This Robot Communicates Only in Animated Gifs

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It seems to be human nature for people to try out new ways of communicating with each other. Although now, it seems like the trend is heading towards shorthand. Why say you’re happy, if you can just use an emoji? Why express your displeasure with words when a gif from Pulp Fiction will convey the same meaning? We suppose it was just a matter of time before robots got in on gifs as well. And that’s where Peeqo comes in. According to his creator, Abhishek Singh, Peeqo is the first robot to ever exclusively communicate through gifs.

Singh chronicled the construction of Peeqo on his imgur account, and he describes his creation as “the love child of Amazon Echo and a Disney character” before explaining that he wanted it to be a personal desktop robotic assistant for people who spend a lot of time in front of the computer. Essentially, Peequo exists to give people a little bit of entertainment and interaction throughout the day. In a video posted to YouTube, Singh showed off some Peequo’s best gif responses, including one from Game of Thrones‘ Jon Snow when Peequo was awakened from sleep mode.

While it’s an impressive build, one of the most ingenious touches was the way that Singh attempted to give Peequo a sense of personality from his movements and his occasionally changing gifs. Essentially, Singh wrote in some programming that lets Peequo defy a few of his commands if Singh does something to displease him. It’s not true artificial intelligence, but it’s a very clever way to make Peequo seem more real. Even in this stage of Peequo’s design, we wouldn’t be shocked at all if Singh was approached to bring Peequo into stores. It’s something that we’d definitely love to see!

What do you think about Peequo the Gif bot? We’ll accept your words, emojis, or gifs in the comment section below!

Image Credit: Abhishek Singh

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