By: Nick Gambino
Ahead of CES 2024, which is being held in Las Vegas January 9th through the 12th, LG unveiled a new AI robot that is designed to carry out a ton of household tasks, including caring for your pets. They’re calling it an AI agent.
The two-legged robot was created with Qualcomm’s Robotics RB5 Platform, allowing all manner of functions. It wheels around the house and employs its camera, sensors and speakers to scan for things to be done and carry them out. Of course, it’s limited, but it keeps track of temperature, air quality and other environmental conditions and turns devices on and off accordingly. It most likely turns off only those things that are smart-enabled. I can’t imagine it can turn a stove knob or even reach it based on its size.
It carries out its duties whether people are home or not. It’ll send alerts directly to your phone if it finds an issue like an open window or a stove that’s been left on or even if it detects motion when there shouldn’t be.
The LG robot doesn’t just interact with stationary objects and appliances. It also interacts with the living. Equipped with software that allows it to recognize faces and voices, it becomes not only a guard but a companion. It’ll greet you when you come home and engage in conversation thanks to natural language processing.
The AI agent will try its best to engage with you on an emotional level as well, playing mood-appropriate music after it scans and detects your emotions. They’ve even designed it to display different postures to express its own manufactured mood.
The resident sensors and camera make it the perfect way to keep tabs on your dog, cat or other pets. It’s not completely clear if it does anything but keep an eye on your pet. There’s no mention of it feeding your dog.
“The AI agent can even act as a pet monitor and security guard, providing users with the ability to see and care for their pets remotely and sending alerts if any unusual activity is detected,” the press release says.
We’ll get a better idea of its capabilities when they bring it to CES in a couple weeks.