Clicker training, technology, and business management come together in a humor column from Express Computer, India's business weekly: "As I [the developer of Chaibo, the corporate robot] watched real dogs being put through their paces, I started thinking of ways to make Chaibo here more appealing and a better corporate creature. I realised that one strategy might be to give it a new instinct—the desire to please a trainer. Then its personality really would be shaped by the experience shared with a human....We had to have a model to train the corporate robot. Animal behaviourists suggested several options, including a technique called clicker training that has proved very successful with all sorts of animals from guide dogs to dolphins. I was keen to try it, so I got Nina to reprogram a standard Kibo puppy at Robotica with the instinct to please its trainer.....Clicker training allows a trainer to mould an animal's behaviour by letting it know when it is moving closer to a goal. It's a bit like the children's game ‘hotter, hotter, colder, colder.' Animals learn to associate the sound of the clicker with a reward that they'll receive once they accomplish a new routine....They also know that they'll carry on hearing the click as long as they are moving in the right direction. In Chaibo's language that meant using the words ‘Good Chaibo' instead of a click and rewarding him with a pat when he obeyed." To read the full piece (tongue in cheek!), click here.
