Moxie is a childhood robot introduced by a startup called Embodied. It is a highly sophisticated social robot that was built with the objective to help kids develop social skills during childhood. From what we know about the robot, it seems very engaging and interactive, making it very likeable by its targeted audience.
It will not only give company to the child but also communicate with them to build their vocabulary and communication skills. It will also boost their confidence and also aim at encouraging the children to open up their hearts and deliver their feelings and thoughts to the robot, indirectly to the family.
Moxie is built upon a highly efficient AI, which enables it to have conversations with people. To recognize the faces, it is equipped with a camera and a monitor to display its facial expressions. This robot is very much able to hold a natural conversation and responds to feelings, changing moods, and eye contact. It can recall memories and hence creates an experience that is very much personalized.
Moxie can help your child in a wide range of activities, from drawing to even meditation. At one moment, you can ask your child to read a book to the robot, and it will respond to the story and hold a conversation. You can teach your child various social values of kindness, sharing, and safety skills through Moxie.
The company, which built Moxie, believes in today’s world and children are adapting to technology like never before. To obtain the best results of learning and fun, the company expects children to interact with the social result for 20 minutes 3-4 times in any given week. They also noted that children are often bored easily, so Moxie will be coming up with new content every day to make sure that the conversations are not repetitive.
In a paper submitted to IEEE, it is explained that the robot will process the data itself. At the same time, the data from the camera will be stored in a private cloud facility accessible only by the parents and will not be available to Embodied.
The company currently plans to enter its beta testing phase and will supply the robot for free to multiple families. Upon its proposed launch in October, Moxie will be sold at a price point of $1500 with one year of free educational courses. After one year, they will follow a subscription model of $60 per month and provide content.
We all know that robots are the best bet when it comes to repetitive actions, although human interaction will never be replaced. Still, this effort by Embodied is worthy enough to be acknowledged and indeed looks like a step towards the future.
