Kofuku-ji temple chief priest Bungen Oi (R) offers a prayer during the funeral for 19 Sony pet robot AIBOs in Isumi, Japan’s Chiba prefecture © Toshifumi Kitamura (AFP) via DailyMail.com
Japanese owners of a beloved AIBO robot dog which is broken beyond repair now have the option of holding a robot dog funeral. Odd as it may sound, many of the beloved toy’s owners are so attached to these “pet” that they believe they have souls.
It’s not clear if all robotic AIBO dogs will go to heaven, but their Japanese owners are convinced they have souls. Owners of the gadgets are staging funerals for the machines after Sony discontinued them and closed the last ‘clinics’ used to fix them.
Read the full story: Robots with souls: Funerals held for robot dogs across Japan
The Sony AIBO.
The AIBO (Artificial Intelligence Robot) dog has not been manufactured since 2006 and parts for repair are extremely hard to come by. To help save the AIBOs that can be repaired, “dead” robot dogs become donors for organ transplantation.
AIBO in the Carnegie Mellon Hall of Fame
