What if you turned the world of robots upside-down? No. I don’t mean like making a T-800-esque Schwarzenegger stand on his head. (Although that’s a good idea, too.) I mean, what if, instead of building armies of autonomous beings who do nothing but serve our every whim, we instead built robots who needed us. Like a lot. That’s what Wieden+Kennedy’s creative technologists at W+K Lodge have done with Needybot.
We made Needybot because we feel that we can learn the most about how humans and technology interact if we can get people to connect with a robot the same way they connect with other humans.
Needybot is not like other robots, because Needy was not made to perform a specific function to help us. Needybot’s purpose is to make us care, but it was built with just a few senses and little idea how to survive on its own.
To read more about the thinking around the concept, read about Needybot on the W+K Lodge Medium publication.
To get to know Needybot, follow Needybot on Twitter or Instagram. Or visit the Needbybot site.
[Full disclosure: Wieden+Kennedy is one of the cofounders of PIE along with me. But I’m just writing this so that someone can help spell me in taking care of this robot.]
