Meet Paro the seal, he’s no ordinary plaything but a highly developed robot designed and marketed as a therapeutic device to help comfort people with dementia, autism or other afflictions that can cause social isolation.
The six pound robots is stuffed with high-tech innards, including sensors that allow it to respond to touch, light, and sound.
“When people stroke Paro, Paro feels good, the whiskers double up as sensors,” say Takanori Shibata its creator.
As the robot is stroked it lets out a gentle squeal, the call is a recording of a real baby harp seal that Shibata tracked down on floating sea ice near an island in Canada.
Shibata says he tried making robotic cats and dogs, but people didn’t find those convincing. “They expected too much,” he said and they’d compare the robots to real animals they had known, few people have ever seen a live baby seal, so aren’t likely to draw comparisons between the robot and the real thing.
