From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Thu Dec 28 2000 - 11:26:51 MST
On Wed, Dec 27, 2000 at 07:36:54PM -0500, Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
>
> If you have live pets, and sometimes they are alone, then maybe the robots
> could play with the cats and dogs.
Ross, do you actually have a cat or a dog?
I have a cat, and playing with her is rather ... demanding. Like a
small child, she makes up rules as she goes along. Sometimes it's simple
chase-the-string stuff ... but she varies her hunting pattern considerably
and gets bored if I just drag it in front of her. And sometimes she tries
to play head-games with the people around her. For example, she's got a
dominance game where every time a human gets out of their chair she'll
leap into it and sprawl out, taking posession: as if to assert her own
ability to occupy human territory.
I wouldn't claim that she's as complex as a human being, but I suspect a
robot behaviourally complex enough to keep her amused would need to be at
least as smart as a dog or cat. (Unless it was mouse-sized, furry, and
designed to scoot into dark corners and squeak.)
-- Charlie
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