Coming Soon: Robotic Pets
By 2025, robotic pets might replace the living, breathing ones. That would mean cleaner carpets at my house, but I'm not sold.
Animal welfare researcher Dr. Jean-Loup Rault from the University of Melbourne thinks that that virtual and robopets might be right around the corner.
His reasoning is the fact that in a world that is quickly becoming overpopulated, ownership of pets could become a luxury, and people might opt for a robot pet that mimics the real Fido.
"It's not a question of centuries from now. If 10 billion human beings live on the planet in 2050 as predicted, it's likely to occur sooner than we think. If you'd described Facebook to someone 20 years ago, they'd think you were crazy. But we are already seeing people form strong emotional bonds with robot dogs in Japan,"
How does one form a strong bond with a robot?
Don't you want your dog or cat or whatever your pet is to be happy to see you because they actually happy to see you? Not because they are programmed to be happy.
The whole point of having a pet is for the joy it brings into our lives, and our end of the bargain is to take care of it. A robot doesn't need food or water, to go outside and walk or be cleaned up after.
As much of an ideal pet that desription sounds like, I doubt there would be an emotional attachment.
I've cleaned many carpet stains because of a little rascal named Buddy, but I wouldn't ever trade Buddy for lifetime of clean carpets.
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