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Children across the US will likely spend the coming days and weeks saying goodbye to an AI-powered friend named Moxie. The small dog-sized companion bot—which used a ChatGPT-style large language model and expressive features to hold open-ended conversations with children—will soon be taken offline due to its creator’s financial struggles.
The decision to abandon the $799 product four years after its release, first reported by Aftermath, has left some customers bemoaning the loss of an artificial friend and others angrily demanding refunds. Videos of confused, crying children saying goodbye to their companion flooding social media. But Moxie’s sudden demise isn’t entirely unique. It’s part of a larger trend of companies cutting off software support for hardware to cut costs. In an economy where products are increasingly rented services, powerful devices can transform into worthless scrap overnight.
Moxie used an AI model to chat with children about their lives
Moxie was released by tech-firm Embodied in 2020. The robot, intended for use among kids between 5-10 years old, is 15 inches tall and has a human-like animated face that can display a range of human-like emotions. It can play games like Simon Says and tell jokes and brain teasers but it’s also used by many to engage in meandering conversations. The robot reportedly uses speech recognition to listen to the speaker, face recognition to analyze the speaker’s emotions, and a large language model to carry out conversations.
www.popsci.com
The decision to abandon the $799 product four years after its release, first reported by Aftermath, has left some customers bemoaning the loss of an artificial friend and others angrily demanding refunds. Videos of confused, crying children saying goodbye to their companion flooding social media. But Moxie’s sudden demise isn’t entirely unique. It’s part of a larger trend of companies cutting off software support for hardware to cut costs. In an economy where products are increasingly rented services, powerful devices can transform into worthless scrap overnight.
Moxie used an AI model to chat with children about their lives
Moxie was released by tech-firm Embodied in 2020. The robot, intended for use among kids between 5-10 years old, is 15 inches tall and has a human-like animated face that can display a range of human-like emotions. It can play games like Simon Says and tell jokes and brain teasers but it’s also used by many to engage in meandering conversations. The robot reportedly uses speech recognition to listen to the speaker, face recognition to analyze the speaker’s emotions, and a large language model to carry out conversations.
'I love you… goodbye:' What will happen when this companion robot suddenly dies?
Embodied's financial woes are taking its beloved Moxie offline.
www.popsci.com
