Free creatures : The role of uselessness in the design of artificial pets

Abstract

In less than five years, artificial pets... We will argue in this paper that the success of the existing artificial pets relies on some clever design principles. Among these principles is the fact that they are useless in the sense that they do not perform any service task. We will then discuss why we should follow this 'uselessness principle' when we design artificial pets that are able to learn and adapt themselves.