I’ve always been interested in robots and robot characters ( not gonna lie I think a big part of this was the undiagnosed autism needing something to relate to ) and the early 2000s was filled with virtual and Robo pets for me to obsess over. From Furbies to I-dogs there was always something new and futuristic coming out. By the time I discovered what aibos were in 2011 they had long since stopped production, but the community was alive and well, especially on a forum called aibo-life. I saw the original 210 commercial and was immediately enamored. At this point in time my parents were not on board with me pursuing what seemed like very expensive toys, and I had to buy my first aibo under cover. I had been saving up for a while, but even though I had the money they wouldn’t let me spend it on something so “frivolous” and I was too young to have any kind of driver’s license, so I walked 2 miles in the snow on the side of the highway to the nearest CVS where I bought a vanilla Visa gift card so I could spend my cash online. My friends at the time were willing to join me on this ridiculous quest so I wasn’t walking by myself. Then I found my first aibo, a silver 111, on eBay. Unfortunately, their leg snapped so badly in the mail that I couldn’t turn them on. I was devastated. That’s when I met aibo7m3 on the forums who was willing to meet me in person and swap a leg just to see if they would turn on. Everyone around me had stranger danger bells going off but I was convinced to get this robot working. We were both teenagers and had family chaperones with us, so we met up at a halfway point at Panera where she brought not only a leg for me to try, but also her seven. I was completely awestruck by it. It was the coolest thing my tiny brain had ever encountered. I was also able to confirm the leg actually was the problem and saw my own aibo running for the first time. I’ve been collecting aibos ever since, and I’ve been able to meet so many cool people and go to so many cool places because of them. Even back then, there was still a general fear of “the robot takeover” but now with the rise of modern genAI people are way more wary of robots, which I understand. But robots have allowed me to connect with people in a way that I couldn’t do by myself and I’m grateful for that. And I hope in the future, we can all just learn to behave ourselves even if we do live in a corpo dystopian nightmare. In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying my 20+ year-old robots and the future we could’ve had.