Those are just some of the challenges facing
Caleb Chung and his cohorts at Ugobe, Inc.
(“You! Go and be!” Get it?) Chung doesn’t need
the tsuris or the money. As one of the develop-ers of the Furby, which has sold an estimated
40 million units since 1998, Chung never has to
work again. But there’s something gnawing at
Chung, something beyond conquering the toy
world again or making enough money to buy his
own country.
“Humans have a fundamental need to nurture
— it makes you a better person,” says Chung.
“And one of the roles of digital life forms is to
bring out the best in people.”
The embodiment of Chung’s passion? An unassuming baby dinosaur — the size of a cocker
spaniel — called Pleo. Inside this camouflage-green camarasaurus is a ton of technology: 14
servo joints; 38 touch, sound, and light sensors;
a half-dozen digital signal processors; a gaggle
of electric motors; a camera installed in its nose;
an infrared transmitter for communicating with
other Pleos; a flash-card slot; and a real-time
operating system that oversees Pleo’s lifelike
movements and its personality.
Outside, Pleo is sheer experience, performance
art combined with emotional sleight of hand —
just what you’d expect from Chung, a former
mime. Pleo ambles along in amazingly lifelike
fashion, smiles and shrugs, frowns when he’s unhappy, and yowls for “food.” According to Chung,
Pleo is not only autonomous, but evolves over
time based on your interactions with him. Unlike
his robotic brethren, Pleo isn’t a battle bot; he’s a
love bot, designed to be your pal and to summon
your latent (or overactive) nurturing instincts.
Illustrations courtesy of Ugobe
But something more primal drives Chung: the
desire not only to manipulate life, but to create
it from scratch. To create a robotic companion
that thinks and, maybe, even feels. Call it the
Geppetto Syndrome.
It’s Alive! (Kind Of)
To meet the puppet and the puppet master, I
fly up to Chung’s lab in Boise, Idaho. As I stride
out of the spacious new terminal and behold
the stunning mountains in the distance, a worn,
white Lexus pulls up to the curb. Out jump Chung
and John Sosoka (chief technology officer and
key artificial intelligence guru), both clad in
Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops — standard high-tech attire in Boise. After a jovial exchange of
handshakes and jokes, we’re off — and so are
Chung and Sosoka, chatting animatedly about
the joys of Boise, the nature of robotic emotions,
synthetic versus organic life, and more. A fancy
lunch follows, and then we’re off to the lab.
Alas, there are no bubbling beakers, giant
sparking electric generators, or even a tiny tar
pit for Pleo to play in. The “lab” is a nondescript
box in a faceless office park, manned by a handful of engineers and designers. I meet the staff
and poke around, examining Pleos in various
stages of undress. One Pleo has returned from
a demo in China in tatters, apparently chewed
by a jealous panda. Another is stripped down to
its motor/gear/wire skivvies, as three engineers
fiddle with a locomotion problem. I snap pictures
of Caleb in silly poses with Pleo and talk with
one of the engineers about the joys of QA testing
Pleo’s tail.
Later, at a local cafe, I chew the robotic fat with
Chung and Sosoka and finally meet a more-or-less working Pleo face-to-face. To say I’m
skeptical is an understatement. The company’s
website and literature make some mighty big
claims: “[Pleo is the] genesis of a whole new
era in robotics. If you can imagine it, Ugobe can
create it,” “Pleo is the first truly autonomous Life
Form capable of emotions that allow personal
engagement,” and “Pleo … can feel joy and sorrow, anger and annoyance … even dream.” The
Pleo I meet runs a six-minute script that showcases his range of motions and emotions, but it’s
hardly autonomous.
Still, for a construction of rubber, gear trains,
CPUs, and wire, Pleo is pretty engaging, with a sly
smile on his face that’s pure Chung. Chung puts
Pleo through his paces, the baby dino showing fear
(complete with trembling), happiness (wagging tail,
dancing, little yippy sounds), groaning for food,
playing dead (like a kid, dramatically falling over
with a clunk), sneezing, and more. Pleo’s motions
aren’t perfect, but that’s the idea. >>
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