Sony’s Aibo brought the robot revolution into the family
Sony imagined a future filled with robots that could work alongside people, become their friends or live with them as pets. The Aibo, designed to be welcomed as part of the family, became the company’s attempt to make that last idea real.
The first episode of the sixth season of Version History revisits the robot dog’s origins, success and staying power. Host David Pierce is joined by The Verge journalists Victoria Song and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy to discuss why Aibo left such a mark on its owners, what Sony got right and wrong about robots, and whether robotic pets could ever become a global phenomenon.
The new season focuses on pets: gadgets that are pets, gadgets for pets and, in Aibo’s case, a gadget called a pet. Episodes will be released over the next six weeks. Listeners can subscribe through the Version History podcast feed, its YouTube channel, or the show’s TikTok and Instagram accounts. The Verge subscribers can access the podcast and the publication’s other shows without ads through their account settings.
The episode’s suggested reading includes coverage from The New York Times, Businessweek, IEEE Spectrum and The Wall Street Journal, as well as The Robots Guide to Aibo. The list also points to the Aibo in the Museum of Modern Art and a Verge account of trying Sony’s newer Aibo robot dog.
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