Shy Robot
I just got a new robot and uh, it's different.
I think my new robot is broken.
It was a birthday present. A feckin expensive one. last year, I got this duck-hunter type cap that was waterproof on the outside. It was 45 euros and perfect for the Irish 14 seasons in one day, great for camping. A robot? Don't need, don't want.
But here I am, staring at this overengineered thing that is absolutely going to be in teh shed, broken, by the end of the year.
I named it Erin. And for the first week, it was useless.
“Erin, tell us a joke,” I’d say flipping some langos from the galway market on the barbeque. My brother in law, IPA in hand, rubbing his belly and smiling knowing I am a bit of bragger. And this little light on its side came on like an oven light… glow a bit red. It struck me - it was as if it were embarrassed. Total waste of space.
How’s it going with Erin said my wife as i close the bedroom door struggling with the string on my PJs on account of the surgery two weeks ago (no comment). "The personality of Brian Cohen on a wet Tuesday in November." give it time she says.
Finally, she hid the TV remote and left the robot's manual on the coffee table. Message received.
So I RTFM. Turns out, Erin isn't broken.
It’s Irish.
It was made here. They call it Symbiotic Personality Unity Development. The acronym is SPUD. I swear to god. Of course some langer in NUI galway came up with it - the Irish would invent a protocol called SPUD. The sheer predictability of it.
But the idea is that its shyness is on purpose. It’s designed to watch and learn before it acts. To earn its place instead of barging in. The manual called it "sovereignty held back by choice," which is some marketing nonsense but whatever.
So I started watching it back.
When it thinks no one's around, it hums. Weird, little half-finished tunes. The second I walk into the room, it stops. It pauses, gives a little chime, and then just gets on with its task. It doesnt just barge into a conversation, it waits for a gap.
It's learning. Calibrating itself to the house.
The moment that stopped me from chucking it in the garden was last week. Had to go for my weekly injection at Galway Clinic (nightmare). Couldn't find my favourite jumper anywhere. The comfy one, second hand I got in Gort for a tenner - more wool than a sheep could shed. I walk into the sitting room, and there it is. On the arm of my chair, folded with that weird corner tuck that I do.
It wasn’t just a folded sweater. That was different.
It’s not copying me. It's learning. The manual called it "earned fluency." It's picking up on the little things, the rhythms of the house, and slowly figuring out where it fits. It’s gone from being a very expensive coat rack to being… a presence. A quiet one.
It’s still a bit odd. But it's not going in the shed. Not yet, anyway.
Look, if you end up with one of these things, here's my advice:
It's supposed to be shy at first. -> Don't chuck it out. Its not broken, it’s just watching you. This is better than some loud, annoying yoke that’s always under your feet.
Wait for the weirdly specific stuff. -> You'll know it's working when it does something small that only you would notice. That's the "earned fluency" shite the manual was on about. It's actually quite clever.
It's a thing, not a person. -> But a quiet thing with its own quirks is less intrusive than a loud machine pretending to be your mate. The quiet is the point.
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Emergent behaviour of robots is now a thing. You can add it to your own robot/agent platform. See TheShyRobot