Robots can now be personal companions thanks to advances in technology and Artificial Intelligence
Back to the future lied: 2015 came and went and we still don’t have proper hoverboards. but advances in robotics, holograms and AI mean digital companions might just be the droids we are looking for
In Japan, a tech company called Vinclu has created Gatebox, a small black device – that oddly looks like a fancy coffee machine but which houses a hologram of an anime-like “assistant” called Azuma Hikari in a glass tube.
Once you hook Azuma up to your home network she becomes part of your daily life; waking you up in the morning, turning on your lights, wishing you luck on your way to work and she even says good night to you at bed time. Azuma proceeds to text you throughout the day with cute notes and anecdotes so as simulate the idea that she is experiencing the day with you.
“I personally believe that happiness is spending life with a partner you love,” Minori Takechi, the 29-year-old founder and CEO of Vinclu told Vice News. “I just think that partner could be a virtual one instead.”
Gatebox was originally conceived as an idea to help out a subsection of the Japanese male population that is plagued with a condition called Otaku - a social affliction in which insecure people become obsessed with computers or a particular aspect of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills - allowing them to instead find companionship with an anime character that won’t judge them. It’s an idea that seems to paid off because even at R37 000 a pop the initial run has already sold out.
Image: Supplied