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Tiny robot dog: how can I love a thing so dumb?

Tiny robot dog: how can I love a thing so dumb?

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We live in an age with no shortage of robot animals — they seem to multiply like little unstable rabbits, except they're hardly ever rabbits — but none have proven themselves quite so relatable as this one. This is PneuHound, and while its name doesn't quite slide off the tongue, its body is definitely doing some sliding... whenever it tries to move in any way at all. Haha, same!

As Gizmodo points out, PneuHound (or PH, as I will refer to him from here on out to indicate an intimate relationship) was built at Hosoda Laboratory at Osaka University, and it's much smaller than other robot dogs, like Boston Dynamics' SpotMini. But I'm not interested in PH's size, although its lack of bulk does contribute to its overall aesthetic, which could be described as "clumsy but lovable idiot."

It runs frantically, but without moving very much at all. It shivers constantly. It slams its little dumb body into walls. Finally, someone has made a robot that really feels human — because it just seems so bad at everything.