Jibo, world's first family robot

14 August 2014 2 min read

Robots are on the rise! They move from our factories to finally our daily lives and living rooms. Jibo claims to be the first family robot which is able to do a lot of house hold tasks like taking pictures, read text messages, read the kids and order food. Robotics in your home is on the horizon.

We already know the robots which are able to act as a vacuum cleaner or as a lawnmower. Robots which can act as a bar tender or even can bake our hamburgers. Robots are taking over and some even predict that we loose our jobs because of the fast rise of software and robotics which make humans in a working environment obsolete. We see the rise of technological unemployment and now robotics are even coming into our social lives. This because Jibo is able to read your kids bedtime stories and share your text messages. Jibo is like a pet with artificial intelligence.

Jibo is developed by Cynthia Breazeal. She is a robotics researcher at MIT. Breazeal developed Jibo to create a little robotic family helper. According to Breazeal Jibo is “there to help families connect, coordinate, to play together, to try to help with organization, and to help with a new form of telepresence or video call,” (source: interview CBC The Exchange). The robotics researcher also hopes with Jibo to end our fear about new technologies. A fear of technology taking away our jobs instead of helping us living better lives.

Jibo is about at 11 inches tall and weighing about six pounds. It looks like a rolling white eye which is able to do a wide range of tasks. Jibo is able to see, learn, speak, hear, relate and help.

More info about Jibo is available on Indiegogo.