You know those creepy looking robot dogs that don’t have a head? They’re basically a block on four legs. Those could end up replacing real live seeing eye dogs. Engineers at a university in New York have found a way to program them to act like trained dogs for visually impaired people. The robots can also react to tugs on their leash as commands. This could be great considering a live dog costs around $50,000, can take years to train, and don’t have a very long window to help people.
They’re also working on a way to program the robot dogs to use intelligent disobedience. For example, if a person tells it to walk into the street, but there’s traffic, it won’t. And now that AI is moving so quickly, it probably won’t be long before the robot dog can actually talk to you and explain the surroundings. Also, you won’t need to carry a plastic bag to pick up after it. I mean, unless they drop nuts and bolts.