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Sony Technology

Sony is working on a robot that can 'grow to inspire love and affection'

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

June 29, 2016 | 2 min read

Sony is looking to robotics to help build a stronger connection with customers, ambitiously developing a robot capable of emotional bonds with humans.

Aibo

Sony's Aibo robot

At a company meeting, chief executive, Kaz Hirai, said: “Sony believes its strength lies in its ability to develop products that exist at the closest point of contact with its customers and resonate with them at an emotional level, and to place them in the hands of customers around the world.”

To bolster this so-called emotional bond, it is working in the fields of video and audio technologies, sensors and mechatronics, with artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, communications.

Specifically, it said it is building a “robot capable of forming an emotional bond with customers, and able to grow to inspire love and affection”. The concept is similar to IBM’s Pepper robot which was debuted at Mobile World Congress, earlier this year.

Details on the initiative are few and far between, although also outlined as an anchor of its ambitions was Playstation VR, which should make high level VR accessible to anyone with a PlayStation 4 console.

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