question: When will we be able to have robot pets?

Kieran Fraser answered on 10 Nov 2017:

Very cool question! The truth is, we can have robot pets now! but they may not be as smart or cuddly as living pets. Like SpotMini! This is a dog-like robot made by Boston Dynamics – to you and me it would look very basic, because mostly it can just walk and keep its balance, but actually, even just getting the robot to achieve this is amazing and took a lot of effort.

Think about how long it takes a baby to learn how to walk and keep it’s balance. Even when you’re older, keeping your balance in certain situations (like walking on ice) is very difficult. Walking up stairs, through a forest or on different terrain takes different skills. The scientists making robots have to think about all these skills and apply them to a robot if it’s to be life-like.

It will be a few years before we have robots that can understand us on an emotional level the same way our pets do. Like when you’re upset, and your dog can feel it and sits with you – that’s something which is very difficult to build in robots. But we are getting better at it. Check out the robot Sophia by Hanson Robotics – this is an artificial person, but using the same technology, we could also make robot pets seem closer to the real thing!