A dependent robot

Robot 4 is part of a series of robots perceived by Dunne & Raby. Over the coming years, robots are destined to play a significant part in our daily lives — not as super smart, functional machines, nor as pseudo life forms, but as technological cohabitants. But how will we interact with them? What new interdependencies and relationships might emerge in relation to different levels of robot intelligence and capability? These objects are meant to spark a discussion about how we’d like our robots to relate to us: subservient, intimate, dependent, equal? Robot4 is very needy. Although extremely smart it is trapped in an underdeveloped body and depends on its owner to move it about. Neediness is designed into very smart products to maintain a feeling of control. The idea presented here can also be applied to ‘normal’ products. The user will develop a relationship with a product if this prodyct is dependent of the user. And therefore the user will not cast it away as easily as we do now with our out-of-style products.

Source: dunneandraby.co.ukAdded: 13 November 2012