Robot companion's can-do attitude rubs off on children

Artificial intelligence has a new job: setting a good example for your kids. It seems that children's behaviour can be influenced by the personality of a robot companion – playing with an enthusiastic or attentive robot, for instance, made them engage more and work harder. Researchers ran a series of experiments with Tega, a companion robot that looks like a cross between a Furby and a Teletubby. To test how the robot's personality could affect the children's behaviour, they programmed the robot with different responses. "The goal is to have a companion that has all of the behaviours that we want to instil and promote in the child," says team member Goren Gorden at Tel Aviv University in Israel.