By Cats are one of the most popular pets in the world and it’s only a matter of time before bot cats become a reality. These artificial felines are designed to look and act like real cats. They can offer companionship for individuals who are unable to own a pet due to allergies, lack of space or living in an apartment complex where pets are not allowed. However, bot cats come with their own set of drawbacks, including the fact that they can be expensive and they have a limited lifespan.
The emergence of bot cats has led to some interesting developments in the world of robotics. For example, the 53rd Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is featuring a robot that looks remarkably like a cat and acts very much like one too. The bot is called Mittens and it is able to move its head, eyes and ears in the same way that a cat would. It can also walk around and even meow, if it wants to.
While Mittens is a fun and interesting development, it’s not the first cat-themed bot to hit the market. The first bot to use cat-like movements was a robot called kittybot, which debuted in 2007. It was essentially an inverted platform that used a servo motor to control a pair of claws that could be flipped up or down. This robot was very effective in battle and it won a number of tournaments. It was also extremely entertaining to watch and it helped to popularize the concept of bot cat.
Another early cat-themed bot was a robot bot cat from the United States called Cat King, which competed in This is Fighting Robots and King of Bots II. During its first fight in the latter tournament, Cat King lost a wheel during its battle with Iron Scrap, but it was still able to win the match after ripping off its wedge and throwing it outside of the arena. It went on to beat Medusa and Khaos before being forced to forfeit its final match against Earth Shovel, which resulted in a victory for the other robot.
For the 2020 season of BattleBots, Cat King was rebuilt to replace its various spinning weapons with a vertical bar spinner and two lifter arms. These arms could not only overturn other robots but they also served as self-righting mechanisms. The robot started its season by winning a Judges’ decision against Fusion and then defeated Ribbot and Malice before being flipped over by Hydra’s flipper, sending it into the loser’s bracket.
The creator of the bot, Martijn van Dijke, explains that it uses GPT-4, which is OpenAI’s latest large language model. It is capable of spitting out all sorts of impressive content, including believable college essays and source code. Using this technology, he created CatGPT, a chatbot that allows users to ask it any question and then responds with a series of meows. It even includes a few cat GIFs in its responses to add some humour to the bot.
